Exceptional, highly influential writing from New Zealand
Tag Archives: female writers
Review no 101: Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg (Italy)
Translated by Jenny McPhee EUROPE “Even though the story is real, I think one should read it as if it were a novel, and therefore not demand of it any more or less than a novel can offer … memory is ephemeral, and … books based on reality are often only faint glimpses and fragments […]
Review no 95: Holiday Heart by Margarita García Robayo (Colombia)
Biting wit in this short novel about a dysfunctional Latin American family
Review no 89: When Time Stopped – A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann (Venezuela)
A brilliant memoir of a woman’s research into her father’s incredible story of bravery and survival
Review no 87: Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana (Thailand)
An intriguing collection of short stories from one of Thailiand’s pre-eminent writers
Review no 84: Golden Child by Claire Adam (Trinidad and Tobago)
Thought-provoking and moving examination of poverty and parental ambition, which unspools with page-turning intensity
Review no 81: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Japan)
a quick and deceptively unchallenging read that reminded me of a Japanese Eleanor Oliphant
Review no 74: The Pact We Made by Layla Alammar (Kuwait)
Dahlia feels trapped in her life in cosmopolitan Kuwait, with her well-meaning family who nevertheless refuse to acknowledge the trauma of her teen years
Review no 73: Rebecca by British author Daphne du Maurier (1907-89)
Daphne Du Maurier’s classic gothic “love” story
Review no 70: We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)
AFRICA We read We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo for my book club a while ago. My friend Emily likes to seek out books by African authors, so I suspect this was her choice (we all put suggestions into a little bag, anonymously, and then someone pulls out two!). Published in 2013, this is […]
