May 2, 2024 by Claire 'Word by Word'

Seaborne by Nuala O’Connor

Formative Years Bring a Taste of Freedom

rebel pirate woman adventure Irish literature

Seaborne is an adventure story about a young girl born in Kinsale, Cork to a maid, who, in order to keep her with her, styles her as a boy growing up, so she can stay in her father’s house (a local lawyer) and be apprenticed to him.

Anne becomes Anthony in her childhood and loves nothing more than going out on the boat with her father, being at sea.

Eventually, in order that her parents can be together, the man abandons his wife and family, and travels with Anne and her mother to the Carolina’s where he will run a plantation.

Life As A Girl is Restricted

But Anne having had significant freedom as a boy is none too pleased by the restrictions and rules that presenting as a girl puts upon her.

‘Three times trouble, girl, with your red hair, and your forward manner, and your obsession with water and boats. For a lady, one is ill luck and the others are ill conduct. The three do not match well.’

And I give my ever honest reply. ‘They match the finest with me, Father.’

Finding a Way to Seascape

She finds solace and much more, with her friend and servant Bedelia and finds a way to have the occasional sea journey thanks to a young man they hear of, Gabriel Bonny, who for a few coins will take a person to sea. At first he declines to take her, she will visit a tailor and have a set of clothes made, more suitable for seafaring, eventually she wins him over, he can not refuse her.

I woke this day knowing only one thing: I wanted to hire a boat, row it out, and feel saltwind about my face and hair. I desired to have nothing but the sway of the sea under my body and I determined to make that happen.

Seeing him as a way to escape her destiny and to a life at or near the sea, she elopes with him, taking Bedelia with her.

Passion, Piracy and Plunder

In the town where they settle Anne discovers that her husband isn’t so keen to let her pursue her dream to be at sea. She becomes restless and rebels against the wifely life and in her restless wanderings, she comes across someone who will.

Captain Calico Jack will allow her to follow him and his crew into dangerous territory and a life she had never imagined but finds passion and excitement in.

I crave a chance to wave my sword, to fire a shot. I want to know how it feels to own such power. And I think of the riches that await us, and the wandering sea-life Jack and I will have when we have plenty of money.

They will sail around the islands of the Caribbean, looking for opportunity, trying to avoid those in service to Governor Rogers, a man with a mission to suppress piracy and protect trade, who was hell bent on apprehending the infamous pirate and his men.

A Maverick Maiden

Set in the 1700’s, Anne Bonny is a real character, though much about her is legendary and not easily verifiable. Nuala O’Connor has familiarised herself with facts and read the fictions and re-imagined a version of a deeply unconventional life for Anny Bonny, told in a lilting, of its era prose.

It is narrated in a way that allows the reader to easily visualise the life and surroundings she inhabits and the high sea adventures she participates in, even if they are shortlived. It’s a fun, imaginative read, of a woman before her time, who gave herself freedoms and lived fearlessly, despite the era she lived in and the culture she came from.

Author, Nuala O’Connor

Nuala O’Connor is a novelist, short story writer and poet, and lives in County Galway with her family.

She is the author of four previous novels, including Nora: A Love Story of Nora and James Joyce (2021), Becoming Belle (2018) and Miss Emily (2015), a reimagining of the life of Emily Dickinson, and six short story collections, her most recent being Joyride to Jupiter (2017) and Birdie (2020).

She has won many prizes for her short fiction including the Francis MacManus Award, the James Joyce Quarterly Fiction Contest and the UK’s Short Fiction Journal Prize and been nominated for numerous prizes including the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the International Dublin Literary Award. Nora was shortlisted for the 2021 An Post Irish Book Awards RTÉ Audience voice Award. She is editor-in-chief at flash e-zine Splonk.

March 30, 2024 by Claire 'Word by Word'

Dublin Literary Award Shortlist 2024

Back in January, the Dublin Literary Award 2024 announced a longlist of 70 books nominated by 80 libraries including librarians and readers, from 35 countries around the world.

Six novels have now been shortlisted for the award, featuring authors who are American, Canadian, Australian, Romanian and Irish, nominated by public libraries in Romania, Germany, Jamaica, Canada and Australia.

The only one I have read, and it was a 5 star read for me is Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time (see my review here) I include the judges’ comments below to help you decide if you are interested in reading any of the nominated titles.

Solenoid sounds interesting and has been highly praised, but 840 pages is too grand of an ask for this reader. Praiseworthy is tempting, but again 740 pages!

The Shortlist of Six Novels

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Ireland) (literary fiction)

– Retired policeman Tom Kettle is enjoying the quiet of his new home in Dalkey, overlooking the sea. His peace is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask about a traumatic, decades-old case. A case that Tom never came to terms with. His peace is further disturbed by a young mother who asks for his help. And what of Tom’s wife, June, and their two children? A beautiful, haunting novel about what we live through, what we live with, and what will survive of us.

Judges’ Comments

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry is a book about love. It’s a world of precarious balancing, a high wire act in which the ghosts of the past intermingle with the challenges of the present. Here a retired policeman settling into a new stage in his life faces the legacy of an old case. This exploration of trauma, childhood abuse in catholic institutions, memory and the lingering impact of loss is devastating. It deftly avoids the trap of solely being one note in that regard. Barry does something clever here where he elevates the work beyond the confines of its themes into a reading experience that often feels transcendent despite the painful subject matter. It’s impossible to read this novel and not be moved by its mercurial power, the ways in which it shifts ideas of human consciousness. This is a beautiful and, in some ways, tender work. Full of heart, risk and that illusive, rare quality the best storytellers possess, it marks Barry, one of our most gifted talents as a writer who continues to invigorate the novel form.

‘Outstanding, a revelatory and deeply affecting work. Barry’s meditation on trauma, memory and loss is a book about love that lingers in the body long after reading it.’ — Irenosen Okojie, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter (Romania)

– Based on Cărtărescu’s own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist’s life and spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics.

On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art. Grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life.

Combining fiction, autobiography and history, Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art within the Communist present.

Judges’ Comments

We can imagine (it not fully grasp) a world that has, in comparison to our own, an extra dimension.” In some respects, this is the world of Solenoid. The city of Bucharest in which the narrator is a teacher and failed writer is a place in which what appears to be an abandoned factory contains unexpected caverns, tunnels and a gallery of enormous parasites, where an apparently ordinary, run-down house is built upon an electrical device that causes people lying in bed to float. By turns wildly inventive, philosophical, and lyrical, with passages of great beauty, Solenoid is the work of a major European writer who is still relatively little known to English-language readers. Sean Cotter’s translation of the novel sets out to change that situation, capturing the lyrical precision of the original, thereby opening up Cărtărescu’s work to an entirely new readership.

‘An anti-novel that for all intents and purposes should not exist but still does despite itself, thanks to the overpowering talents of the author and the translator.’ — Anton Hur, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge

Haven by Emma Donoghue (Ireland) (historical fiction)

– In 7th-century Ireland, a scholar/priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks – young Trian & old Cormac – he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. With only faith to guide them and drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find a steep, bare island, inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean? What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael.

Judges’ Comments

A novel of stylistic precision yet ethical complexity, Haven tells the story of three monks in seventh-century Ireland in search of a place of retreat from worldly temptation. Their journey by boat to a barren islet allows the com- plex interaction between experience and idealism to be revealed and subtly explores the importance of evolving human bonds in shaping community. Haven’s searching treatment of authority, and the tensions between rigid beliefs and openness of thought, extend beyond interpersonal dynamics to our relationship with the natural environment. The world Emma Donoghue creates in this novel is at once strange and familiar, provoking us to think deeply about the importance of human empathy in navigating our place on this earth.

‘A novel of stylistic precision yet ethical com- plexity, Haven offers a searching treatment of authority, examining the implications of fixed beliefs for our relationships with each other and with the more-than-human world.’ — Lucy Collins, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (USA/Jamaica) (Short Stories)

– In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated by what their younger son calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”

Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and sly commentary, Escoffery’s debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and white supremacy.

Judges’ Comments

Jonathan Escoffery’s energetic novel-in-stories, If I Survive You, follows a Jamaican family living hand-to-mouth in Florida. The different members of the family search for a foothold in this new and exhausting country, each in their own way, struggling against poverty, racism, recession and hurricanes. At the heart of the story lies a deep-rooted racial ambiguity; where does one belong and is it possible to be “a little of this and a little of that” and still find your way, find your people, find a future? The story also deals with the universal condition of fatherly rejection and sibling rivalry, with a remarkable eye for perfect de- tails. The narrative is vibrant, humorous, snappy and quietly devastating; eight interlinking stories told by various voices, often from an urgent and empathetic second-person point of view, and also in Jamaican dialect, that describe how life keeps knocking the family back in their pursuit of identity and happiness.

‘A fresh voice in fiction, Jonathan Escoffery blurs the lines between the short story and the novel in a work that brings us into the lives of Jamaican-Americans in Miami. Through linked stories, the form mirrors the lives of the characters and their struggles to connect, both with their families, and with the society around them.’ — Chris Morash, 2024 Dublin Literary Non-Voting Chair

The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr (Canada) (Historical Fiction)

– It’s 1929, and Baxter is considered lucky, as a Black man, to have a job as a porter on a train that crisscrosses the continent. He has to smile and nod for the white passengers when they call him ‘George.’ He’s obsessed with teeth, and saving up tips for dentistry school.

On this trip, the passengers are unruly, especially when the train is stranded for days – their secrets leak out, blurring with Baxter’s sleep-deprivation hallucinations. When he finds an illicit postcard of two men, Baxter’s longings are reawakened; keeping it puts his job in peril, but he can’t part with it or his memories of a certain Porter Instructor.

Judges’ Comments

An unconventional historical novel that combines meticulous research and deep imagination, The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr takes readers on a vividly depicted train ride in the 1920’s from the perspective of a Black and queer sleeping car porter as he tries to make a life that is a little less precarious and a lot more hopeful despite the odds stacked against him. As the train travels through the rural Canadian landscape, Baxter, the porter of the title, similarly traverses the vistas of memory, the reality that surrounds him, and his hopes and visions of the future on his own interior journey of discovery and self-creation. Written in a concise yet evocative style, this slim novel combines the epic scope of history with the lift and verve of ghost stories and queer narrative, creating a quietly propulsive read that at the same time takes stock of an entire life in the space of a single train voyage.

