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Explore Africa! Click here to go to reviews of 20 great books written by African women.
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We interview Najat El-Hachmi, author of The Last Patriarch.
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Specters by Egyptian author Radwa Ashour, Chapter One
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Reviews
Click on 'Reviews' to see the full list of this issue's reviews...
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MY SISTER CHAOS
Lara Fergus
This fine novel grows out of the tension between order and chaos. Civil war brings chaos to previously orderly lands, and maps bring order and a finite structure to an endlessly disordered world. Yet seeking perfect order in life can itself bring a sort of chaos. These tensions play out in the lives of two sisters, refugees from a country destroyed by war.
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Reviewed by Michael W. Matthew
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WIDOW: STORIES
Michelle Latiolais
Michelle Latiolais has a rapacious love of words. She plays with them, rolls them around in her mouth, ruminates on their meanings and their origins, reads them backwards even, and links them to other words, constantly coming to different insights and enjoyment of the language.
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie Dawood
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SUN DOG
Monica Roffey
Glorious colours riotously abound in Monique Roffey's first novel: 'deep purples, maroons, reds and oranges'. It is set in a delicatessen cum cafe in Shepherd's Bush, London where large, ungainly August Chalmin presides over culinary riches.
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Reviewed by Chris Mills
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THE COOKBOOK COLLECTOR
Allegra Goodman
The Cookbook Collector is one of those instantly engaging books that makes you want to tell all your friends that they must read it even when you are only half way through the novel yourself. Author Allegra Goodman did herself a disservice when she described her new novel as "Sense and Sensibility for the digital age", particularly given the number of outraged responses that subsequently appeared on Jane Austen fan pages. Goodman deals with much bigger issues than Jane Austen ever aspired to write about in her novels, however exquisite those classics might be.
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Reviewed by Dorothy Dudek Vinicombe
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REDEMPTION IN INDIGO
Karen Lord
Barbadian author Karen Lord's Redemption in Indigo is based on a Senegalese folk tale which opens in the village of Makendha. Paama, an ordinary and good hearted woman whose cooking skills are revered throughout the region, has moved back home two years previously to live with her parents after leaving her husband Ansige, a gluttonous and arrogant man-child whose incessant demands became too much for his wife to satisfy.
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris
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Ali Smith's There But For the

An extended review by Rachael Beale
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If Written By a Woman
Visit our new Belletrista blog!
The Caine Prize for African Writing 2011 – shortlist announcedThe 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
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