Have fun with Book Review Bingo!

Have you ever noticed that book reviews always use the same words? Of course you have, since you are reading a blog that offers book reviews! To my excuse, I can say that English is not my first language and my vocabulary is not as vast as I'd like it to be. Now you can play Book Review Bingo with the overused adjectives while you're reading your book reviews! How funny! I'm culpable of using many of these words myself, here's the list:

compelling
beautifully written
lyrical
in the tradition of
rollicking
tour de force
thought-provoking
at once
haunting
riveting
nuanced
x meets x
cliché-free
stunning
epic
pitch-perfect
readable
timely
unputdownable
that said
gritty
powerful
sweeping
unflinching
fully-realised

What I'm going to do is find out how the bingo would come out in Italian. I'll browse through let's say 100 book reviews from magazines and semi-official blogs in search of over-used adjectives (of course I already have an idea) and then I would check my own reviews in Italian (of course there's not one hundred). "Avvincente" and "appassionante" will most likely make you win the "tombola" (bingo), as they are the Italian counterparts of words like compelling and gripping. The problem with Italian reviews is that for some reason reviewers, even professional ones, don't express their personal opinions and reactions as much as English-speaking reviewers do. They are comfortable with only one or two adjectives that express their opinions per review. By doing this, I think, you fail to give a complete review! You might as well read the back cover of the book and you'd get the same result!

49. “Blonde Roots” by Bernardine Evaristo

Year of first publication: 2008
Genre: novel, dystopian novel, fantasy novel, satirical novel
Country: UK

Doris Scagglethorpe lives in a cottage with her family in England. One day she is kidnapped and put aboard a slave ship bound for an imaginary country called New Ambossa. In a photographic negative of the slave trade, Bernardine Evaristo imagines what would have happened if the “whyte Europanes” were enslaved by “blak Aphrikans”. After experiencing the horrors of the Middle Passage, Doris becomes the playmate of a spoilt Ambossan brat called Little Miracle. Ambossans are rich and powerful: the women show with pride their plaited hair and their big bottoms, while the men go naked even when they are “hunting for Europanes” on the Cabbage Coast of England. This is of course because they can’t accept to wear the warm clothes of the Europanes, whom they consider inferior. Ambossans are in fact regarded as more sophisticated and African culture is universally considered more developed. Europanes, on the other hand, are barbaric people, who live in primitive square houses and have ridiculous customs, like that of having pets.
Doris, now renamed Omorenomwara in spite of her, works for Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I, who also has a huge plantation with whyte slaves in the New World. The second part of the novel is in fact set in a plantation ironically called Home Sweet Home, where Doris is sent to work as a slave. Here, there is a whole community of whyte slaves who speak “patois” and mix Europanes and Afrikan customs. Doris tries to escape twice and in one of her “runs for freedom” she walks through the city of Londolo, where the disused underground now serves as a clandestine way to escape from slavery. In the “Vanilla Suborbs” of Brixtane freed whytes spend hours trying to have an Aphro or have cheap nose-flattening jobs, while blak people shout “Go home, you’re stealing our jobs!”.
Evaristo worked really well with the language (she has a poetry background), giving an African twist to place names and English words. Despite being so innovative and postmodern, the book is reminiscent of Swift’s satire, with the same caricatures that made him famous.
Very humorous, but also very bitter at times, Blonde Roots, which is and adaptation of Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots, tells us of the horrors of the slave trade in a different way. While you’re reading it, you keep forgetting that Doris is white and her cruel master black. This helps you understand how things could have been easily reversed, had history taken a different turn. Evaristo mixes the historical into the contemporary, creating a dystopian novel that is very easy to read and engaging. It is nonetheless a very painful read, as other great novels about slavery are (I only name Toni Morisson’s Beloved, one of my all-time favourites).
My only criticism is a couple of unlikely coincidences and the confusing change of global geography (why should Europe be moved on the southern emisphere and Ambossa, which has the shape of England, placed off the African coast?), but overall it is an enjoyable novel.


