The South American historical fiction that I have read tends to focus on the battles between the European powers for control of the continent. The large populations of indigenous Americans and imported slaves have been conspicuous by their absence, although themes …
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Nawal el Saadawi is a feminist, novelist, poet, playwright, political activist, doctor, teacher, mother, daughter. She has a formidable intellect, is courageous, forthright and controversial. This reader brings together el Saadawi's writing from the past thirty years
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Hong Kong in the cyclone season: intense humidity; wooded mountains stretching steeply upwards, encircling the harbour, shrouded in a grey soupy mist; star ferries and sampans anchored in the stormy waters. Stepping onto land …
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The interesting point about most of the stories in Karen Joy Fowler's superb new collection is what doesn't matter in them. Most feature some element of the fantastic, which typically would be their point. But here, the fantastic element or idea is always less interesting than Fowler's character or milieu.
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Although Amélie Nothomb has been a prolific and acclaimed author for nearly twenty years now, it is only comparatively recently that English translations of her books have started to appear. Now, at last, Hygiene and the Assassin, her 1992 debut novel, is available to English speakers for the first time. I had never read Nothomb before and, given her reputation as a difficult, challenging and even dangerous writer, I started reading with some trepidation.
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