Belletrista - A site promoting translated women authored literature from around the world
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Roma Tearne: Weaving the Political and the Personal. Joyce Nickel gives us an in-depth look at the Sri Lankan author and her work.

Julie Wakeman-Linn: Kathleen Ambrogi reviews her novel Chasing the Leopard Finding the Lion, and talks with the author.

Sefi Atta's bold new novel is about more than African identity. . . Read chapter one of A Bit of Difference.

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Reviews
Click on 'Reviews' to see the full list of this issue's reviews...
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THE TENANTS OF THE HÔTEL BIRON
Laura Marello

Laura Marello's creative exploration of the Hôtel Biron in Paris between 1908 and 1912 is an historical novel, an art history, a collection of essays and an epistolary novel. She takes as her starting point the fact that during these years an extraordinary collection of artists resided in apartments above sculptor Auguste Rodin's studio, in what is today the Rodin Museum…
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi
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PEDRA CANGA
Tereza Albues
Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers

Pedra Canga, the eponymous fictional village, lies in a remote part of Brazil. It is dominated by the Mangueiral, a stone estate separated from the village by walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass on three sides, and the Saranzal River full of snakes and alligators on the fourth.
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Reviewed by Jean Hughes Raber
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THE THIRD DAY
Chochana Boukhobza
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson

Distinguished cellist Elisheva and her protégée Rachel arrive in Jerusalem for a three-day visit. The culmination of their sojourn will be a concert performance featuring Rachel as the soloist. On that same day, the third day, Elisheva plans to assassinate The Butcher of Majdanek, her torturer during World War II.
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Reviewed by Amanda Meale
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THE FORRESTS
Emily Perkins

Frank and Lee move their family of four children from New York to Auckland. Frank is an unrecognized artist from a background of wealth and entitlement, but in New Zealand the family is barely surviving.
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Reviewed by Judy Lim
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BUILDING WAVES
Taeko Tomioka
Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai

First published in Japan almost thirty years ago and now translated into English this year, Building Waves is a fictional and highly symbolic look at the social changes washing over Japan in the early 1980s. These changes include women moving out of their traditional roles…
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE ART FORGER
B. A. Shapiro

I am sometimes masochistic in my reading choices. I chain myself to complex literary tomes through which I may trudge dutifully but not always joyfully. Those books pay a great dividend, so I don't regret my efforts, but there are …
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi


Angélica Gorodischer Book Cover
The noted and versatile Argentinian author has a newly translated novel forthcoming in February. Read an excerpt of Trafalgar.
Uzma Aslam Khan Book Cover
A tribute to the nomadic peoples in the mountains of Pakistan and its border neighbors, Uzma's new novel Thinner Than Skin is also a love story. Read an excerpt.
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