The U.S. debut of bestselling South African writer Chanette Paul. Rejected by her parents, her sister, her husband, everyone except her extraordinary and unusual daughter, Caz Colijn lives a secluded life in her own little patch of South Africa. But a single phone call from her estranged sister is all it takes to shatter this … Continue reading Excerpt: Sacrificed by Chanette Paul
Making rain for southern African women writers Modjaji Books is an independent feminist press that publishes southern African women writers. Modjaji Books fills a gap by providing a platform for serious and ground-breaking writing by new and established women writers with brave voices. We publish short stories, novels, memoir, biography, poetry, essays, narrative non-fiction, reference … Continue reading Publisher Spotlight: Modjaji Books
“Lidija Dimkovska enriches our contemporary museum of literary wonders with her powerful, grotesque, weird details and episodes told within the merry old novelistic tradition.” — Dubravka Ugrešić, author of Baba Laid an Egg A coming-of-age saga of two sisters, with an incredible twist… It is 1984, and twelve-year-old twins Zlata and Srebra live in communist … Continue reading Title Pick: A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska
Slavenka Drakulić continues her look at life after communism in the book Cafe Europa her sequel to How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. It's a great read and an honest read from the 1990s that rings true close to twenty years after she wrote it. If you think regular consumers in the West sometimes … Continue reading Review: Cafe Europa by Slavenka Drakulić
Imagine living in a country where your political system did not consider your needs as a woman and mother important enough to provide for. It's easy enough in the West to bemoan the superficiality of a consumer culture, but how long could you last, ladies, in a country that had no consumer culture at all? … Continue reading Review: How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulić
We are kicking off Russian literature month on the GLLI blog with a little poetry from acclaimed poet Marina Tevetaeva. From the Glagoslav Publications webpage: Marina Tsvetaeva: The Essential Poetry includes translations by Michael M. Naydan and Slava I. Yastremski of lyric poetry from all of the great Modernist Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva’s published collections and … Continue reading Title Pick: The Essential Poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva
By Heather Lennon Meet Annemarie van Haeringen as we chat with her about her new book, Coco and the Little Black Dress. NorthSouth Books: What inspired you to create a picture book about Coco Chanel? Annemarie: Actually, I was asked by my Dutch publisher Leopold, and the Dutch Gemeente Museum Den Haag to make a … Continue reading Interview with Annemarie van Haeringen, author of COCO AND THE LITTLE BLACK DRESS
Winter Let this winter pass into another winter. No more stately brooding. No bluebird’s eggs. No driven mating or well-built nests. I want the frost to blast the ground forever with every seed or shoot that it conceals. Leave streets as gray as winter has them. The muddy slush of butchered days, two blue mittens … Continue reading The Hunger in Plain View by Ester Naomi Perquin
by Karen Van Drie This is a very compelling wartime diary of what a women experienced living in Berlin at the end of World War II. The keeper of this diary, which she originally published anonymously, describes the daily struggle to stay alive as her national leaders, nation-state, and city fell to an invading Soviet … Continue reading A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City by Anonymous
WEDNESDAY 1. No one walks through London with a machete. Unless you count the two men passing him just now. Niall had already wrapped up taking pictures of the spot where the Effra River had once emptied into the Thames, when one of the two men looked back at him. The man’s gaze lingered … Continue reading Fade to Black by Zoë Beck
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 