When I began to read this series, I worried - needlessly - about keeping the characters straight: actually, the main character is Jalna itself. "Everything about the house had been put in perfect order. Workmen had been there to mend the roof, tighten the supports of the shutters, and give
In which I discuss the skinny volumes which accompany me on my travels, while the heavier volumes (like John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany and Callum Roberts' The Ocean of Life) remain at home. Juliane Okot Bitek was inspired to engage with the Rwanda Genocide in response to Kenyan-American artist
At nearly one hundred pages long, it's unsurprising that this is the most complex of Mavis Gallant's stories I've read this year. It's neither the length nor the breadth of the story which complicates it, but the intricate arrangement of details, as readers are gradually immersed in the narration of
In which there is talk of novels which were read too quickly to allow for extensive note-taking and snapshots: good reading. Yewande Omotoso's The Woman Next Door (2017) Longlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize this year, this story about two women in their eighties, neighbours in South Africa, is quietly
Bette Bao Lord's In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson (1984) opens when Bandit is living in China in her grandparents' home. She is ten years old (nine in Western birthdays) and she is about to learn that she will be going to live in the United States.
