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Belletrista - A site promoting translated women authored literature from around the world
photo of Sigrid Nunez Photo of Kamila Shamsie Photo of cupcake with one candle

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...
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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
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THE REPORT
Jessica Francis Kane

On a cold March evening in 1943, a sad and shocking event occurred: 173 Londoners, many of them children, died in a crush of people trying to enter the Bethnal Green underground station shelter after air raid warnings had sounded … and to this day no one really knows how it happened.
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Reviewed by Maggie Oldendorf
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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
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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
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HORSE, FLOWER, BIRD
Kate Bernheimer

If you think that Twilight was the best book since The Da Vinci Code, then Horse, Flower, Bird is probably not the book for you. But if you're the sort of person who enjoys listening to curious music on late night FM radio, prefers films that were not made in Hollywood to those that were, and likes to drive different routes home just because …
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel


CONVERSATIONS:
Book Cover: Sky Burial
A discussion of Xinran's Sky Burial between three Belletrista readers.
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS
Three floral square image
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