“He drinks melting glacier, plunges his hands into the water past the point of ice just to wake himself up and calm himself down. He ascends into the vestibule, his legs shaky, his hands icy numb.”

‘You can almost taste the exhaustion and despair in this quiet, yet vivid, story of a black man working as a porter on a sleeper train in Canada in 1929. Beautifully written, melancholy but never without hope.’— Ingunn Snaedel, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge

Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (Australia) (Literary fiction)

– In a small town in northern Australia dominated by a haze cloud, a crazed visionary sees donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in the dance of moths and butterflies. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful.

Praiseworthy is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.

Judges’ Comments

Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy is a wonder of twenty-first century fiction. This modernist more-than-an-allegory about a pernicious haze that settles over a northern Australia town yokes a painfully contemporary tale of political, social and climatic disaster to a narrative consciousness embodying 65,000 years of aboriginal survival. Intimate while epic, the family drama at its center reads like chamber music on a symphonic scale. Wright has authored a blisteringly funny book, replete with situations and speech that elicit wild laughter – a laughter through tears we may recognize from our readings of Beckett and Kafka. She has also written a beautiful one: time and again Praiseworthy delivers unforgettable images, from ‘aerial rivers’ of dancing butterflies to hordes of stinking donkeys. Startlingly original, fiercely political, uncompromising in every respect, Praiseworthy expands the possibility of the novel form.

‘Funny and fierce, Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy is a wonder of twenty-first century fiction. This modernist more-than-an-allegory yokes a painfully contemporary tale of political, social and climatic disaster to a narrative consciousness embodying 65 000+ years of aboriginal survival.’ — Daniel Medin, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge

Reading From Libraries

The novels nominated and shortlisted for the Award will be available for readers to borrow from Dublin City Libraries and from public libraries around Ireland, or can be borrowed as eBooks and some as eAudiobooks on the free Borrowbox app, available to all public library users.

Have you read any of the shortlist? Are you tempted by any of these titles? Let me know in the comments below.

January 11, 2024 by Claire 'Word by Word'

The Last Train from Paris (2023) by Juliet Greenwood

Women of Courage, WWII

Juliet Greenwood writes immersive historical fiction, often set in Wales or Cornwall around World War II and always featuring women protagonists, who rise to the challenge in difficult times. Her books are a tribute to those women, often unseen, who keep the world turning, even in the most terrible of times.

I have been following Juliet’s progress and reading her books since she wrote Eden’s Garden and I have also read and reviewed We That are Left and The Ferryman’s Daughter.

The Last Train from Paris is set in the period just before and during World War II, moving from Paris, to London to Cornwall and was inspired in part by stories that Juliet’s mother told her about this period.

It’s a story I’ve been longing to write, ever since I was a little girl and my Mum first told me about studying French near Paris on the day war broke out in 1939. I couldn’t imagine then what it must have been liketo have been a 17-year-old English girl, on her own, catching the train to Calais through a country preparing for war and, like Nora, finding herself on a ferry in the middle of the Channel, being stalked by a German submarine. It’s a story that’s haunted me, especially since we found the letters Mum exchanged with my Dad in London, and the scribbled note she sent him when she finally arrived in Dover.

Past Circumstances, Present Lives

WWII Historical Fiction Cornwall Paris 1939

1964: Iris is visiting her mother in St Mabon’s Cove, Cornwall, an escape from her life in London. She has been having nightmares of feeling trapped. Her mother has given her a box. She has also been looking at the objects in it that relate to her past. It is awakening something that has become more insistent. She knows she was adopted and that these items have something to do with her original family.

Over the course of the weekend, she will ask her mother questions and begin to learn about the past. And encounter a strange reporter is snooping around the village asking questions, a caller her mother wishes to ignore.

Studying in Paris, 1939

The historical narrative centres around two young women characters in 1939; Nora lives in London, where she has worked as a dish washer in a kitchen since she was sixteen. Sabine, a freelance journalist works in a boulangerie (bakery) in Paris, living with her husband Emil, also a journalist, who is focused on writing the novel that is going to change their lives.

The two women meet when Sabine gives a talk in London, after spending a month gaining work experience at the London Evening Standard newspaper. They maintain contact, writing each letters regularly.

Nora, frustrated with the lack of opportunity in her job, comes up with the idea of going to Paris to do a chef training course at Madame Godeaux’s Cuisine Française, seeing no chance of promotion in her current employment.

The Risk of Relying on the Family Business

Juliet Greenwood historical fiction Paris 19 — Photo Pixabay @ Pexels.com

Sabine and Emil’s lives are a little precarious due to their reliance on Emil’s brother Albert to subsidise their rent and pending war has contributed to the family boot business suffering. When bad news arrives, Emil, as the second son, is summoned to return to Colmar, to take over from his brother.

When Nora arrives in Paris, she is disappointed to learn that Sabine has already left for Colmar, but she settles into her course and meets other girls, amid a growing wariness of the safety of the city. When one of the girls Heidi tells her the real reason she is in Paris, Nora begins to understand the danger that is not far away.

The novel follows the twin time periods, the present day 1964 where Iris hearing from her mother stories of the past that will lead towards her understanding her identity and circumstances that lead to where she is now and the crossing of paths of two women in the past whose connection resulted in lives being forever changed.

As the story gathers pace, secrets are revealed, dangers confronted and choices made in desperation have long term effects.

There are so many twists and turns in the story, it’s one that you won’t want to put down once started, bt to share any more would be to spoil the joy of discovering and the detective work we begin to do as readers, trying to puzzle out the missing pieces of the jigsaw of these three women’s lives.

A riveting and immersive read, that reminds us just how precarious life is, how stability can be shattered from one day to the next, yet offers hope in its demonstration of the acts of kindness some will make to help others, to make each other safe.

N.B. Thanks you to the author Juliet Greenwood, for providing me a copy of the book to read and review.

July 16, 2023 by Claire 'Word by Word'

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See #20BooksOfSummer23

Another title from my list of 20 Books of Summer 2023, and one by the author Lisa See, whose previous and more recent historical fiction set on the Korean island of Jeju, I have previously very much enjoyed.

The Island of Sea Women was a novel about the haeyno women, a female diving collective, their history and how their lineage was changed by societal events happening around them. A stunning, unforgettable work of fiction that drew on a fascinating history.

In The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, a girl named Li-yan from an Akha hill tribe in China learns everything in childhood from her mother, she is subject to the tribes rituals, beliefs, traditions. However, some of the events she witnesses mark her in a way that make her determined to avoid being subject to them.

The novel begins in the 1980’s and although Li-yan had little exposure to the outside world, she is less accepting of old ways that are cruel and barbaric. She is part of a consciousness raising, yet in some ways still tied to traditional expectations. The novel follows her through life up until present day 2016 (when it was written).

Young love feels invincible but can create a trap, so when Li-yan finds herself in a compromising situation, she and her mother do what they can to deal with it less harshly than what custom dictates. She crosses a line that no matter which way she turns will have devastating consequences, so makes the decision she can best live with, keeping it a secret from everyone else.

Her life continues after this event, and through her we witness aspects of Chinese life for this young woman who has a chance to be more formally educated and become knowledgeable about all things to do with Pu’er tea, about all kinds of tea trees, with the additional connection of coming from a land where her lineage has been long connected to these ancient trees.

“The colour of the brew is rich and dark with mystery. The first flavour is peppery, but that fades to divine sweetness. The history of my people shimmers in my bones. With every sip, it’s as if I’m wordlessly reciting my lineage. I’m at once merged with my ancestors and with those who’ll come after me. I grew up believing that rice was to nourish and that tea was to heal. Now I understand that tea is also to connect and to dream.”

In addition to her own personal secret, she shares with her mother, the secret location of one particular ancient tea tree, one she has inherited by birth and in a location that must continue to be hidden, due to superstition.

“Is this my land?” I ask.
“When I went to you a-ba in marriage, the old traditions were supposed to be over. No more buying and selling of women into slavery or marriage. No more dowries either. But it doesn’t matter what the government says. This land belongs to the women in our line. It is ours alone to control. It was given to me as my dowry as it will one day go to you with marriage.”

As the tea industry develops and booms and people begin to pay crazy prices for what perceive is precious, many in the village leave their old ways behind, following the allure of money and wealth. This too challenges relationships, friendships and threatens the long held bonds within the village.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane Lisa See — Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

Simultaneously to the narrative set in China, the story dips in and out of the life of an adoptee, Haley Davis in America. It is a less profound exploration of a complex subject within the novel, and at times an uncomfortable exposure of the significant issue of intra-country adoption.

Overall, an engrossing, eye opening, well researched historical novel, that will make you think about tea in ways you may never have done before.

May 17, 2023 by Claire 'Word by Word'

River Spirit by Leila Aboulela

I have now read three novels by Leila Aboulela and enjoyed them all, her historical fiction has taken me into parts of history that I’ve known nothing about and she brings a fresh, unique perspective, thanks to her cross-cultural life experience, at the intersection of being a Muslim woman of Sudanese origin living in Scotland.

I was very much looking forward to this latest novel as she returns within it to her country of origin and tells us a story that begins in a village and moves to the city of Khartoum, Sudan, intertwining the crossover histories of two occupying Empires against a uprising local population, at the very place where two grand rivers meet.

Grandiose Empires and A False Prophet

River Spirit is a unique work of historical fiction set in 1890’s Sudan, at a turning point in the country’s history, as its population began to mount a challenge against the ruling Ottoman Empire, only the people were not united, due to the opposition leadership coming from a self-proclaimed “Mahdi” – a religious figure that many Muslims believe will appear at the end of time to spread justice and peace.

The appearance of ‘the Mahdi’ or ‘the false Mahdi’ created a division in the population and provided a gateway for the British to further a desire to expand their own Empire, under the guise of ousting this false prophet. However for a brief period, this charismatic leader would unite many who had felt repressed by their circumstances, inspiring them to oust their foreign occupiers by whatever means necessary, even if it also set them against their own brothers and kinsmen.

Orphans, A Merchant, A Promise

Against this background, Leila Aboulela tells the story of orphan siblings, Akuany and Bol, and their young merchant friend Yaseen, a friend of their father; their parents were killed in a slave raid on the village, the merchant made a promise to protect these two youngsters, forever connecting them to his life.

