Reading for Each Other
Nino Haratischvili’s 'The Eighth Life': An Intergenerational Tale of Sisters, Sunflower Seeds and Cherry Liqueur
Haratischvili’s novel joins a tradition of feminist authors who give voice to the unique ways in which war, famine, dictatorship, and revolution are experienced by caregivers and women.
Prose and Counter-history:
Review of ‘The Emperor's Babe' by Bernadine Evaristo
Evaristo boldly challenges the prevailing notion of Britain as a white man’s nation by interweaving Roman history with elements of contemporary Black British culture and fiction, offering alternative visions of London. In doing so, she skilfully illuminates the often-overlooked histories of the African diaspora within both Roman and British contexts, while exercising creative license to craft a compelling counter-historical narrative.
Abreu's novel places provincial life at the center stage and transforms the ordinary experiences of two young adolescents into extraordinary. Also, the novel celebrates the Canarian Spanish dialect and language difference and invites the reader to experience the narrative through a descriptive narration and imagery.
Review of the Book Sexe et mensonges by Leïla Slimani
Slimani’s interlocutors navigate their secret, but rich sexual lives, being constantly at risk of losing their social position and freedom. Their testimonies are often deeply saddening, but also witty and humorous. Most of them stress the society’s hypocrisy over sexuality, pointing out that the system promotes the exploitation and commercialization of the female body, while pretending to support “virtue”. Slimani leads the reader through these stories bringing different voices into a conversation by providing examples from Moroccan public life, scholarly articles, and her personal experiences.
Review of the Book Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasamy
From the outset, Kandasamy expresses her intention to separate the biographical from fiction. Yet, the autobiographical elements that she registers on the text’s margins spill over into the “main” text, blurring the boundaries between personal and fictional. One may ask if Exquisite Cadavers can exist without its margins; however, such a question is predicated on the assumption that the margin is a separable entity that can somehow be extracted from the novel proper. The margins are not merely experimental additions; they drive the text, adding theoretical and political arguments informed by the author’s material and lived experiences.