The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.5 stars Lacking a mother to advise her, Natalia, whose ideas of romance and beauty seem to be symbolised by the colour white, which she loves to wear, is picked up by a douchecanoe so selfish and arrogant he takes her… Continue reading A hell below this one
A Ripple from the Storm by Doris Lessing My rating: 4 of 5 stars The third book in Martha Quest’s story is best read after the foregoing instalments. Here there is a shift in subject matter; previously Martha’s political activities were not a dominant part of her life, and she engaged in them alongside other… Continue reading Thistledown of History
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez My rating: 4 of 5 stars I think I’ve decided not to re-read this, so I can’t review it properly because I’ve forgotten my thoughts. I’m glad this was brought to my attention by the year of reading women selection because it’s an amazing story and… Continue reading La mariposas
The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer My rating: 4 of 5 stars 3.5 stars New millennium, new rhythm. I think that’s what’s going on here. South Africans walking to the beat of hyphenated identities, flow and stutter, bounce and glide, at the mercy of beauty and ruthlessness… Gordimer’s ear to the ground heard this as it… Continue reading The Pickup: a few unfinished thoughts
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read my first Octavia Butler novel, Dawn, late last year, and late in my life! Reading it I was like oh no black women authored speculative fiction, where have you been all my life? (right there on the shelf being read by… Continue reading Rewriting fate
Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys My rating: 4 of 5 stars I read this right after reading The Abandoned Baobab , and I found the structure and even the mood strikingly similar. Although Rhys’ protagonist is a white woman and does not share Ken’s experience as a colonized subject, Rhys herself originated from Dominica… Continue reading Woman Underground
The Abandoned Baobab: The Autobiography of a Senegalese Woman by Ken Bugul My rating: 4 of 5 stars Contrast. Between the village in Senegal and the Belgian city. Between Bugul’s means of conveyance and my mode of decoding. It is always hot there. It is always cold there, she says of the village, a line… Continue reading Nervously ‘I’
We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks My rating: 5 of 5 stars Hooks explains why she felt the need to write this book, rather than leaving it to Black men to speak for themselves on the topic: Many of the individual black men working in the field of ending male violence… Continue reading bell hooks on black men and masculinity
Quicksand by Nella Larsen My rating: 5 of 5 stars Helga Crane seems awkward and capricious, as introverts (like me) often do, at odds with a world better shaped to the needs of extroverts. But Helga’s struggle to find a place for herself, she feels, is caused by her heritage, visible and invisible. Biracial, black,… Continue reading Sinking Feelings
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt My rating: 4 of 5 stars Reading this reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend recently about the films of Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch, how I love their artistic sensibilities but yearn in vain for, as my friend said, an intersectional lens.… Continue reading Straying in story
(I am because you are) 