The story is told through multiple perspectives, mostly in the third person perspective, from Akuany (who becomes enslaved to both an Ottoman officer and a Scottish painter at various points and is renamed Zamzam) and Yaseen’s point of view, as well as one of the fighters of the Mahdi, Musa.

Leila Aboulela Sudan 1890s historical fiction The change in perspective and the lack of a first person narrative keeps the characters at a slight distance to the reader as we follow the trials of Zamzam’s life and her dedication to being a part of Yaseen’s life. Like other readers, I wished at times that the story was told in the first person from her point of view, but the story is too important to be limited to one perspective.

So the reader is taken on a journey through the shifting viewpoints of all parties implicated and affected by the approaching conflict, those of fervent belief, the skeptical, outsiders with ulterior motives, and the innocent, the women and children trying to live ordinary family lives amid the power struggles of patriarchal dominance and colonial selfishness.

Yaseen decides to become a scholar, a decision that changes his life and opportunities; he meets the Mahdi and is unconvinced, an opinion that will become dangerous and have repercussions for him and his family.

As the revolutionary Mahdi leader grew in popularity and his followers in confidence, Sudan began to slip from the grasp of Ottoman rule and everyone was forced to choose a side, whether for personal, political or religious reasons. The (religious) confusion created by the implication of accepting this new leader ,became a strategic opportunity for British colonial interests to gain access to natural resources and secure control of the Nile ahead of other European interests was well as protecting their interests in Egypt. The real threat for both the Ottoman and British Empires, was the potential for the creation of a new independent power, one that came from within Sudan. That, clearly, they were likely to undermine.

What has changed is that this is now a massive rebellion against a major power. The fake Mahdi has coalesced the nation’s sense of injustice.

Two Rivers Entwine, the Nile

River Spirit The Nile Leila Aboulela Sudan Once Akuany and her brother leave the family village, most of the story takes place in Khartoum, a city that is at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile, two major rivers that join to become the Nile proper, the longest river in the world, that continues on through Egypt to the Mediterranean.

The river is part of Akuany’s story, part of her being and a symbol of her twin selves, one free, one enslaved, of twin occupying forces, the Ottoman and British Empires, of the many aspects in the story where twin forces clash, mix and become something new. It represents her devotion to her brother and to the merchant Yaseen, to a focus that drives her forward through the changing circumstances of her life. The two rivers arrive from different sources in a city that is full of many coming from elsewhere, where agendas often clash and local people get caught on the crossfire of inevitable conflict.

She was not one of them, but she was like them. She was also one of the lowly rising, one of the poor benefiting, one of the featherweight children of this land, thrust up by this shake-up, loosened and made free to stand up and grab what was there on offer, what she had always wanted.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed about the story, was the focus of the story coming from characters within the population, that we witness things from within, through the eyes of both a simple, loyal but marginalised, servant girl and through a young educated man, both of whom are from Sudan. They are living in turbulent times and are witness to the effect various powerful influences have on their city and in the case of ZamZam the effect on her person, treated as an object of ownership.

Cycles of Conflict, Khartoum Today

The novel was published on March 7th, 2023, a mere month before two Generals again plunged Sudan into armed conflict with devastating consequences for civilians and civilian infrastructure, especially in Khartoum and Darfur. At least 676 people have been killed and 5,576 injured, since the fighting began. (14 May, UN source)

Over 936,000 people have been newly displaced by the conflict since 15 April, including about 736,200 people displaced internally since the conflict began, and about 200,000 people who have crossed into neighbouring countries, including at least 450,000 children who have been forced to flee their homes.

“Fanatics can never draw out the good in people. They will go to war I predict. They will raise armies, invade, and pillage because it is only aggression that will keep their cause alive. Fighting an enemy is always easier than governing human complexity.”

Leila Aboulela, Author

Leila Aboulela is a fiction writer, essayist, and playwright of Sudanese origin. Born in Cairo, she grew up in Khartoum and moved in her mid-twenties to Aberdeen, Scotland. Her work has received critical recognition and a high profile for its depiction of the interior lives of Muslim women and its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality.

She is the author of six novels: River Spirit (2023), Bird Summons (), Minaret (2005), The Translator (1999), a Muslim retelling of Jane Eyre, it was a New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year, The Kindness of Enemies (2015) and Lyrics Alley (2010), Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Leila Aboulela was the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and her latest story collection, Elsewhere, Home (2018) won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award.

Her work has been translated into fifteen languages and she was long-listed three times for the Orange Prize, (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction).

“We need to hear the stories of Africa’s encounter with Europe from Africans themselves. Mainstream colonial history has been viewed and written through the lens of Europe. This is insufficient for us in these contemporary times and as Africans we need to write our own history. ” Leila Aboulela, interview with Brittle Paper.

January 30, 2023 by Claire 'Word by Word'

Dublin Literary Award Longlist 2023

With books nominated by 84 international libraries from 31 countries across Africa, Europe, Asia, the US, Canada, South America, Australia, and New Zealand, the full longlist of 70 novels has been announced for the Dublin Literary Award 2023. The €100,000 award is presented annually for a novel written in English or translated into English.

The nominations include 29 novels in translation and 14 debut novels. Among the translated books are novels originally published in Arabic, Bulgarian, Dutch, Hindi, Korean, Slovene, Icelandic, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese and more.

The international panel of judges who will select the shortlist and winner, features Gabriel Gbadamosi, an Irish and Nigerian poet, playwright and critic based in London; Marie Hermet, a writer and translator who teaches creative writing and translation at the Université Paris Cité; English writer Sarah Moss who is the author of eight novels and teaches creative writing at UCD; Doireann Ní Ghríofa who is a bilingual poet, essayist, translator and author of A Ghost in the Throat; and Arunava Sinha who translates fiction, non-fiction and poetry from Bengali to English and has won several translation awards in India.

The shortlist will be revealed on 28th March and the winner on 25th May 2023.

I have read two of the novels, the wonderful East German Marzhan, mon Amour which I adored, an uplifting semi-autobiographical novella that is a celebration of community, and the Irish novella Small Things Like These, I’m one of the few who didn’t get on with this novel, despite its popularity.

It’s a wide-ranging selection and it will be interesting to see what makes the shortlist. There are a few familiar authors I’m interested in who I’ve read before like Elif Shakaf, Louise Erdrich, Kim Thúy and Yewande Omotoso and those I’m aware of, that I’d like to try like the award winning Canadian author Omar El-Akkad.

Let me know what you’ve enjoyed or are tempted by in the comments below:

The Longlist

Below are all the titles on the longlist, with their genre and the country of origin of the author plus the comments made by the nominating library(s).

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56 Days (Crime/Thriller Fiction) by Catherine Ryan Howard (Ireland)

“a gripping and unputdownable thriller. Its structure is interesting going between the present, when a body has been found, and the 56 days preceding this gruesome discovery. Though fictional it deals realistically with the horrors of the real-life pandemic situation that the world had experienced during the previous two years.” – Cork City Libraries

912 Batu Road (Historical/Migration Fiction) by Viji Krishnamoorthy (India of Tamil/Hokkein-Chinese)

912-Batu-Road Viji Krishnamoorthy’s sweeping debut novel deftly weaves together vibrant fiction and meticulous research on the heroic exploits of Malayan wartime heroes – Sybil Kathigasu, Gurchan Singh and many others – who fearlessly fought for their beloved country.

“This novel was chosen for its interesting history and patriotisms of Malaysia and Malaysians. It displays how Malaysia is a harmonious country that embraces multiracial aspects.” – National Library of Malaysia

A Particular Madness (Fiction) by Sheldon Russell (USA)

“In his novel, Russell explores mental illness through the experience of the main character: Jacob Roland. Set in Oklahoma, the novel showcases the reality of rural America at a time when mental illness was often misunderstood and mistreated, as it still is today.” – Oklahoma Department of Libraries, USA

After Story (Fiction) by Larissa Behrendt (Australia)

After Story Larissa Behrendt

“It’s a beautifully written story, fascinatingly revealed via alternating perspectives from a mother and daughter using overseas literary travel to try to mend a difficult relationship, and illuminating the complex nature of familial ties, buried grief and historical trauma.” – Libraries Tasmania, Australia

All’s Well (Fiction/Horror) by Mona Awad (Canada)

A piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain.

“The plotting is a clever mishmash of Shakespeare, obviously MacBeth and All’s Well That Ends Well, though there’s a little Tempest thrown in as well. But Awad doesn’t make herself a slave to what Shakespeare dictates. She has entwined the Scottish play so brilliantly in a brutal theatre production of All’s Well, that the power plays, the ghosts, the betrayals, the madness, are seamlessly incorporated. How Awad came up with all this is fascinating.” – Cleveland Public Library, USA

An Unusual Grief (Fiction) Yewande Omotoso (Barbados/Nigeria/South Africa)

“We were absolutely blown away by An Unusual Grief. Felt an instant connection to the book, perhaps because it has a local setting or the daily issues of life that it confronts. While it deals with grief, it is not a gloomy book, thanks in large part to the art of storytelling that Omotoso displays throughout the novel. It is a beautifully written book that is raw in its emotion as it covers and conveys the many layers of grief.” – City of Capetown Library and information Services

Bad Girls (Fiction) by Camila Sosa Villada (Argentina) tr. Kit Maude (Spanish)

“We really loved this novel. The heroines are transgender women whose lives are absolutely complicated… They are rejected by the whole society and especially by those who use to deal with them as prostitutes.

