Belletrista

This is an archived issue of Belletrista. If you are looking for the current issue, you can find it here


In Praise of Herta Müller: Winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature	Holiday shopping? Let us help you with the readers on your list!	Carolyn Kelly Muses about the Booker, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the German Book Prize.

Welcome to the second issue of Belletrista! After the heady response to our launch issue, we're thrilled to be back to celebrate more astonishingly diverse works from talented women the world over. In this issue, you'll find alluring reviews of books from Mexico, Iceland, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Russia, and more. Don't miss the informative feature on the Ugandan women writers' association, Femrite, and the enlightening companion article profiling meritorious Ugandan authors. We've also, in our unique way, endeavored to shed some light on the Booker, Nobel and Giller Prizes. Finally, with the holidays in mind, we offer a host of gift suggestions to help you find the best picks for yourself, and the book-loving folk in your life. Happy (armchair) travels!

Reviews
Below are a tantalizingly small selection of this month's reviews....

MY SOUL TO TAKE

Yrsa Sigurdardóttir

Translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder and Anna Yates

In the starkly beautiful countryside of Iceland's west coast, a woman's body is found, badly beaten and with common sewing pins stuck in the bottom of her feet...
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Reviewed by Kate Morgan

ADVENTURE DIVAS: SEARCHING THE GLOBE FOR WOMEN WHO ARE CHANGING THE WORLD

Holly Morris

While many travelogues recount the author's own stories and experiences, including some interactions with people met on the road, Morris uses her book specifically as a vehicle for telling the stories of the women she met.
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Reviewed by Carianne Carleo-Evangelist

WHERE THE LINE BLEEDS

Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward's debut novel is set in the world she herself grew up in – small-town Mississippi, right on the Gulf of Mexico. It's not an area of the world I knew much about...
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes

BOOK OF CLOUDS

Chloe Aridjis

Over its brief span, Book of Clouds explores "the phenomenology of space", the accommodation of the past by the present, and the uneasy relationship between nature and the built environment.
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Reviewed by F. T. Huffkin

WOMAN ON THE OTHER SHORE

Mitsuyo Kakuto

Translated from the Japanese by Wayne P. Lammers

Recently translated into English, this acclaimed Japanese novel focuses on two 35-year-old women who meet and form an unlikely friendship. They are the classic polar opposites: the unmarried career woman and the homemaker ...
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi

FEMRITE and Ugandan Women Writers

A peek into an dynamic organization created to nurture women writers and a deeper look at five of its splendid writers.

Women Writers Dominate the Giller Prize

Photo of Kim Echlin, Annabel Lyon and Alice Munro

An unprecedented ten of the twelve long-listed books were written by women writers. Three remain on the shortlist. Joyce Nickels takes us on a whirlwind tour of the authors and their books...

New Biographies of Women Authors

Photo of actor representing the Alcott family

2009 has been a great year for biographies (and at least one documentary). Check out our list.

New and Notable Books

Our latest collection of intriguing titles for November and December.

Belletrista - Issue 2
November/December 2009

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