This is an archived issue of Belletrista. If you are looking for the current issue, you can find it here |
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Carol Emshwiller's witty, endearing, and delightfully odd story, "Grandma"
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"Red Blood on White Snow" an excerpt from Albanian author Ornela Vorpsi's The Country Where No One Ever Dies
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Awards and Nominations: Great books for your "to be read" piles
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Reviews
Click on 'Reviews' to see the full list of this issue's reviews...
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GRACE, TAMAR AND LASZLO THE BEAUTIFUL
Deborah Kay Davies
Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful is a powerful examination of sisterhood examined through a set of short, short stories with a persistent sinister undertone. The winner of Wales Book of the Year 2009, Deborah Kay Davies writes unflinchingly about the enmity and ultimately, the common bond that forever links Grace and Tamar.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans
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THIS CAKE IS FOR THE PARTY: STORIES
Sarah Selecky
Sarah Selecky's collection of short stories was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, Canada's top literary prize. The image on the book cover is of a broken plate: a particularly apt image for a collection in which characters
are invariably fragile and the stories document the period before, during, or after their breakage.
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Reviewed by Andrew Stancek
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ONE HUNDRED BOTTLES
Ena Lucía Portela
Translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas
It has often been written that a good novel can take you on a journey. If that is the case, then One Hundred Bottles is a vivacious drunken stagger around 1990s Havana. It is a place of extraordinary energy combined with terrifying shadows, captured beautifully by Ena Lucía Portela, in her first book to be translated into English.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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THE SECRET LIVES OF BABA SEGI'S WIVES
Lola Shoneyin
Baba Segi is a very lucky man. He has three wives and seven children. His family validate his need to show off his prosperity, his success and his virility. He is middle aged, plump and prosperous, with quite a high opinion of himself and his success as the family patriarch. But when he brings home a fourth wife, it seems his luck might not hold out.
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Reviewed by Judy Lim
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THE EVENT FACTORY
Renee Gladman
Most of us know the disorientation of travel to a country with a different language and customs. The simplest daily activities can become so difficult—where will we eat? How do we look for the bathroom? Reading Renee Gladman's intriguing novella Event Factory redoubles that feeling, in the story of a traveler whose experiences and behavior have an unusual orientation to everyday logic.
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Reviewed by Michael Matthew
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CONVERSATIONS:
Three readers discuss Laila Lalami's novella, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
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If Written By a Woman
Visit our new Belletrista blog!
The Caine Prize for African Writing 2011 – shortlist announcedThe shortlist for this year’s Caine Prize has just been announced and three women are in the running for the prestigious award. This is always an exciting time of year – the Prize is a great way to discover short stories by excellent writers. Lucky for us, the Prize’s website links to a copy of …Read the Rest
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