The novel shows a solidarity and a humanity that delighted us. And even though the story is rather tragic there is a craziness and a hymn to life and joy that makes this book unforgettable.” – Bibliothèques municipales de Genève, Switzerland

Bitter Orange Tree (Literary Fiction) Jokha Alharthi (Oman) tr. Marilyn Booth (Arabic)

“Narrated in first person, the story unfolds vividly in prose full of pictures, stories, names and objects of a childhood and youth in the Middle East and the richness of Arabian culture. All these narrative elements mingle with dreams of the young woman and regrets of missed chances to close up on her own self. Bitter Orange Tree is the coming-of-age of a young woman that still has yet to fully explore her own identity.” – Stadtbücherei Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Bodies of Light (Literary Fiction) by Jennifer Down (Australia)

“Bodies of Light has been nominated by popular vote from public library staff across Victoria.” – State Library of Victoria, Australia

Bolla (Fiction) by Pajtim Statovci (Albania/Finland) tr. David Hackston (Finnish)

“Albanian protagonist, Arsim, is a brilliant student and just married to his young wife. He’s also in love with a person who is wrong for him in two ways: Miloš is a man and a Serb. Violence takes Arsim over and he get punished both physically, mentally and socially. Bolla is a phenomenal literal study of love, loneliness, passion and violence. It pictures the horrors of war and living a secret life.” – Helsinki City Library, Finland

Bone Memories (Fiction) by Sally Piper (Australia)

“Bone Memories is a brilliant and devastating novel about a mother’s grief for her lost daughter, Jess, and a son’s grief about losing his mother. It begins sixteen years after Jess’s murder, with the victim’s family continuing to grapple with the lives they face ahead and their memories of her. The novel is set in Queensland and is written by Brisbane-based author Sally Piper.” – State Library of Queensland Australia

Brisbane (Historical Fiction) by Eugene Vodolazkin (Ukraine) tr. Marian Schwartz

Brisbane is a new novel by the the international bestselling author Eugene Vodolazkin – the winner of the Big Book Award, the Leo Tolstoy Yasnaya Polyana Award, and the Read Russia Award, the finalist of the Russian Booker Award. Vodolazkin also won the Solzhenitsyn Prize in 2019. He is a modern Thinker and Peacemaker who continues to develop traditions and heritage of a grand philosophical novel. – All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature

Burntcoat (Science Fiction/Dystopia) by Sarah Hall (UK)

“A love story taking place during a deadly pandemic, a story about dealing with an unknown virus and loss while at the same time creating a life during dire circumstances and creating art – subtle and heartbreaking.” – Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Switzerland

Case Study (Literary Fiction) by Graeme Macrae Burnett (UK)

“Macrae Burnett has created a dynamic work that has excellent characterisation with acute observation. The writing is layered but there is no use of superfluous words. While the themes are profound, the style is both intriguing and playful . He has created a book that is thought provoking and a compulsive read.” – Limerick City and County Libraries, Ireland

Cloud Cuckoo Land (Science Fiction/Fantasy) by Anthony Doerr (US)

“This book had good storytelling in spades. Each of the characters has a relationship with a librarian, Zeno and Seymour with the librarians in Lakeport, Idaho, Anna with scribes in Constantinople, Omeir with Anna, and Konstance with the AI controller of her ship. This beautifully written book is a shining example of hope.” – Bács-Kiskun Megyei Katona József Könyvtár, Hungary

Cold Enough For Snow (Literary Fiction) by Jessica Au (Australia)

“Cold Enough for Snow is something like an ephemeral waterfall. The story, of a woman and her mother travelling in Japan, unfolds with grace – not a thundering cascade but a slow trickling that still has the power to, in time, soften the rock below into shape. The prose is elegant and unpretentious, making inferences but not enforcing meaning. The story speaks to the complexity of our relationships with those we love, and also nods towards some of the richness and value of travel and being present outside of our regular environments.The novel pushes and pokes at notions of identity, belonging and perception; invoking colour and description to honour the importance of observation, care and attention. It is a work of great softness and strength.” – The National Library of Australia

Crossroads (Domestic Fiction) by Jonathan Franzen (US)

“Suspense” – Öffentliche Bücherei -Anna Seghers, Germany

Daughter of the Moon Goddess (Fantasy Fiction) by Sue Lynn Tan (Malaysia/Hong Kong)

“Daughter of the Moon Goddess is jam-packed novel that follows Xingyin on her path to self-discovery as she tries to free her mother and herself from their eternal confinement on the moon.

Inspired by Chinese Mythology’s Chang’e, each word of this novel is thoughtfully chosen and crafted poetically, taking you on an almost dreamy adventure from start to finish. There is amazing world building done by Tan and a wonderful female protagonist that is strong and determined. This novel is filled with magic, powerful creatures, secrets, betrayals, amazingly written battle scenes, and even a love triangle – though that doesn’t shadow over anything. Wonderful, adventurous book.” – Kansas City Public Library, USA

Devotion (Historical Fiction) by Hannah Kent (Australia)

“The story and the characters of the book are so perfect. We love Hannah’s Kent writing and the way that it just connects with our thoughts, mind, and soul.” – Veria Central Public Library, Greece

Em (Historical/Literary Fiction) by Kim Thúy (Vietnam/Canada) tr. Sheila Fischman (French)

“Kim Thúy seals words into packets, plain and firm as an encyclopedia entry; shimmery and taut as an ode; pitted and unbendable as a curse, lays them edge to corner to end to say, do you see it now? Do you?” – Hartford Public Library, USA

Falling is like Flying (Fiction) by Manon Uphoff (Netherlands) tr. Sam Garrett (Dutch)

“Falling is Like Flying is an impressive novel in which author Manon Uphoff demonstrates what literature is capable of. With all her literary power, Uphoff manages to reveal a history that seems almost impossible to tell. A history of sexual abuse by a dominating father called the Minotaur is uncovered in a devastating personal mythology. In this novel, the Minotaur is finally overcome in his labyrinth by the power of language.” – KB, National Library of the Netherlands

Fight Night (Fiction) by Miriam Toews (Canada)

“Told in the unforgettable voice of nine-year old Swiv, this is a story of life, death, birth and intergenerational trauma that is both hilarious and heart-breaking. Swiv, the youngest of three fierce women, is worrying about her aging grandmother’s health and her pregnant mother’s mental health. All while her feisty (and deeply mortifying) grandmother tries to impart life lessons about fighting – both to survive and to find joy.” – Toronto Public Library, Canada

Four Treasures of the Sky (Historical Fiction) by Jenny Tinghui Zhang (China/US)

“This debut novel is a stunner, historical fiction at its best (captivating, illuminating and provoking) in its depiction and portrayal of the horrors of racism, discrimination, abuse and greed.

The author has threaded a deep understanding of Chinese calligraphic arts, that goes beyond artistic standards; referenced an eponymous heroine in a classic Chinese novel; included historical events about Chinese Americans that have been relegated and left to fade away; revealed the graphic horror of a childhood cut short; and created a protagonist who continuously reinvents herself, in order to survive, and also to discover who she really is. It is no small achievement that Jenny Zhang has written a book of arresting beauty about horrific events.” – Los Angeles Public Library, USA

Glory (Literary Fiction) by NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)

“Bulawayo’s reimagining of the overthrow of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s infamous authoritarian ruler, features a cast made up entirely of talking animals (Mugabe is the Old Horse). Bulawayo’s gift for storytelling is dazzling.” –Boston Public Library, USA

“The use of language in the novel colourful, poetic and also comedic illustrates the absurdity and surreal nature of a police state , built with the structure of animal stories that are typical of African tradition.”–Biblioteca Vila de Gràcia, Barcelona, Spain

Grand Hotel Europa (Fiction) by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (Netherlands) tr. Michele Hutchison (Dutch)

“It is a monumental novel about loss, the immigration crisis, the history and future of Europe, Mass tourism and many more themes. A phenomenal read which lets you think about modern day Europe.” – De Bibliotheek Utrecht, The Netherlands

How High We Go in the Dark (Science Fiction/Short Stories) by Sequoia Nagamatsu (Japan/US)

“This novel in interlinked stories presents a complex and deeply humane look at grief and survival in a post-apocalyptic world. “– Multnomah County Library, USA

Iron Curtain: A Love Story (Historical/Literary Fiction) by Vesna Goldsworthy (Serbia/UK)

“Iron Curtain uses a bitter-sweet story of a doomed love affair between Milena, a communist Red Princess, and Jason, a self-declared Irish Marxist poet, to probe the political divisions of Europe which continue to affect us all. It echoes the myth of Medea in its gripping tale of Western betrayal and Eastern revenge.

It is a spellbinding novel: vividly original, tense and often hilarious in its extraordinary evocation of two wildly contrasted worlds. It brings to mind the best political fiction from Eastern Europe, such as the works of Pasternak and Kundera, now in an inimitable British-Serbian woman’s voice. With the passing of the period of optimism which followed the fall of the Berlin Wall the fractured world described in this novel has an ominous resonance today.” – Belgrade City Library, Serbia

Kurangaituku (Literary Fiction/Mythology) by Whiti Hereaka (New Zealand)

“Kurangaituku takes readers on an immersive journey through deep time with its shape-shifting lead character. An exploration and reclamation of indigenous storytelling, it shows how language can create, shape, give life and destroy, with “one hundred lifetimes or more able to be lived by a single being.

The world of Kurangaituku is visceral and sensual, and Hereaka’s flowing and hypnotic prose is made for reading aloud. Its looping narrative structure is seamlessly woven together with the book’s double-sided and interlocking format, reflecting the Māori worldview of the circularity of life and death, transfiguration and rebirth and allowing the story to be formed and reformed in the space between author and audience. A multi-dimensional and unforgettable book.” – Auckland Council Libraries

“Kurangaituku is the retelling of a legend and so much more. It is about the power of our voices to tell our own story. It is about the importance of story to ourselves and to our culture, and the destructive nature of someone else telling or supplanting our story as part of colonisation. An amazing, thought-provoking, beautifully lyrical work. ‘Do you see what their stories have done?…They have made monsters of us both’.” – Christchurch City Libraries

Late Summer (Literary Fiction) by Luiz Ruffato (Brazil) tr. Julia Sanches (Portuguese)

“Late Summer is an excellent reflection on the effects of isolation. A book that shows both a portrait of contemporary society, in which social classes have ruptured any form of a dialogue between them, and a realistic story of a man tortured by his unsuccessful attempt to redeem his past.

The main character, Oséias, abandoned by his wife and son, decides to go back to his hometown after twenty years away. On a six-day journey trying to reconnect to his family, as a flaneur, he retraces his boyhood and shares by streams of consciousness old memories and thoughts mingled with a detailed narrative of the events of the journey. The novel also unveils the feeling of inadequacy present in our time and presents a philosophical and perennial question of belonging.” – Sistema Nacional de Bibliotecas Públicas/Biblioteca Demonstrativa do Brasil

Lessons in Chemistry (Popular Fiction) by Bonnie Garmus (US)

“Author Bonnie Garmus provides an original storyline that is refreshing, humorous, and very timely.” -Miami-Dade Public Library

” This is a brilliant story – of a woman who is determined to make her mark on the world and not willing to let anyone get in her way. She’s feisty, heroic, and intelligent, and she unwittingly becomes the star of a TV cookery show, aimed at teaching the nation how to make food that matters. The show becomes a call to arms to the millions of women who follow her ‘lessons in chemistry’ encouraging all to ‘use the laws of chemistry and change the status quo.’” -Norfolk Library, UK

“Great story of women empowerment set in the 1960’s.” – Laramie County Library System, US

Loose Ties (Fiction) by Yara Nakahanda Monteiro (Portugal) tr. Sandra Tamele

“This book is both a story of love and of war, a contemporary tale that deals with the past, a call for the independence of women as political beings. And of their own bodies in search of freedom.

