I haven't picked up a Geraldine Brooks title since her 2001 debut novel, Year of Wonders, which promptly became an international bestseller. I definitely had that sense of 'wow' when I finished, but then I inexplicably ignored the rest of her titles ...
Sometimes the best thing that can happen to a book is to get banned. REALLY. Just ask Rajaa al-Sanea (yes, the spelling of her name is different on the cover of her book from what she has on her personal website – which has two variations of...
The 2,500-page, 18th-century classic, Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, is regarded as China’s most important work of fiction. Pauline A. Chen (Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas, for middle-grade readers) tackles the daunting task of adapting the revered original text, and her literary...
Just as North Korea’s presence in news headlines has proliferated of late – thanks to the installation of the third-generation round-faced despot; nuclear tests; failed missiles; blatant threats – book shelves, too, have seen an increase in North Korea-themed titles, predominantly written by non-Korean authors. In...
First things first: Don't let the book cover lead you too far astray. What you see here is actually the movie poster for legendary Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou’s latest international endeavor. While the film, The Flowers of War, is based on Geling Yan’s novel, originally titled...
Reading these double memoirs of a native Inuit girlhood during the 1940s in far northern Canada is a searing experience. What was done to children disguised as progress and opportunity (not to mention in the name of a Christian God) is a tragedy that is...
Nanfuka wants nothing more than to finish her education and become a nurse – the first in her village. While still a child herself, the teenager is suddenly forced to leave school and thrust into adult responsibilities when she is called home as her father...
Still a young teenager, Alinda knows only too well the potential horrors of war ...
I confess the main reason I finally plucked this debut novel (written by its author when he was just 23) from my never-shrinking 'to-read' pile was because I found the audible version is narrated by Indian American actor Firdous Bamji. After finishing Amitav Ghosh's The...
Considered together, this collection of 15 stories is a welcome statement of women's literary empowerment. The second anthology published by FEMRITE, the Uganda Women Writers' Association founded by novelist/short story writer/playwright-turned Ugandan Cabinet member Mary Karoro Okurut and officially launched in 1996, is testimony that "Ugandan women...
Remember the title of Katherine Boo’s new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, because you will see it on upcoming nominee lists for the next round of Very Important Literary Prizes. That Boo won the Pulitzer in 2000,...
Can anyone really understand such a number: 5,400,000. The death of a single loved one can leave you staggering and lost ...
The first sentence of Tsitsi Dangarembga's semi-autobiographical novel sets a haunting tone: "I was not sorry when my brother died." With his death, 13-year-old Tambu is presented with a profound opportunity: even though she's a girl, as the now-eldest child in her poor village family...
Four women, living together in a house in Antwerp, Belgium, are "[t]hrown together by a conspiracy of fate and a loud man called Dele." They have escaped their lives in Africa, but only at the cost of their freedom; Dele, who orchestrated their immigration, now...
Before you open Somaly Mam's astonishing memoir, you need to be prepared to bear witness to some of the most horrific acts a human being can commit against another, especially helpless young girls. Once you begin, the frank, unmitigated writing will not allow you to...
In the six months since Mama passed away, Chanda's life has changed completely. As the sole provider for her sister Lily and brother Soly, Chanda is unable to continue her own education and instead substitutes at the primary school. With Mama gone, Chanda's best friend...
If it hasn't happened already, soon enough Chanda's Secrets will be coming to a theater near you ...
With a long list that spans over four decades of critically lauded, award-winning novels, plays, and children's titles, Nigerian-born Buchi Emecheta is undoubtedly one of the pioneering women's voices in African literature. She writes with simple strength, without embellishments; her uncomplicated, accessible prose is quiet,...
Set in postwar South Korea, where tradition is challenged by the eye-blinking changes erupting from a rapidly evolving modernity, Park’s (Shakespeare’s Sonnets) novel is essentially a triangulated love story involving wealthy and stunning Soo-Ja who dreams of becoming a diplomat in a brave new world,...
Since 2002 Newbery winner Linda Sue Park’s latest title was published in November 2010, borders shifted (again) and the world recognized the birth of the newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan, on July 9 at midnight. The weekend announcement makes A Long Walk to Water almost...
