Reviewed by Zoë Fairbairns
The reality of life in London proves less than grand. Second-Class Citizen by the late Buchi Emecheta (first published in 1974, and now reissued as a Penguin Modern Classic) chronicles Adah’s steady disillusionment. Housing is overcrowded and overpriced, and local attitudes are often hostile, whether it is the ‘Sorry No Coloureds’ of the British, or the reverse snobbery of her Nigerian housemates who, coming (as she sees it) from the servant classes, mock her for her social pretensions [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Alison Burns
Denis’s journey from the present to Cleménce’s past and back is presented in alternate chapters interleaved with vivid descriptions of photographs of Matisse at work on his cut-outs, taken by one of the story’s subsidiary characters. Like so much else in this novel, these imaginary photographs sound extraordinarily convincing – familiar, even, to anyone who has studied Matisse, seen the archive or visited exhibitions of his work [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Amy Wu
Due to her passiveness and disengagement with life, Gilda frequently gets into mishaps and misunderstandings. She barely answers texts from her girlfriend Eleanor. She snacks on crackers at the church and pairs them with cheese, not realizing immediately they are communion wafers: “I googled the cracker brand and learned that I paired marble Cracker Barrel cheese with God’s transubstantiated body.” [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by N.J. Cooper
What I take from it, apart from knowing more about viruses in general and Covid-19 in particular, and his extraordinary characters, is that our societies need to value real, evidence-based knowledge higher than anything else because it is beyond price. We need to listen to those mavericks and oddballs who are too modest and interested in their arcane subjects to thrust themselves on to public stages. We need to challenge group think and what Lewis unforgettably describes as ‘bureaucrats who suffer from malignant obedience’. We need to be less frightened of getting something wrong than doing nothing at all [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Elizabeth Hilliard Selka
The novels are autobiographical and thus offer us a riveting insider’s view of the confusion in Eastern Europe in the first year of the Second World War – and the insider, herself an outsider, is Harriet. Woven into the day-by-day unsettling upheavals of the politics and practicalities of war is the story of Harriet’s marriage, her growing understanding of the man she has so suddenly married and revelations about the unforseeable complexities of love [Read more...] in Reviews
Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner
Mbue switches viewpoints between genders and generations, allowing the restrained eloquence of her characters – whether children or grandparents, male or female, single or in a group – to express the beliefs and ways of the Kosawans. For all their pain, theirs is a world of immense grace and natural order, grounded in meaning derived from a spiritual, social, familial and healing credo. This culture and morality stands in blazing contrast to the rapaciousness and self-interest of the oil company, and the government that protects it [Read more...] in Reviews