Yara Monteiro revisits a personal and collective history, in which the lives of expatriates who suffer the discomfort of a painful isolation are retraced. This novel is a deep, funny, and courageous novel that gives Angolan women a voice, while reflecting on identity issues.” – Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto, Portugal

Love in the Big City (Literary Fiction) by Sang Young Park Korea) tr. Anton Hur

“The novel follows the life of a young gay man in Seoul. It delves into identity, growth, pain through a queer lens. The story is set in Seoul but has a western sensibility. It is relatable and universal for readers of all background. The narrative is simple but intense and sensory with both humour and emotion. And there is in the end surprising poignancy and depth. Award-winning for its unique literary voice and perspective. The translation is great.” – Bucheon City Library, Republic of Korea

Love Marriage by Monica Ali (Bangladesh/UK)

“A clash of cultures evolves into a delicate examination of the ways in which both immigrant and non-immigrant families have shaped their children, diffusing unexplored suffering across generations.” – Milwaukee Public Library, USA

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko (Croatia) tr. Mima Simić

“Love Novel tells the story of a young married couple whose relationship is affected by the struggles of everyday reality. They are fighting for the survival of their love and the meaning of life in conditions of extreme economic insecurity. The lack of communication affects the relationship resulting in slow deterioration, followed by general dissatisfaction. This “love novel” becomes relevant again in today’s situation of new economic crises that we all face.” – Rijeka City Library, Croatia

Lovelier, Lonelier (Fiction) by Daryl Qilin Yam (Singapore)

“Lovelier, Lonelier is a strong study of character and explores the emotional impact of love and loss in a narrative that spans multiple countries. The writing is self-assured in its ability to connect the various characters through a number of personal tragedies. The novel tackles meaningful themes such as the nature of reality, the role of chance, intergenerational trauma, and the power of art to redeem or destroy.” – National Library Board of Singapore

Magma (Literary Fiction) by Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir (Iceland) tr. Meg Matich

“Magma is the first novel by Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir. In the book, she talks about the dark side of love and invisible violence. The main character Lilja falls in love with a man and is ready to go to great lengths for him. When she stops setting limits for him, Lilja loses control of herself and reality. A very interesting and well written book about a difficult subject that paints a picture of an abusive relationship.” – Reykjavík City Library, Iceland

Marzahn, Mon Amour (Uplifting Fiction) by Katja Oskamp (Germany) tr. Jo Heinrich – read my review here

“It is a book that allows a deep insight into the daily lives of the so called ordinary people. The author treats each of them with respect and approaches with careful empathy.” – Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf, Germany

Matrix (Fiction) by Lauren Groff (US)

“Matrix stands out for its exquisite use of language, particularly Groff’s seamless weaving of psalms and liturgical texts into the narrative, marrying the miraculous and the mundane into one ecstatic tapestry of feminine power.” – Richland Library, USA

Nettle and Bone (Fantasy/Horror Fiction) by T. Kingfisher

“The book mixes fantasy and feminist elements that are not exaggerated but instead very convincing because of Kingfisher’s thoughtful narrative style. This is adult fantasy literature far away from cliché featuring unique characters and surprising incidents.” – Universitätsbibliothek Bern, Switzerland

Of Fangs and Talons by Nicolas Mathieu (France) tr. Sam Taylor

“A bleak tale of the disenfranchised, in this case the factory workers and others living in a small town in the Vosges region of France. Things start to go downhill when the factory is set to close, then it gets worse. Compelling enough to want to read all in one sitting. Very excellent.” – The State Library of South Australia

Open Your Heart (Auto-fiction) by Alexie Morin (France) tr. Aimee Wall

“Open your Heart is an autobiographical novel depicting the story of two friends linked by a condition of illness and operation at a young age. A strong narrative that shed light through sufferings, power beyond discomfort, without restraint.” – Bibliothéque de Québec, Canada

Paradais (Literary Fiction) by Fernanda Melchor (Mexico) tr. Sophie Hughes (Spanish)

“The pace and intensity of the narration transmits all the sorrow, anger, and frustration that might make one empathize with some characters; and yet the novel is also relentless to show how coward self-justification and the inexcusable, selfish relief of one’s anger can make a victim as vile as any victimiser. The author thus depicts in few pages the complexity of human beings and of the context of their actions.” – Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas, Mexico

Scattered All Over the Earth (Science Fiction/Dystopia) by Yoko Tawada (Japan) tr. Margaret Mitsutani

“In a not too distant future, Japan has disappeared from the face o the earth due to an environmental catastrophe. In Yoko Tawada’s latest novel, we follow Hiruko, a climate refugee on her trip through Europe searching for someone else who speaks her mother tongue. Others join her and the small group is traveling from one bizarre and thoroughly comical situation to the next. It is fascinating how Tawada manages to combine the themes of our time in this first part of a planned trilogy: climate change, migration, globalization – and above all the key question: What does language mean for identity and human community?” – Zentral und Landesbibliothek, Berlin, Germany

Sea of Tranquility (Speculative/ Science Fiction) by Emily St. John Mandel (Canada)

“A fantastic (in all senses of the word) novel that somehow weaves a mystery and time travel and colonies on the moon and a pandemic and a double homicide together into a beautiful, life-affirming story.” – Winnipeg Public Library, Canada

“A masterpiece of speculative fiction, tying together historical fiction, time travel and references to our own experiences living through the Covid-19 pandemic in an ultimately hopeful exploration of the nature of existence and human connection. A time traveling detective sent to gather evidence about a rift in the fabric of reality is the thread that draws together disparate characters across centuries including an author very similar to St John Mandel herself. She writes beautifully, rendering the old growth forests of British Colombia and decaying moon colonies of the future equally with equal parts romance, imagination and vivid detail, instilling nostalgia for both. Captivating, deceptively light, Sea of Tranquility nevertheless touches on weighty topics—colonialism, the environment, loneliness, morality in a thought-provoking way.” – Ottawa Public Library, Canada

She’s a killer (Fiction) by Kirsten McDougall (New Zealand)

“Set in the very near future in New Zealand where the effects of climate change are really beginning to bite and affect both our physical world but also our society. The book is multi-layered, often very funny in a dark way, contains many layers of twists and turns and is a fabulous read to boot. It’s a fast-paced thriller which boasts great and complex characters. It’s both personal and intimate and about New Zealand and also the World simultaneously, dealing with global issues and events in a unique fashion.” – Wellington City Library, New Zealand

Silent Winds, Dry Seas by Vinod Busjeet (Mauritius/US)

“We are happy to nominate this novel from a local writer. The writing is engaging and evocative. The poetry of language successfully evokes a richly tropical, multi-sensual ambience. The scents are olfactible, colours brilliant, heat diaphoretic. The author skillfully dramatizes and limns distinctive and fascinating characters: Vishnu’s extended and extensive family, and community members and neighbours, fully developing their individual personalities and visages. They are not cardboard, they breathe. The plot itself incorporates global historical events as well as those in the Mauritian march to independence that serve to place the story in time. The end result is that you enjoy a quick-paced story while learning a bit about a place you never have been. A thoroughly enjoyable read.” – DC Public Library, USA

Small Things Like These (Fiction) by Claire Keegan (Ireland) – Read my review here

“With exceptional grace, economy and storytelling skill, Keegan has penned a classic story of moral courage that encapsulates so much of what it means to be human today. This short novel is bigger than any award but deserves all the recognition it can get.”– Chicago Public Library

“A tiny, perfect novel reminding us of a shameful part of Ireland’s history, seen through the eyes of a coal merchant whose eyes are opened to the iron grip of the Catholic church on the hearts and minds of his community. Heart-breaking and thought provoking.” – Waterford City and Council Library Services

“116 pages of beautifully written prose, the story centres around Bill Furlong, his upbringing, and his empathy to the inmates of the local Magdalene convent. Claire Keegan’s sublime and moving novel, covering the weeks before Christmas 1985, shows the importance of facing up to our past, and the historic collusion between Church, State, and Irish society. As Bill’s wife remarked; “If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on.” – Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Libraries, Dublin

“The master storytelling is in Furlong, as the gentle quiet hero. The reader would follow him to the darkest pits and back, and we do. This is a really important novel for a society where absolute authority has reigned. By the end of this book, the soul feels a little healed. “– Galway Public Libraries

Song for the Missing (Historical Fiction) by Pierre Jarawan (Lebanon/Germany) tr. Elisabeth Lauffer (German)

“2011. During the troubled times of the Arabic Spring, Amin recalls the year 1994, when he, as an orphan, came with his Grandma from Germany to Lebanon. He remembers the taboo of speaking about the 17.000 missing people in Lebanon and the silent grief of their relatives. Little by little, Amin discovers that his parents belong to the missing persons. With his friend Jafar, Amin roams Beirut and its traumatized population, until he meet a story teller, who sparks Amin’s interest in books.