About the author: Bernardine Evaristo was born in London to an English mother and a Nigerian father, the fourth of eight siblings. She is the author of three critically-acclaimed novels in verse: Lara (1997), The Emperor’s Babe (2001) and Soul Tourists (2005). Lara traces the roots of a mixed-race English-Nigerian-Brazilian-Irish family over 150 years. Her second novel tells the story of Zuleika, girls of Sudanese parentage, who grows up in Roman London 1800 years ago and who has an affair with Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Soul Tourists is about a car journey across Europe straring a mismatched couple, with cameo appearances en route from ghosts of colour from European history such as Pushkin, Alessandro De Medici and Mary Seacole. Blonde Roots (2008) is her first novel in prose.

Commonwealth Writers' Prize + Man Asian rules changed

Commonealth Writers Prize: shortlist for regional winners has been announced. I'm happy for Albert Wendt in the South East Asia and Pacific region. He's a Samoan writers who also works and writes in New Zealand. I read a couple of hi short stories and they were really good. When I have time, I will browse the web looking for plots and interesting books...

Africa
The shortlisted writers for Africa's Best Book are:
Trespass by Dawn Garisch (South Africa)
The Double Crown by Marié Heese (South Africa)
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
Eyo by Abidemi Sanusi (Nigeria)
Tsamma Season by Rosemund Handler (South Africa)
Refuge by Andrew Brown (South Africa)
Kings of the Water by Mark Behr (South Africa)

The shortlisted writers for Africa's Best First Book are:
I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani (Nigeria)
The Shape of Him by Gill Schierhout (South Africa)
The Shadow of a Smile by Kachi Ozumba (Nigeria)
Come Sunday by Isla Morley (South Africa)
Sleepers Wake by Alistair Morgan (South Africa)
Jelly Dog Days by Erica Emdon (South Africa)
Harmattan Rain by Aysha Harunna Attah (Ghana)

Caribbean and Canada
The shortlisted writers or the Caribbean and Canada Best Book are:
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels (Canada)
February by Lisa Moore (Canada)
Euphoria by Connie Gault (Canada)
Goya's Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky (Canada)
Galore by Michael Crummey (Canada)
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon (Canada)

The shortlisted writers for the Caribbean and Canada Best First Book are:
Under this Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell (Canada)
Daniel O'Thunder by Ian Weir (Canada)
The Island Quintet: Five Stories by Raymond Ramcharitar (Trinidad)
Diary of Interrupted Days by Dragan Todorovic (Canada)
The Briss by Michael Tregebov (Canada)
Amphibian by Carla Gunn (Canada)


South Asia and Europe
The shortlisted writers for South Asia and Europe Best Book are:
Solo by Rana Dasgupta (Britain)
For Pepper and Christ: A Novel by Keki Daruwalla (India)
The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel (Britain)
Heartland by Anthony Catwright (Britain)
Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein (Pakistan)
The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri (India)

The shortlisted writers for South Asia and Europe Best First Book are:
The Hungry Ghosts by Anne Berry (Britain)
Arzee the Dwarf by Chandrahas Choudhury (India)
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Pakistan)
Among Thieves by Mez Packer (Britain)
An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay (Britain)
Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Parkes (Britain)


South East Asia and Pacific
The shortlisted writers for South East Asia and Pacific Best Book are:
Summertime by J.M Coetzee (Australia)
A Good Land by Nada Awar Jarrar (Australia)
The Adventures of Vela by Albert Wendt (Samoa)
Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw (New Zealand)
The People's Train by Thomas Keneally (Australia)
Parrot and Oliver in America by Peter Carey (Australia)

The shortlisted writers for South East Asia and Pacific Best First Book are:
The Ice Age by Kirsten Reed (Australia)
After the fire, a still small voice by Evie Wyld (Australia)
Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho (Australia)
Document Z by Andrew Croome (Australia)
Come Inside by Glenys Osborne (Australia)
Siddon Rock by Glenda Guest (Australia)


Do yo remember the Man Asian Literary Prize? I wrote about it a few times. It’s supposed to help English-speaking readers to discovers Asian literature, promoting books unpublished in English, which means that they might have written in another language, let’s say Chinese or Thai.
Great thing, except that now the rules have changed. A blogger friend from Malaysia, Sharon of Bibliobibuli, wrote about it with more details. Well, to sum it up now the prize is opened only to novels first published in English in 2010… so forget about those countries whose literature you wanted to get your hands to. No more Vietnam or Myanmar, Sharon says.

