Belletrista

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


The absurdity of war and the mysteries of childhood merge in Icelandic author Kristín Ómarsdóttir's Children in Reindeer Woods. Read an excerpt here.	Turkish author Ayșe Kulin's Farwell: An Occupied Mansion in Istanbul tells the story of one particular family living in one particular house during the end of the Ottoman Empire. Read the story's beginning here.	Canadian Barbara Howard brings taxidermy and a baby celebration together with hilarious results in "Western Taxidermy" the title story in her new collection.

NEWS (October 2012): Dear Readers, this issue (17) is still the current issue of Belletrista. Due to a family crisis and ongoing situation, Belletrista has been offline for several months. The good news is that circumstances are beginning to lighten and we hope to have another fabulous issue online sometime this month. Thank you for bearing with us during this time.

Reviews
Click on 'Reviews' to see the full list of this issue's reviews...

THE GIRL GIANT

Kristen Den Hartog

Ruth Brennan is a wonderful character. She is a giant, a girl who grows to enormous height, and her family struggles to cope by pretending all is normal until medical issues finally bring her condition into the open. Much more than a coming-of-age story …
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Reviewed by Lisa Sanders

CHILDREN IN REINDEER WOODS

Kristín Ómarsdóttir

Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith

The opening scene of this novel left me reeling, and I remained rather stunned throughout the book. In a few short, staccato pages, Kristín Ómarsdóttir creates a world where the absurdity and casual brutality of war is played out …
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Reviewed by Lisa Sanders

THE LÖWENSKÖLD RING

Selma Lagerlöf

Translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck

Translator Linda Schenck's notes to her 1991 English version of Selma Lagerlöf's The Löwensköld Ring are almost as interesting as the novella itself, and anyone interested in literary criticism might easily get sidetracked musing about theories of translation instead of focusing on the brilliance of this …
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Reviewed by Jean Raber

LYRIC NOVELLA

Annemarie Schwarzenbach

Translated from the German by Lucy Renner Jones

Lyric Novella is brief and delicate; it takes place in Weimar Berlin, and relates the story of a developing obsessive love by a young diplomat-to-be for Sibylle, a night club singer.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans

Amalia Gladhart reviews Argentine author Liliana Heker's The End of the Story

Links We Like

Belletrista - Issue 17
May/June 2012

Our Belle bag is traveling! Can you tell where our bag is?
(click on the photo to find out!)

Archived Issues
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