Rooted in the oral storytelling traditions of the Orient and passionate, Pierre Jarawan narrates stories of the people of Lebanon to make the reader feel what is lost. A touching, political novel and a varied family story. “– Leipziger Städtische Bibliotheken, Germany

Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy (Historical Fiction) by Reem Bassiouney (Egypt) tr. Roger Allen (Arabic)

“Set against a historical backdrop, Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy sheds light on the last days of the Mamluk dynasty before its downfall. The Mamluks were defeated by the Ottoman troops in 1517 at the battle of Marj Dabiq, after which Tuman Bay was beheaded. The incidents of the trilogy start with the story behind the construction of the mosque of Sultan Hassan, whose architect is the offspring of a Mamluk prince who married an Egyptian girl, Zineb, under duress. Eventually, the mosque appears to be the dominant motif in the trilogy, which creates a well-wrought narrative, helping Bassiouney to depict a vivid picture of the social, political and economic life in Egypt under the rule of the Mamluks; a period that has always raised very controversial questions concerning its cultural and political inheritance. With the second story, the narrative shifts to different times where the very mosque becomes a bloodbath of the fighting Mamluks. In the final one, the conquering army ravishes the riches of mosque. Reem Bassiouney is a distinguished Egyptian novelist. She also received the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.” – Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt

The Anomaly (Popular Fiction) by Hervé Le Tellier (France) tr. Adriana Hunter

“In this highly original and inventive novel, Hervé le Tellier introduces his characters in chapters very different in tone to mix such genres as thriller, science-fiction, comedy or spy novel. Though mostly entertaining in tone with its use of pastiche and satire, the novel also tackles darker issues such as homophobia in the world of hip hop, cancer, child abuse, intricate love affairs, unethical business. This puzzling speculative fiction with its spatio-temporal rift also questions our perception of reality and ourselves.” – Bibliothèque publique d’Information, Paris, France

The Antarctica of Love(Literary Fiction) by Sara Stridsberg (Sweden) tr. Deborah Bragan-Turner

“Inni, a prostitute and drug addict, is brutally murdered in a forest. From the realm of the dead, she recounts her broken life. Rhythmically, her story returns to the end point of her existence, when the Hunter has ushered her into his car for a final journey. Carried by a powerful and poetic writing, this book sublimates the unbearable.” – Bibliothèque Municipale de Reims, France

The Bones of Barry Knight (Social Justice Fiction) by Emma Musty (UK)

“The Bones of Barry Knight is a contemporary novel focusing on a refugee camp in an unnamed country. It is very moving as it depicts the impact of war on everyday people. It is raw and unflinching, but also full of poignant beauty.” – Redbridge Library London, UK

The Book of Form and Emptiness (Literary Fiction/Magic Realism) by Ruth Ozeki (US)

“This beautifully written book deals with issues of family love, mental illness, grief and loss, and the importance of friends. It is philosophical, heart-breaking and empowering, and it is also full of joy.” -Dunedin Public Libraries, NZ

“The newest title from a beloved local author, this book takes place between the public library and the youth psych ward. It is simultaneously whimsical, philosophical, and heart-wrenching. It blends sympathetic characters and a vigorous engagement with everything from our attachment to material possessions to the climate crisis.” -Vancouver Public Library, Canada

The Clockwork Girl (Historical/Gothic Fiction) by Anna Mazzola (UK)

“A thoroughly immersive read, captivating and utterly thrilling. It’s easy for the reader to ensconce oneself in its masterfully crafted, self-contained universe. The historical setting is commendably subtle, suggested rather than imposed upon the reader. Simply superb!” – Tampere City Library, Finland

The Forests (Fiction/Dystopia) by Sandrine Collette (France) tr. Alison Anderson (French)

“The world is on fire. Only armed with love and hope, the young Corentin begins a terrible journey to the remote Valley of Forests, looking for Augustine his adoptive grandmother. A powerful and frightening post-apocalyptic novel.” – Réseau de Bibliothéques de Colmar, France

The Good Women of Safe Harbour (Uplifting Fiction) by Bobbi French (Canada)

“The Good Women of Safe Harbour by Bobbi French is a brilliant novel with rich characters and a strong sense of place. Set in Newfoundland in the final, beautiful summer of Frances Delaney’s “small” life, this book is wildly joyful and deeply sad. It challenges the reader to reevaluate the ways in which we see our lives, the good and the bad. This novel handles such difficult topics as mental illness, assisted suicide, abortion and mothers separated from their children while never for a moment leaving the central premise that life is beautiful and precious and must be celebrated. This book is a celebration.” – Newfoundland and Labrador Public Libraries, Canada

The Island of Missing Trees (Fiction) by Elif Shafak (Turkey/UK)

“This was a beautifully written book that wove true historical events into a thought provoking and emotional book. The characters are fully formed and bring to life the story of turmoil, betrayal, the need for understanding and acceptance , flitting between the present day and 1970s. The Fig Tree was a particularly unique narrator – and a reminder of the impacts of war of community and nature.” – Glasgow Life, Scotland

“A love story and a history of a long-lived conflict in the Island of Ciprus, love and hate, memory and trauma are perfectly represented.” -Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III – Napoli

“The Island of Missing Trees is a cleverly constructed novel with a touch of magical realism. It is masterfully told and written in an elegant language. Shafak explores the consequences of the civil war on ordinary lives and future generations. Highlighted themes are migration, homophobia, religion, loss and family secrets. Shafak inspires and delivers a beautiful, powerful novel full of empathy and hope.” – Openbare Bibliotheek Brugge (Bruges Public Library)

“This novel provides a human and compassionate account of tragic, traumatising, troubling and turbulent past of Cyprus. It shows us fractured communities torn apart by war, partition, division, religion, love, loss, grief, migration, the natural world, and the search for a sense of identity and belonging that refuses to be denied. Shafak writes through the prism of hope, moving on, renewal and healing, of the need to tell the stories of the past, rather than burying them, addressing the issues that hurt, and extend our concern and eyes to the natural world, to recognise its central integral place, like the fig tree growing in the tavern, within humanity and connect with it in the way our ancestors would have done.” – Rede de Bibliotecas de Lisboa

The Lincoln Highway (Popular Fiction) by Amor Towles (US)

“This title was the most popular 2021-22 Adult Fiction book read by Iowa City Public Library patrons last year.” – Iowa City Public Library

The Magician (Literary Fiction) by Colm Tóibín (Ireland)

“A beautifully written fictionalised biographical novel about Thomas Mann. He struggles to come to terms with disaster in his family, hidden desire and nationality. He opposes Nazism and has to flee from Germany to the United Stated and Switzerland. The novel triggers you to (re)read the work of Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann.” – Openbare Bibliotheek, Gent, Belgium

The Masterpiece by Ana Schnabl (Slovenia) tr. David Limon

“What really interests the author and what she excels at showing is the human condition, the motivations and desires of her characters. In rich literary prose, she discusses the cost of personal autonomy and the explosive power of love. She also provides insight into the writing process and sheds light on a vital component of producing art with the aid of her protagonists.” – Ljubljana City Library, Slovenia

“With The Masterpiece, Ana Schnabl proved her stylistic exceptionality, you don’t skip lines with her.” – Mariborska Libraries, Slovenia

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Norway) tr. Martin Aitken

“The Morning Star is a staggering, ambitious work about the small and the grand things. We meet a collection of people, loosely connected, who each get to tell their story. One night, in the middle of regular life, an enormous star appears in the sky. Nobody knows what it is, and after a little while things go back to normal. But not quite.” – Solvberget Library and Culture Centre, Norway

The Sentence; A Novel (Fiction) by Louise Erdrich (US)

“The Sentence is a captivating and inventively crafted novel. Tookie, the main character, is a middle-aged Native American woman just getting by and working in a Minneapolis bookstore that specialized in subjects of Indigenous culture and history. We get to know Tookie and her friends and family very well. They are each unique yet very believable. Even the eccentric ghost who appears intermittently is believable. This novel has it all: a compelling plot, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny; inventive word play; and a lively cast of colourful characters trying their best to honour their indigenous identities amid often cruel and inhospitable surroundings. – New Hampshire State Library, USA

The Trees: A Novel (Popular Fiction) by Percival Everett (US)

“The Trees is a powerful social satire of lasting importance.” – Free Library of Philadelphia, USA

The White Bathing Hut (Fiction) by Thorvald Steen (Norway) tr. James Anderson

“Since he was a youth he has lived with a rare muscle disease, but only when he is in his 60s and sitting in a wheelchair does he learn the truth about his grandfather and uncle, who had the same hereditary disease, and that his own mother never has told the truth.” – Olso Public Library, Norway

The Wonders (Literary Fiction) by Elena Medel (Spain) tr. Lizzie Davis and Thomas Bunstead

“Elena Medel’s first novel is a poetic and vivid portrait about two Spanish working-class women, Alicia y María, who are limited by class and gender dynamics. The novel stands out for its rhythmic prose and unforgettable characters.” – Biblioteca de Andalucía, Spain

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov (Bulgaria) tr. Angela Rodel

“A dystopian vision of Europe and the world in the face of a personal and collective memory breakdown leading to ‘a flood of the past’. Smuggling poetry into fiction, his style is both poetic and philosophical yet readable, funny, self-ironic. Gospodinov’s literature is coming from a small language and territory in the periphery of Europe, but has the power of giving meaning and empathy through great narrative voices and storytelling skills.

He is the most read author not only at the Sofia City Library, but also at the libraries across the country. A number of meetings about the novel were held in the library with various readers, provoking interesting discussions. ” – Sofia City Library, Bulgaria

Tomb of Sand (Literary Fiction) by Geetanjali Shree (India) tr. Daisy Rockwell (Hindi)

“This is an amazing and experimentally written book. Geetanjali Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders, highly recommend it, especially since it gives an insight to many customs and habits of India. A rare gem of a novel.” – India International Centre, India

What Strange Paradise by Omar El-Akkad (Canada)

“The refugee crisis told through the eyes of a child highlights the difficult circumstances of a group of Syrians on a boat in the Mediterranean, but underscores a sense of humanism binding all people together. ” – San Diego Public Library, USA

Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić (Bosnia-Herzegovina/Germany) tr. Saša Stanišić (German)

“Saša Stanišić and his mixed family (Serbian and Bosnian) flee from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and end up in Heidelberg, Germany, where they struggle to integrate, to a large extent because of the low paying jobs available to immigrants. Saša Stanišić tells his personal story in a touching, exciting and stylistic outstanding narrative Style. The novel was successful adapted for the Theater and won the German Book Prize in 2019.” – Stadtbücherei Heidelberg, Germany

“Third novel from internationally acclaimed and bestselling Bosnian-German author Saša Stanišic. The story follows a young refugee and his family who fled to Germany from Yugoslavia in the 1990s. A heartwarming and moving reflection on the process reshaping ones identity between countries, cultures and languages.” – Stadtbibliothek Bremen, Germany

Young Mungo (Fiction) by Douglas Stuart (Scotland/US)

“This is Stuart’s follow up to his debut Booker Prize-winning novel, Shuggie Bain, and while both books define themselves by a fractured Glaswegian family with an unreliable and fragile mother, Young Mungo turns toward the fifteen-year-old title character (named after the patron saint of Glasgow) as he navigates both first love and unrelenting danger.

