| This is an archived issue of Belletrista. If you are looking for the current issue, you can find it here |
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Meet Italy's Award-winning author Lia Levi
in this interview with Paola Sergi.
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Fifteen years old and All Grown Up?
Rachael Beale takes us on an Orange
Prize retrospective journey.
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In Praise of New Zealand's Patricia Grace
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Reviews
Below is a small tantalizing selection of this month's reviews....
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WENCH
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
To enter the world of Wench is to imagine oneself dying of thirst while surrounded by water, or starving while everyone else eats their fill. Using an unusual setting, Perkins-Valdez's debut novel illustrates the painful temptation that confronts a slave in a world where freedom hangs like forbidden fruit on every tree.
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi
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DARK MATTER
Juli Zeh
Translated from the German by Christine Lo
There's a commonly-held perception that suspense novels are light reading, unchallenging brain candy for those in search of a bit of pulse-quickening excitement in the airport. Juli Zeh, a bestseller and multi-award winner in her native Germany, has decided to turn this notion on its head by writing a suspense novel about quantum physics.
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Reviewed by F. T. Huffkin
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HEAVEN OF DRUMS
Ana Gloria Moya
Translated from the Spanish by W. Nick Hill
Heaven of Drums is an ambitious little book which uses an interracial love triangle to build a narrative history of the independence of the author's native Argentina.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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THE VERA WRIGHT TRILOGY
Elizabeth Jolley
In the three semi-autobiographical novels which make up this trilogy, Elizabeth Jolley follows the coming-of-age of Vera Wright, an unconventional woman trying to find her place in the world in the tumultuous upheaval and devastation of England during WWII.
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Reviewed by Cate Lombardo
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THE PASSPORT
Herta Müller
Translated from the German by Martin Chalmers
In this novella, Herta Müller paints a bleak picture of life in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, a world where men drink their paychecks away, striking miners are sent to freeze at a mountaintop sanatorium, and women prostitute themselves to survive or escape.
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Reviewed by Simone Cornelisson
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Telling Our Stories
Belinda Otas introduces us to East African debut authors Maaza Mengiste and Nadifa Mohamed.
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Trio: Assia Djebar
Tad Deffler reviews three books by Algerian author Assia Djebar
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