48. “Guida all’Impero per la Gente Comune” di Arundhati Roy [Italian version]

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 2002-2003
Genere: saggistica
Paese: l’autrice è indiana, ma gli articoli hanno anche a che fare con altri paesi, come l’Iraq, l’Afghanistan e il Pakistan

La mia recensione di Guida all’Impero per la Gente Comune è uscita in italiano sulla rivista culturale Paper Street ed è disponibile a questo link. Per non ripetermi, scriverò un po’ più in generale dell’autrice e di un recente risvolto del suo attivismo politico.

Arundhati Roy la cannibale, Arundhati Roy la hooligan. Alcuni la odiano e altri la amano. Io sono tra quelli che l’amano, sebbene non sia sempre d’accordo con lei. Per esempio quando, in un recente articolo pubblicato su Outlook India (pubblicato anche con il titolo “La guerra nel cuore dell’India” su Internazionale n.821, 13/19 Novembre 2009) , giustifica i ribelli maoisti, un gruppo di guerriglieri che sta dando numerosi problemi al governo indiano. Secondo me, il problema non è se queste persone abbiano ragione o no (naturalmente hanno ragione a non volere che le loro terre vengano sfruttate ed espropriate), il problema è che usano la violenza e il terrorismo per farlo. Roy ha per caso dimenticato il “metodo non-violento gandhiano” che ha portato il suo paese all’indipendenza? E’ arrivata alla conclusione che è fuori moda ed inutile digiunare e scioperare per i propri diritti di questi tempi? La violenza porta solo ad altra violenza: “occhio per occhio e tutto il mondo diventa cieco” diceva Gandhi. Per di più, tutti i gruppi di guerriglia che mi vengono in mente (le FARC colombiane o gli Shan in Birmania) hanno cominciato come idealiste e poi hanno finito per usare metodi illegali come il traffico di droga per finanziarsi, curandosi sempre meno dei loro scopi originali.

A parte i miei disaccordi personali con alcune delle sue opinioni, quello che ti fa ammirare questa quarantottenne indiana magrolina che vuole cambiare il mondo è che usa la scrittura come un’arma. E’ la passione che ci mette in quello per cui lotta e per cui crede che ti fa leggere con trepidazione ogni articolo che scrive, anche si tratti di qualcosa di distante dalla nostra vita di tutti i giorni come i gruppi tribali indiani. E la mia ammirazione per lei non è stata scalfita da questo esito inaspettato del suo attivismo.
Guida all’Impero per la Gente Comune è una collezione di saggi di Arundhati Roy scritti tra il 2002 e il 2003, nel periodo successivo all’11 settembre. Lungi da sembrare datati, gli articoli riguardano la relazione tra i potenti e le persone comuni, impotenti e sfruttate da quelli che detengono il potere. Che siano talebani, un gruppo tribale indiano o cittadini americani poco importa, ad Arundhati Roy importa delle persone comuni, ed è evidente nel suo difendere i ribelli maoisti, che sono persone comuni privare della loro terra.

Ora i ribelli maoisti hanno chiesto ad Arundhati Roy di mediare con il governo. Roy ha rifiutato naturalmente, dicendo che lei è una scrittrice e non ha le capacità di un mediatore. Invece spera in un cessate il fuoco di entrambe le parti. Perciò mi chiedo se Arundhati Roy di fatto approvi i mezzi usati dai maoisti per ottenere quello che vogliono, in assenza di alternative, oppure è d’accordo soltanto con la loro causa? Perché mi sembrava che, almeno dall’articolo sopraccitato, non stesse solo sostenendo la loro causa, ma stesse anche giustificando i loro atti di violenza nel nome di “un bene più grande”.

Sull'autrice: segui questo link, che contiene anche la mia recensione (in inglese) dell'unico romanzo scritto da Arundhati Roy, Il Dio delle Piccole Cose.