This is a challenging novel of cruelty and carelessness where conflict – ideological and physical – persists, but Stuart’s compassionate mastery of language and storytelling provides an unexpected and gleaming tenderness.” – Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, USA

January 16, 2023 by Claire 'Word by Word'

The Glass-Blowers by Daphne du Maurier

The Glass-Blowers (1963) is a work of historical fiction by Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989), based on members of her own family. It begins in 1844 and is largely set during the French Revolution.

A Louis XV engraved crystal tumbler made by the Bussons and passed down through the family was in Daphne’s possession at the time she wrote this book. The novel will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2023.

An Ancestral Scoundrel

Daphne du Maurier was a fifth-generation descendant of a master glassblower who moved to England during the French Revolution. Until the author began researching her French ancestry, the family believed they were descended from the French aristocracy and that their ancestor Robert Busson (1747 – 1811) had fled France and the threat of the guillotine during the French Revolution.

The truth was known by his sister and documented in letters now held in a special collections archive at the University of Exeter. Despite knowing these family stories were false, Daphne’s grandfather George continued to perpetuate the story of the aristocratic ancestors. Her father Gerald, who then grew up listening to these tales, also insisted they were true.

Daphne’s research concluded that far from being aristocratic owners of a glass-blowing empire, Mathurin Robert Busson was a failed artisan glassmaker who had escaped to England to avoid a French debtors’ prison. He took the name du Maurier to provide himself status, becoming Mathurin Robert Busson du Maurier.

“She was not at all snobbish,” says American academic Anne Hall, who lives in the Perche region and has made a study of the du Mauriers’ French connection. “So she was genuinely very proud when she found out her ancestors were craftsmen.”

The du Maurier name was a reference to the farmhouse where his family had lived and worked – Le Maurier, still around today in the Perche region, 190km (120 miles) south-west of Paris.

The Glass-Blowers, the novel

The novel begins with an introductory prologue, where Madame Sophie Duval’s daughter writes to her mother of an extraordinary surprise, in meeting a young man at a dinner party whose name was Louis-Mathurin Busson, that he had been born and raised in England of émigré parents.

crystal artifact Daphne du Maurier The Glass-Blowers

The Louis XV engraved crystal tumbler made by ancestors of Daphne du Maurier

Recognising the names connected to her mother’s family, she enquired of his father’s profession, only to be told he had been a gentleman glass-blower who had owned several foundries before the Revolution and that due to being part of the aristocracy it had been necessary for them to emigrate. He had told her of his father’s tragic death on returning to France in the hope of restoring his family fortunes.

“I asked if he had relatives. He said he believed not. They had all been guillotined during the Terror, and the château Maurier and the glass-foundries destroyed.”

Wondering if this could be her brother’s son, Madame Duval decides to go to Paris immediately to meet this young man and ascertain if he is indeed her nephew. When he shows her an artifact (pictured here) his father left him, there remains no doubt it is indeed her brother’s son. There is much the boy does not know about his father, Sophie then promises to write.

Family History Revealed In Letters

“Perhaps we shall not see each other again. I will write to you, though, and tell you, as best I can, the story of your family. A glass-blower, remember, breathes life into a vessel, giving it shape and form and sometimes beauty; but he can with that same breath, shatter and destroy it. If what I write displeases you, it will not matter. Throw my letters in the fire unread, and keep your illusions. For myself, I have always preferred to know the truth.”

special collections archive University of Exeter

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Chapter One and the novel begins as Madame Sophie Duval begins to write the story to her nephew, covering sheet after sheet of writing paper in her formal upright hand.

Sophie narrates the story, beginning with her parents’ marriage and the change in lifestyle for her mother as they joined the company of glassblowers to begin a new life together.

My father Mathurin and my mother Magdaleine, with his sister Françoise and her husband Louis Démére – a master glass-maker like himself -seated themselves in the front of the waggon beside the driver, and behind them, in order of precedence, came the various craftsmen with their wives: the souffleurs, or blowers, the melters, and the flux-burners. The stokers, along with the driers, came in the second waggon, and a crowd of apprentices filled the third, with my father’s brother Michel in charge.

Familial Relationships Explored

By the time Sophie was twelve years old her father would be managing four glass-houses. Her elder brother Robert was given responsibilities, but seemed to prefer going off to the town and his rapidly acquired airs annoyed his father. Robert didn’t wish to spend his life dealing with merchants and traders, he believed that by mixing in a more refined society, he would create contacts and obtain more orders that way.

Photo by M. Balland @ Pexels.com

The novel explores the different characters of the brothers, Robert always wanting to get ahead by making foolhardy gambles, putting the family business at risk, Pierre, the dreamer who spends ten years in Martinique, returns and surprises them all by buying a notary’s practice in Le Mans and an advocate for citizen’s rights, and Michel, afflicted with a stutter, the least expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, will become the natural leader.

Sophie is the most conventional, an observer of events, rarely becoming actively involved, her sister Edmé something of an activist, particularly in the years of the revolution.

‘The glass world was unique, a law unto itself. It had its own rules and customs, and a separate language too, handed down not only from father to son but from master to apprentice, instituted heaven knows how many centuries ago wherever the glass-makers settled—in Normandy, in Lorraine, by the Loire—but always, naturally, by forests, for wood was the glass foundry’s food, the mainstay of its existence.’

La Grande Peur, France During the Revolution

The novel loses some of its pace when it moves away from the family business towards the revolutionary era, a period of terror, when rumour is rife of marauding bands of men roaming the nearby forests, food prices becoming exorbitant and strikes and disturbances continually breaking out in Paris and the big cities. Talk of a new constitution, new laws, equal rights for all and the removal of privileged classes was everywhere.

‘How,’ I asked, ‘would having a written Constitution make any of us better off?’

‘Because’, answered Pierre, ‘ by abolishing the feudal system the power of the privileged would be broken, and the money they take from all our pockets would go towards giving the country a sound economy.

This seemed to me all in the air, like so much of Pierre’s talk. The system might one day change, but human nature remained the same, and there were always people who profited at the expense of others.

Clearly the novel was very well researched, which at times compromised the pace of the story. I did set it aside at one stage and took a while to get back to it, that said, it’s a novel that is best persevered with, pushing through the more dense political sections.

It is a fascinating story and an interesting family history, even if not quite the one that was handed down through one of the family lines. What family doesn’t have skeletons in its closets, secrets buried deep and unknown relatives popping up when least expected?

‘I was the only one to know my brother’s secret, and I kept it even from my husband.’

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Hamnet was the winning novel of the Women’s Prize For Fiction in 2020 and won the fiction prize at the National Book Critics Circle Awards (2020). It was author Maggie O’Farrell’s eighth novel.

Behind Every Great Man…Is An Often Untold Story

Anne Hathaway Shakespeares wife Hamlet Set in 1580’s Stratford, Warwickshire, the novel is about the meeting of two young people, their respective families, the life they create and the effect their twin children have on it.

Though the husband will become a famous playwright and name one of his plays after the son they lose, this isn’t a story that centres around him or his work, neither is it really about the son – those names are more like the bright lights that make us curious to see what the fuss is about.

Delightfully, it’s all about Agnes.

“If you ask someone what they know about Shakespeare’s wife, you’ll probably receive one of two answers. Either: he hated her. Or: she tricked him into marriage. Historians and biographers and critics have for a long time inexplicably vilified and criticized her, creating a very misogynistic version of her. I wanted to persuade people to think again, to not rush to conclusions.

We are so accustomed to calling her ‘Anne Hathaway’ but her father’s will clearly names her as ‘Agnes’. That was an electrifying, defining moment in the writing of the book. In giving her what is presumably her birth name, I’m asking readers to discard what we think we know about her and see her anew.” Maggie O’Farrell

Twin Everything

I expected to be gripped early on, so was surprised that it took a while to get into sync with the very descriptive, present tense, third person, omniscient narrative perspective. Initially it felt like listening to someone -while looking through a camera – describe in minute detail every single detail in the frame as it was moving quickly forward.

It’s written in a dual narrative timeline in alternate chapters; the year that the twins fall ill and the year that these young parents meet. It is divided into two parts, Part 1 takes place before the death of Hamnet and the shorter Part 2, the aftermath.

The initial scene puts us in the eyes of this boy Hamnet as he rushes through his home and that of his grandparents, looking for someone, anyone, due to the sudden onset of deathly pestilence in his twin sister Judith.

Kestrel Agnes Hathaway Shakespeares wife

Photo by Walter Baxter

Love Always Finds A Way

As the chapters switch between Hamnet’s alarm given the pending emergency and the year his parents met, we get to know his father, a Latin tutor, son of a glove maker/tyrant and his mother Agnes, a farmer’s daughter, living with her disapproving stepmother.

These young people become each others refuge from family situations they’d both like to escape. Agnes is highly intuitive, has an in-depth knowledge of herbalism and possesses a kestrel the local priest gave her. She is unlike other young women, self-possessed, ‘knowing’.

“Some have asked Susanna how her mother does it. They have sidled up to her in the market or out in the streets to demand how Agnes divines what a body needs or lacks or bursts with, how she can tell if a soul is restive or hankering, how she knows what a person or a heart hides.”

The novel traces their relationship, marriage and the sacrificial act that came from her ability to perceive what was best for her husband (facilitating his venturing to London to find and pursue his purpose) and what best for her three children, while highlighting the tragic demise of their son, a turning point in their relationship.

“She, like all mothers, constantly casts out her thoughts, like fishing lines, towards her children, reminding herself of where they are, what they are doing, how they fare.”

Even in the boys passing there is something mystical in the way it is rendered. The boy is a twin, but also the son of a woman in touch with nature and with a feeling for ‘the other side’. What Hamnet did to save his sister comes of both those mysteries.

How Women Shape The Lives of Others

Forget that the playwright Shakespeare is a character in this novel and read it for the unique individuals they might have been, as ordinary people in a community, coming together against the odds. I really enjoyed that this was so much more about Agnes and that she had gifts she seemed able to live with and use as a mature woman, without persecution. A result and reward of a difficult childhood, after the untimely death of her own mother.

“She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married. She grows up, too, with the memory of what it meant to be properly loved, for what you are, not what you ought to be.”

By deliberately not mentioning the husband’s name, we imagine this couple encountering each other, evolving together, moving apart and coming back together, for nothing can both unite and divide a couple quite like the grief of losing a child.

