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...

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 BLINDNESS OF THE HEART

Julia Franck

Translated from the German by Anthea Bell

A prologue opens the novel. It is some time during World War II and a woman, Alice, abandons her seven-year old son at a railway station. The story proper begins many years earlier in the town of Bautzen … where
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Reviewed by Amanda Meale

2017: A NOVEL

Olga Slavnikova

Translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz

If Olga Slavnikova's novel, 2017, is any indication, the near-future of post-Soviet Russia—and the world in general—looks pretty grim on a variety of fronts, in large part because people of the techno-boom have lost touch with their own history and culture.
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Reviewed by Jean Raber

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

A NOVEL BOOKSTORE

Laurence Cossé

Translated from the French by Alison Anderson

Imagine a bookstore that only sold good novels—not commercial drivel or fluffy installments of the latest teen series, but interesting fiction gathered together by book-loving people who refuse to pander to bestseller lists. Essentially, a reader's version of heaven.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir

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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