48. “The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire” by Arundhati Roy [English version]

Year of first publication: 2002-2003
Genre: non-fiction
Country: the author is Indian, but the essays also deal with other countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

My review of The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire has appeared in Italian on the cultural magazine Paper Street and it’s available at this link. In order not to repeat myself, even if in another language, I will write more in general about the author and about a recent outcome of her political activism.

Arundhati Roy the cannibal, Arundhati Roy the hooligan. Some people hate her and some people love her. I’m among those who love her, even though I don’t always agree with her. For example when, in a recent article published in Outlook India, she justified the Maoist rebels, a guerrilla group that is giving a lot of troubles to the Indian government. In my opinion, the problem is not whether or not these people are right (of course they’re right in wanting their lands not to be exploited and expropriated), the problem is that they use violence and terrorism to do that. Has Roy forgotten the “Gandhian non-violent approach” that led her country to independence? Has she come to the conclusion that it’s old fashioned and useless to fast and strike for your rights in times like these? Violence only lead to more violence; “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” Gandhi used to say. Moreover, all the guerrilla groups I can think of (the Colombian FARC or the Shan in Burma) started off as idealistic and ended up using illegal activities like drug smuggling to finance themselves, caring less and less about their original aims.

Apart from my personal disagreements with some of her opinions, what makes you admire this 48-year-old skinny Indian woman who wants to change the world is that she uses writing as a weapon. It’s the passion that she puts in what she fights for and believes in that makes you read with trepidation every article that she writes, even if it’s about something very distant from your everyday life as the tribal groups of India. And my admiration for her has not been touched by this unexpected outcome of her activism.
The Ordinary Person’s Guide to the Empire is a collection of essays by Arundhati Roy written in 2002-2003 on the aftermath of 9/11. Far from sounding dated, the essays are about the relationship between the powerful and ordinary people, helpless and exploited by those who detain the power. Whether they are Talibans, a tribal group of India or American citizens, ordinary people are what matters for Roy and this is evident in her defence of the Maoist rebels, who are ordinary people deprived of their lands.

Now the Maoist rebels have asked Roy to mediate with the government. Roy has of course rejected the offer, on the grounds that she is a writer and she doesn’t have the skills of a mediator. She hopes for a ceasefire on both sides, instead. So does Arundhati Roy actually support the Maoist’s means to get what they want in absence of alternative ways or does she only agree with the cause? Because it seemed to me that, at least from the article aforementioned, she was not only advocating their cause, but also justifying their acts of violence in name of “a greater good”.

About the author: follow this link to my review of her only novel, The God of Small Things.

47. "Miramar" by Nagib Mahfuz [English version]

Year of first publication: 1967
Genre: novel

Country: Egypt

Naguib Mahfouz (or Nagib Mahfuz, according to the transliteration), Nobel Prize for Literature 1988, is not only one of the greatest Arabic-language writers, but also one of the greatest African writers. In spite of this, at least in Italy he is little known and few people – better to say very few people - read him.
Miramar is set in the 1960s in Alexandria, Egypt: the novel starts from the point of view of ‘Amer Wagdi, a retired journalist, who arrives at a boarding house called Miramar, managed by one of his old acquaintances, Mariana. The boarding house was once a fashionable place where classy people used to meet. Mariana was beautiful and haughty too. The situation of the guesthouse and its owner reflects that of the ancient and once marvellous city of Alexandria, that has always been an inspiration for poets.
One day a girl called Zahra comes to the guesthouse in order to ask for shelter and work. She is the daughter of an old client and she’s very beautiful, despite the fact that she is a peasant without an education. What soon follows is an affectionate friendship between ‘Amer Wagdi and Zahra, who escaped from her village after her grandfather tried to marry her off to a much older man. In town Zahra receives several marriage proposals, from young men staying at the guesthouse and even from the newsagent. The rest of the novel is told by Zahra’s three “suitors”: Hosni ‘Allam, Mansur Bahi and Sarhan al-Buheiri. The three of them fall in love with the girl, with different nuances. The chauvinism of Egyptian society is perceived, but also the independence and the obstinacy of its women is evident.
The story that struck me as the most interesting is that of Sarhan al-Buheiri, who has a relationship with a girl named Safiyya, a “good for nothing”, but doesn’t want to marry her or anyone else. He falls in love with Zahra instantly and says that he really loves her, but he doesn’t consider her suitable for marriage, because she doesn’t have an education or a job that can prospect a rise in society. He thinks a lot about that and ends up offering her a traditional Islamic marriage, without witnesses. Sarhan claims that love and marriage are two separate things and as a matter of fact ends up marrying ‘Aliyya, the teacher Zahra had hired to have some education, in the hope of being accepted by Sarhan.
Miramar tells the same story four times, from four different points of view. But the most fascinating thing is that the whole story is a metaphor: Zahra represents modern Egypt, honest and hard-working but without an education. Zahra – and Egypt – are influenced by several forces: Europeans, nationalists, the rich upper-class and the Muslim Brotherhood, but in the end she demonstrates her independence and obstinacy. Miramar is also a detective novel, albeit rather unusual, because there is a mystery which is not solved until the end of the book.

