The latest addition to my website is Paulina Chiziane‘s Niketche: Uma História de Poligamia (Niketche : A Story of Polygamy; later: Fìrst Wife) . The key theme of this novel is polygamy, apparently still practised in Mozambique. Our heroine is Rami. She is married to Tony, a senior police officer and they have five children. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ali al-Muqri’s ‘s رواية (Hurma). It tells the story of how women are repressed in Yemen and their struggles to improve their lot. Our unnamed heroine has an older rebellious brother who soon changes and becomes a conformist when he marries. She also has an older sister who … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mouna-Hodan Ahmed‘s Les Enfants du khat [The Children of Khat]. Asli is a twenty-twenty old Djiboutian woman. Her father, like alll too many men in Djibouti, is a serious user of khat a drug. He does not work and expects his wife to work – she sells khat- … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Adania Shibli‘s وسفر الاختفاءتفصيل ثانوي (Minor Detail). This book has been in the news recently (October 2023) as Shibli and her book were cancelled at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The book is divided into two parts. The first is set in rhe Negev Desert, close to the Egyptian … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Stella Gaitano‘s رواح إدو (Edo’s Souls).This is the story of South Sudan, with the background being the upheavals that led to South Sudan breaking away from Sudan, something that affects most of the protagonists. Edo had the misfortune to lose nine of her ten children before their first … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sara Gallardo‘s Enero (January). The novel is set on an Argentinian farm and we follow the story of the just sixteen Nefer, the youngest of three sisters. The oldest, Porota has recently married and at the wedding, Nefer was so annoyed at Negro, to whom she is attracted, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Psychopompe [ Psychopomp]. Yes, psychopomp is a word ( literally the guide of souls. They are creatures, spirits, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. This is a (semi-)autobiographical novel and tells of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yōko Ogawa‘s 余白の愛 [Love at the Margin]. Our unnamed heroine/narrator has suddenly had serious hearing problems . We learn later that her husband had left her the day before. From her room in the F clinic, she can see an old hotel and, two later, she will be … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eva Švankmajerová‘s Jeskyně Baradla (Baradla Cave). This novel was first published in samizdat in 1981 and was only published in book form in 1995, after the fall of communism. It is a surrealist novel by a woman known more as poet and artist than novelist but it works … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fausta Cialente‘s Ballata Levantina (The Levantines). This novel tells the story of well-to-do European expatriates (primarily but certainly not exclusively Italian) living in Egypt (primarily Alexandria) from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Our heroine is Daniela. Her grandmother, Francesca, had been a successful dancer … Read more