“What is given may be taken away at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors; they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or a brigand. The trick is to never let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children’s hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play. Never for a moment forget that they may be gone, snatched from you, in the blink of an eye; borne away from you like thistledown.”

A novel of an auspicious pairing of souls, of longing and grief, of sacrifice and regret, I really enjoyed it after the slow start, despite the narrative perspective at times keeping me at a distance from the characters. O’Farrell does such a brilliant job in re-imagining this much maligned character, it makes you want to read and know much more about Agnes. About the women whose lives were rarely scribed.

Maggie O’Farrell, Author

Maggie O’Farrell is a Northern Irish novelist, now one of Britain’s most acclaimed and popular contemporary fiction authors whose work has been translated into over 30 languages. Her debut novel After You’d Gone won the Betty Trask Award and The Hand That First Held Mine the Costa Novel Award (2010).

She has written 9 novels and a superb memoir, I’ve reviewed here: I Am, I Am, I Am, Seventeen Brushes With Death.

Her latest book set in Renaissance Italy, The Marriage Portrait, tells the story of a 16-year-old duchess and her fateful marriage to the Duke of Ferrara – based on the short life of Lucrezia de’ Medici.

March 17, 2022 by Claire 'Word by Word'

I Will Die In A Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart

Many are reading literature from or about Ukraine at the moment, whether it is history, news reports, fiction or other. Below are a book and a diary I’m reading to both stay in touch and understand.

A Daily Reflection from A Woman in Kyiv

Ukranian author Yevgenia Belorusets lives in Kyiv, each day she writes from her neighbourhood, she goes out and meets people, takes a few pictures. You can read her very moving, human interest diary here.

Today she noticed cosy lights on in a café that has been closed since the beginning of the war:

Photo by E.Tariq on Pexels.com

I went inside and ordered a cappuccino, a drink I keep trying to find since the war started and, if successful, enjoy in a new way each time.

It is a game I play with myself. Every day I wonder if a coffee kiosk will be open on my route. When I get a cup, I’m immensely happy, as if I’ve received an unexpected gift.

The coffeehouse was open because an employee who had quit before the war offered to come back and work alone.

I Will Die In A Foreign Country, A Novel

Ukraine historical fiction I thought this was an excellent and exceptional novel, that I chose to read because it is too distressing and overwhelming to be bombarded with only the terrible news that is flooding us at the moment.

Rather than look away, here is a novel, whose intention is to pay homage to those who wish to preserve a culture, to protect their homes, to help the wounded, to ease the suffering of the dying, to sing their songs and tell their stories.

Kalani Pickhart is American, passionate about Ukranian history and culture and began to write this story in 2016, in the aftermath of the American elections.

In an interview with New Lines’ Lydia Wilson, Pickhart talks about her motivation and inspiration for writing this novel, which has come to the world at a time when many are trying to understand how these terrible patterns continue to repeat, and searching for some hope in a humanity that appears at times to have gone mad.

Ukraine 2013 – 2014

The novel is set in late 2013, early 2014 and on the opening page, there is a map of Ukraine and a timeline of events at Euromaidan (the site of mass protest), from November 21, 2013 the day the 4th President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign an association agreement with the European Union, precipitating protests, until late 2014 when the last barriacades and tents were removed from the city of Kyiv.

The novel is about four fictional characters, whose paths cross during this time, the story goes back and forth in time. The text is interspersed with other voices, most chapter headings indicating the place, the date, the voice or a subject, pieces that connect the narrative. With its relatively concise chapters, the narrative never overwhelms, like pieces of a jigsaw, as the story evolves and events unfold, geography is traversed, people respond to what confronts them, understanding broadens, a picture emerges.

Kobzari, Singing

Kobzari musicians Kalani PIckhart The first lines of the prologue are the collective voice of the Kobzari, whose story of persecution isn’t told until later in the book; like a Greek chorus, they recount aspects of Ukranina history, culture and tradition through the lyrics of song, ensuring a language, a culture and events can be carried forward to future generations.

Where does it begin? Ah, ah. Depends on who you ask…

It could begin with Scythians and Cimmerians, Slavs and the Rus’. Queen Olha. Vladmyr the Great. Yaroslav the Wise.

The Kobzari sing of events that will never be forgotten, like the church bells at St. Michael’s that rang in December 2013, something the church has only done once before: 800 years ago, against the Mongols. This collective voice slips into the narrative seamlessly, drip feeding the reader with an historical context.

Katya, the American Doctor

I Will Die in a Foreign Land Kalani Pickhart Literature Ukraine Katya is a Boston based, American doctor, working with the wounded inside a temporary medical clinic at St Michaels monastery. She is an outsider, drawn to the country because she was orphaned there, but grew up in America with no connection to her birth country. Hers, like the author, is an outside perspective, one that wants to know, to connect, to understand.

She has temporarily removed herself from having to face a broken marriage in the aftermath of the death of her son.

Ekaterina, her mother and father named her when they took her home from the orphanage. Ekaterina the Great. Looking over Kyiv, Katya feels neither great nor pure. Her son is dead, her marriage is dead, and her birthplace is on fire.

The Captain

One of Katya’s patients is a man they refer to as Captain, only known to people because he would play an outdoor piano every day on the street during the protests. Katya finds a telephone number and a cassette in his pocket. The Captain’s story is narrated through the playing of an audio tape, created for his daughter Anna. He too is an outsider, a former officer, a man whose loyalties have been dictated to him, who is given little choice. He shares his story in an old oral tradition.

My mother was the one with the gift. She had a soft voice that warbled like a bird, but it was my father who wanted us to learn music. We learned the arts, my father said, to be civilized people because the world was at times a most uncivilized place. I often forgot he survived the war.

The Violence of Spring

One of the (true) stories the Captain tells is of the composer Stravinsky’s controversial composition The Rite of Spring. He was invited by the Director of the newly opened Théâtre des Champs-Élysées to collaborate in a ballet. The work was so modern, it attracted a youthful audience and a riot broke out inside the theatre as the traditionalist patrons in the crowd began hurling insults, clashing with youth.

In his notes, Stravinsky said it is an episodic ballet without a cohesive beginning-to-end narrative. Instead, the episodes are bound by one unifying thread: the mystery and the great surge of the power of Spring.

It is a violent ballet, a violent composition, taking place in pagan Russia. During the performance in 1913, the choreographer, Nijinsky, before he went mad, had the dancers move in contorted, disfigured ways. It was obscene, the audience thought – an abomination of the arts, of theatre, of ballet.

Intrigued, I looked this up, it was one of the most notorious ballet performances of the 20th century, shattering the conventions of both classical music and dance. Here is France Musique’s excellent explanation (3 mins).

Micha, Ukranian Engineer

Micha is a Ukranian protest, helping out, an engineer, originally from Chernobyl, who worked in the mines. He was married to his childhood friend Vera, who succumbed to sickness.

The Exclusion Zone

His home is near where Katya was born, they return to visit his mother, to reconnect with a lost part of her, before her return.

I didn’t think people could live there anymore, but I heard stories about some old women whose husbands died, the samosely. I tried to convince my mother not to return. She said it was the only place she ever felt at home. A couple hundred babushkas had returned and she went with them. Women in their seventies, eighties having survived Stalin, genocide.

Slava, Ukranian Protestor

Slava and Micha are friends, she is from Odessa, a place she ran from after what happened to her there, something that fuels her determination. Slava meets a journalist Dascha, their relationship puts them both at risk.

You said you once protested with FEMEN – that is also very brave, I feel we have similar views, that you’re accepting of me.

Though it is novel told in fragments, through multiple narratives and voices, there is a fluidity and yet the plot moves quickly, as the connection(s) between characters are revealed, their motivations and behaviours come to be understood and revelations acknowledge the pressures and complexities of life in this country, some things universal, others unique to their history and geography.

Lest We Forget

As I neared the end of the book, on page 268, I read six pages of names that traverse the globe in culture, nationality, language, showing just how interconnected the world today is. It was the Passenger and Crew Manifest read aloud at trial for the victims of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The same day I read those names, I read this article indicating that today Australia and the Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia for the downing of flight MH17.

Loss, when it occurs, has memory stronger than the mind, stronger than visual recollection patterned in the brain. It’s something the flesh knows, the muscles know, like a dancer reciting a step done hundreds of times, like a musician playing a song or a scale after decades without practice. It’s something the body knows, something the body is aware of while the mind adapts, responds, reacts.

Highly Recommended.

Kalani Pickhart, Author

Kalani Pickhart, author of I Will Die in a Foreign Land, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. An American, she is the recipient of research fellowships from the Virginia G. Piper Center and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies.

She currently lives and writes in Phoenix, Arizona.

What is the act of love if not bold?

As the world comes apart, nothing to lose-

What is love if not a promise to go on?

Formative Years Bring a Taste of Freedom

Life As A Girl is Restricted

Finding a Way to Seascape

Passion, Piracy and Plunder

A Maverick Maiden

Further Reading

Author, Nuala O’Connor

The Shortlist of Six Novels

Judges’ Comments

Judges’ Comments

Judges’ Comments

Judges’ Comments

Judges’ Comments

Judges’ Comments

Reading From Libraries

Women of Courage, WWII

Past Circumstances, Present Lives

Studying in Paris, 1939

The Risk of Relying on the Family Business

Grandiose Empires and A False Prophet

Orphans, A Merchant, A Promise

Two Rivers Entwine, the Nile

Cycles of Conflict, Khartoum Today

Further Reading

Leila Aboulela, Author

The Longlist

An Ancestral Scoundrel

The Glass-Blowers, the novel

Family History Revealed In Letters

Familial Relationships Explored

La Grande Peur, France During the Revolution

Further Reading

An Irish Obsession and A Foreign Language Desire

Non-Fiction, A Rival to the Imagination

One Outstanding Read

Top 5 Fiction

Top 5 Non-Fiction

Behind Every Great Man…Is An Often Untold Story

Twin Everything

Love Always Finds A Way

How Women Shape The Lives of Others

Maggie O’Farrell, Author

A Daily Reflection from A Woman in Kyiv

I Will Die In A Foreign Country, A Novel

Ukraine 2013 – 2014

Kobzari, Singing

Katya, the American Doctor

The Violence of Spring

Micha, Ukranian Engineer

The Exclusion Zone

Slava, Ukranian Protestor

Lest We Forget

Further Reading/Listening

Kalani Pickhart, Author