Book review: The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig (Lithuania, 1930-2009)

I hadn’t come across this classic of children’s literature until my son was assigned it as a year 8 (age 12-13) text. Published in 1968, The Endless Steppe is a memoir of Esther Hautzig’s childhood experiences during WWII, when she and her family were exiled to Siberia. Hautzig was born in what is now Vilnius, …

Review no 141: A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh)

FAR EAST, SOUTH ASIA AND AUSTRALASIA First published in 2007, Tahmima Anam’s intimate civil war tale A Golden Age won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best First Book and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. The edition I read was published in 2012 as part of the Canongate ‘the Canons‘ list, which …

Review no 110: film A Screaming Man (Chad)

NORTH AFRICA (In French and Arabic with English subtitles) This October, during Black History Month in the UK, Africa in Motion (Scotland), Afrika Eye (Bristol), the Cambridge African Film Festival (CAFF), Film Africa (London) and Watch-Africa Cymru (Wales) have all come together to provide an opportunity to watch some of the best African films of the past …