Hotel Iris was published in Japan in 1996 and only now, 14 years later, is it finally available in English. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Stephen Snyder, it is worth waiting for.
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The literal translation of the book's title, "Exterior Life" or "The Life Outside", fits nicely with its content, as it is a series of brief observations and random thoughts about people and events that exist outside of the life of the narrator….
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This lyrical novella invites you into the world of an observant little girl who lives with her parents and eight sisters in current-day Palestine. She is the littlest one in the family, and one gets the sense that she is loved, but is a tad neglected. Everyone is always busy, so she escapes into a private space where she observes the things that make up her everyday world: colors, silence, movement, and language.
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I was a child during the American war in Vietnam. I can still conjure images of the time: horrifying photos in Life magazine, correspondents on the nightly news reporting over the sound of mortar fire, while in the background medics bearing stretchers ran, crouching, toward waiting helicopters.
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Symphony in White is a tale of two sisters. Clarice and Maria Inês, daughters of Afonso and Octacilia Olimpio, came of age in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s during the period of military dictatorship. Lisboa does not directly comment upon the political situation in Brazil during that time, but the political repression is mirrored in the stifling atmosphere of the Olimpio family and the secrets they keep.
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