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 VERA WRIGHT TRILOGY

Elizabeth Jolley

In the three semi-autobiographical novels which make up this trilogy, Elizabeth Jolley follows the coming-of-age of Vera Wright, an unconventional woman trying to find her place in the world in the tumultuous upheaval and devastation of England during WWII.
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Reviewed by Cate Lombardo

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

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

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

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