Belletrista

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


Thirty-nine Arab writers under the age of 39. Akeela Gaibie-Dawood looks at the award and the women who were honored.	Carolyn Kelly in praise of Swedish author Åsa Larsson	SPECIAL FEATURE: More reviews! In keeping with our short fiction theme this month, we review anthologies.

Happy New Year, and welcome to Belletrista's exciting third issue!

In this issue we have chosen to emphasize short fiction. Author Tania Hershman has written a wonderful piece on the subject (click on "Stopping to Smell the Miniature Roses" below), and we have put together a special section of anthology reviews. We were very pleased to discover that The Guardian has recently published an article on women and short fiction, too (once again proving that great minds think alike)! Here's a link to their article; perhaps you will enjoy reading it as much as we have here at Belletrista.

We like to think we have something for every fiction reader in this issue, and we hope you will explore all the magazine has to offer—from our regular reviews and new & notable offerings, to our engaging feature pieces which explore the work of Åsa Larsson, Annie Ernaux, and the very welcome Beirut39 project.We hope you will enjoy Belletrista 3, and will be interested in reading some of the excellent books highlighted here. Please let us know what you think—your comments are always welcome!

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

WHAT BECOMES

A. L. Kennedy

There are a few book titles out there that may suggest a line of a song, floating like a feather into my head, or even get me singing a few bars, but never has an earworm so utterly entered my brain as diligently as this one, as I found myself asking myself, in increasingly mournful and tuneless tones: What does, indeed, become of the broken-hearted?
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Reviewed by Carolyn Kelly

PORTRAIT OF THE WRITER AS A DOMESTICATED ANIMAL

Lydie Salvayre

Translated from the French by William Pedersen

This very timely satire pits a ruthless, shrewd, obscenely rich magnate against a young, idealistic writer in a battle for the heart and mind of the reader. If you are thinking that you already know how the battle will turn out, you may be wrong.
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Reviewed by Jana Herlander

THE VAGRANTS

Yiyun Li

The Vagrants is set in Muddy River, a fictional city in the Chinese provinces, in 1979. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, the country is being swayed by the democratic wall movement in Beijing, a popular movement calling for more openness and democracy....
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes

BABA YAGA LAID AN EGG

Dubravka Ugrešić

Translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursac

Ugrešić's take on the Slavic Baba Yaga story is part of the Canongate "The Myths" series, for which an outstanding collection of writers have each produced a contemporary retelling of a myth. The prospect of a retelling of Baba Yaga by a writer I admire greatly was too much to resist....
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes

WHO ATE UP ALL THE SHINGA?

Park Wah-suh

Translated from the Korean by Yu Young-nan and Stephen J. Epstein

Both a coming of age story and a tale of ordinary people trying to survive in extraordinary times, Who Ate Up All the Shinga? is an absorbing read that will appeal both to those who enjoy intriguing storytelling....
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Reviewed by Dorothy Dudek Vinicombe