Belletrista

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


US author Sigrid Nunez discusses her new novel with Joyce Nickel	TRIO: Three remarkable works by Kamila Shamsie by Caitlin Fehir	Belletrista turns one! A brief retrospective and a look ahead

With this issue, Belletrista completes its first year. We at Belletrista would like to thank those of you spread across this great blue planet who read our little 'zine and also use it as a resource for your personal reading, your bookclubs, or your classes. May we continue to endeavor to deserve your attention in the coming year! With this issue, we debut a new feature we are calling "Conversations" and also our Belletrista blog, "If Written by a Woman," an exciting venture we hope you will all be part of. There are more exciting things ahead!

Reviews
Click on 'Reviews' to see the full list of this issue's reviews...

MEEKS

Julia Holmes

Rolling Stone editor Julia Holmes's first novel, Meeks, owes a lot to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the classic 1948 short story which opens with a seemingly innocent town meeting in an unspecified time and place, and gradually increases the reader's sense of foreboding until the very end when somebody heaves a rock, "and then they were upon her." Shivers!
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Reviewed by Jean Raber

THE BLUE MANUSCRIPT

Sabiha Al Khemir

The Blue Manuscript by Sabiha Al Khemir is a tale woven of stories and miracles, of the sublimity of art and the crassness of art dealers, of human ambition and longing for connection.
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Reviewed by Jane A. Jones

SHADOW

Karin Alvtegen

Translated from the Swedish by McKinley Burnett

A child of four is found abandoned in an amusement park with little more than some crumbs, an empty juice bottle, a tape recorder, and a Bambi book by his side. There's also a note …
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie-Dawood

LOVE, ANGER, MADNESS: A HAITIAN TRIPTYCH

Marie Vieux-Chavet

Translated from the French by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokur

I have read several books by Haitian writers. None of them could be described as happy. Marie Vieux-Chauvet's 1967 trio of novellas (individually titled Love, Anger and Madness) is possibly the least happy of all of them. It may also be the best.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes

THE WORD BOOK

Mieko Kanai

Translated from the Japanese by Paul McCarthy

It took me a while to appreciate the many virtues of The Word Book. Having just come off reading a run of novels, I dived into these stories too fast, and had to lift my head out of the water, make a conscious decision to …
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Reviewed by Tim Jones

CONVERSATIONS:

A discussion of Xinran's Sky Burial between three Belletrista readers.

AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

Looking for a great book? Check out these recent award-winners!

If Written By a Woman

Visit our new Belletrista blog!

The Caine Prize for African Writing 2011 – shortlist announced

The shortlist for this year’s Caine Prize has just been announced and three women are in the running for the prestigious award. This is always an exciting time of year – the Prize is a great way to discover short stories by excellent writers. Lucky for us, the Prize’s website links to a copy of …Read the Rest

Belletrista - Issue 7
Sept/Oct 2010

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Archived Issues
Missed an issue? No problem!
- Issue 6 July/Aug 2010
- Issue 5 May/June 2010
- Issue 4 Mar/Apr 2010
- Issue 3 Jan/Feb 2010
- Issue 2 Nov/Dec 2009
- Issue 1 Sept/Oct 2009

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