Belletrista Issue 4

This is an archived issue of Belletrista. If you are looking for the current issue, you can find it here

Belletrista - A site promoting translated women authored literature from around the world


Meet Italy's Award-winning author Lia Levi in this interview with Paola Sergi.	Fifteen years old and All Grown Up? Rachael Beale takes us on an Orange Prize retrospective journey.	In Praise of New Zealand's Patricia Grace

Welcome to our fourth issue, and a further excursion into the wonderful world of literature! This time we feature an interview with Italy's celebrated Lia Levi, and we also introduce the works of Patricia Grace from New Zealand, Assia Djebar from Algeria, and two new authors, Maaza Mengiste and Nadifa Mohamed, from East Africa. Our very own Rachael Beale talks to some of the women behind the British Orange Prize in a retrospective piece. And just in case you don't have enough to read, we present 22 reviews of books by authors representing 17 different countries. Finally, we've included more than 60 original and distinctive titles from around the globe in the New and Notable section, for your browsing pleasure. We have thoroughly enjoyed producing this issue for you, and hope that you'll relish it!

Reviews
Below is a small tantalizing selection of this month's reviews....

VOICE OVER

Céline Curiol

Translated from the French by Sam Richard

She is invisible but we are all familiar with her voice. During the day, her voice is static, calm and dedicated to her job at the Gare du Nord station. As she announces times, destinations, and train platforms she watches others rush to far off destinations...
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Reviewed by C. Lariviere

THE LAST BROTHER

Nathacha Appanah

Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

When David comes to him in a dream, Raj, now an old man, is transported back to his childhood over 60 years earlier, to a few months which were to mark his life for ever.
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes

INNOCENT WORLD

Ami Sakurai

Translated from the Japanese by Steven Clark

Innocent World may be a novella, but it generates the amount of discussion typical of tome-like novels or series. Its edgy content and even edgier messages led it to be passed around my workplace like contraband...
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Reviewed by Caitin Fehir

THE PASSPORT

Herta Müller

Translated from the German by Martin Chalmers

In this novella, Herta Müller paints a bleak picture of life in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, a world where men drink their paychecks away, striking miners are sent to freeze at a mountaintop sanatorium, and women prostitute themselves to survive or escape.
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Reviewed by Simone Cornelisson

MORNINGS IN JENIN

Susan Abulhawa

Mornings In Jenin, a first novel by Susan Abulhawa, is the story of one family's experience of exile from their West Bank home, and their subsequent struggles under military occupation and emigration.
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Reviewed by Barbara Steeg