Book review: “More” by Hakan Günday, translated by Zeynep Beler
Sometimes you just have to stick with books you don’t necessary like.
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Book review: “El llano en llamas” (the Burning Plain and other stories) by Juan Rulfo
Framing the context of the Rulfo’s work, my nephew could help but to ignite interest: “No te olvides que la Revolución Mexicana sucedió antes de la Rusa, ¿eh?” he said, reminding me of the global significance of the violent land and agrarian reform that was the Mexican Revolution, which happened even before that of the momentous Russian one that changed the course of history for the world.
Read MoreTwo sides of fiction, one road to empathy
His choice surprised me not only because both of us spend our time reading the Booker prize shortlists. I couldn’t imagine someone like him taking time out to read Harry Potter— which, I discovered, revealed much more about my prejudice than about his taste.
Read MoreThe Archaeology of Slavery & Book Review: “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi
I imagined her watching any non-survivors being hurled into something like the adjacent Cemiterio dos Novos Pretos, the Cemetary of New Blacks, the site of the largest slave cemetery in the Americas, where tens of thousands of bodies had been dumped and incinerated upon arrival in Rio de Janeiro. Such violence affected every generation that followed her, including those who are struggling to maintain the site
Read MoreBook Review: “War & Turpentine” by Stefan Hertsman
“I don’t like reading movies much” is how I often describe my rejection of contemporary literature that relies heavily on the surprising turns and twists of plot, because I’ve often found that the degree to which such stories are entertaining, they are bereft of the lyricism that invokes reflection and the lingering taste of beauty. […]
Read MoreBook review: ‘The Freethinker’s Prayer Book’ by Khushuwant Singh
I was surprised to find that it was not one of his excruciatingly irreverent novels, filled with acidic, sidesplitting truths about what people really do. It was his own very personal collection of some of literature’s greatest verses and aphorisms of writers, prophets, poets, philosophers, mystics and saints to support his “own religion”: a religion of a man who “does not believe in God”.
Read MoreBook review: Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat
The brilliant flower of a Tartar thistle stubbornly clinging to the middle of a field was the vision that provoked the memory of the great writer, recollecting the story he had heard of as a young man visiting the Caucasus. It was the tale of the famous Chechen rebel, Hadji Murat, whose unwavering allegiance to […]
Read MoreBook review: “Hiding in Plain Sight” by Nurrudin Farah
It takes great maturity to see the hairline fissures of culture and sexuality within an individual and a society with the prowess that makes Nurrudin Farah a great inspiration.
Read MoreBook review: Orhan Pamuk’s ‘A strangeness in my mind’
‘WHAT MAKES CITY LIFE MEANINGFUL IS THE THINGS WE HIDE.’
Read MoreThe Bhagavadgῑtā
It is not necessary, however, to take a major detour in life and go to another country in order for you to discover that you are not exactly the author of your own story.
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ā•multiplicity 