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....

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

COLD EARTH

Sarah Moss

'University academics' is not a phrase which generally conjures up thoughts of excitement, thrills and life-threatening danger....
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Reviewed by F. T. Huffkin

THE JEWISH HUSBAND

Lia Levi

Translated from the Italian by Anthony Shugaar

The Jewish Husband is a haunting, thought provoking novel about the desperate compromises made in the pursuit of love. Unconditional love collides with an increasingly prejudiced and oppressive society, and the tide of history.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans

MY BIRD

Fariba Vafi

Translated from the Persian by Mahnaz Kousha and Nasrin Jewell

Books written by Middle Eastern women are commonly selected for translation into English because they contain elements both familiar and exotic: through their struggles with oppressive religio-political systems or dangerous intercommunal conflicts, the women in these books reveal themselves to be "just like us" in their hopes and aspirations.
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Reviewed by F. P. Crawford

KALPA IMPERIAL

Angélica Gorodischer

Translated from the Spanish by Ursula K. Le Guin

Kalpa Imperial, the first book I have read by the eminent Argentine writer Angélica Gorodischer, is a fantasy—or, as the final story implies, perhaps a science fiction novel—set in an imagined empire with a lengthy history. But if the thought of another cookie-cutter epic fantasy fills you with dread...
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Reviewed by Tim Jones