About the author: Nagib Mahfuz (1911-2006) was born in Cairo into a middle class family. He graduated in philosophy from Cairo university and wrote more than 50 novels, many of which has been adapted for the silver screen. His first novels can de described as historical, but his interests became more sociologic, with a series of novels entitled like streets and buildings of Cairo and therefore called “Cairo trilogy”: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. Disillusioned by Nasser regime, he stopped writing for a few years and then came back with Chichat on the Nile (1966), which criticized the decadence of Egyptian society and was banned by Sadat. Children of Gebelawi (1959), one of his most famous books, was banned for alleged blasphemy for the allegorical portrayal of God and the monotheistic religions. Like many other Arab intellectuals, he has been on the death list of fundamentalists (he was also suspected of atheism, reason for which he was transferred from the Minister of Religion to that of Culture). Mahfouz, who firmly believed in freedom of opinion, defended Salman Rushdie, against whom ayatollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, even though he didn’t agree with Rushdie on his view of Islam. Some of the old polemics against his book Children of Gibelawi resurfaced and he was put under protection, like Rushdie. This was not enough and he was stubbed, leaving him with a permanent lesion on his right hand. Unable to write for more than a few minutes per day, Mahfouz wrote less and less, until his death in 2006. He is one the greatest Arabic-language writers and the first among them to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

47. "Miramar" by Nagib Mahfuz

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 1967
Genere: romanzo
Paese: Egitto

In English: Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz (alternative spelling) [By the way, Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy was given as one of Africa's 100 best books of the 20th century, in a list compiled at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair]

Nagib Mahfuz, Premio Nobel per la Letteratura 1988, è non solo uno dei più grandi scrittori di lingua araba, ma anche uno dei più grandi scrttori africani. Eppure, almeno in Italia, è poco conosciuto, lo leggono in pochi, anzi in pochissimi.
Questo Miramar è ambientato negli anni ’60 ad Alessandria d’Egitto: il romanzo inizia dal punto di vista di ‘Amer Wagdi, un giornalista in pensione, che arriva alla pensione Miramar, gestita da una sua vecchia conoscenza, Mariana. La pensione un tempo era un luogo elegante dove si riunivano le persone di gran classe. Anche Mariana era bellissima e maestosa. La situazione della pensione e della proprietaria rispecchia naturalmente quella dell’antichissima e un tempo bellissima città di Alessandria, che da sempre è ispirazione per i poeti.
Un giorno alla pensione arriva una ragazza, Zahra, a chiedere a Mariana rifugio e un lavoro. E’ la figlia di un vecchio cliente ed è bellissima, nonostante sia una contadina senza istruzione. Nasce subito un’amicizia affettuosa tra ‘Amer Wagdi e Zahra, che è scappata dal suo villaggio dopo che il nonno ha cercato di obbligarla a sposare un uomo molto più anziano di lei. In città Zahra riceve numerose proposte di matrimonio, dai giovani che soggiornano alla pensione e persino dal giornalaio. Il resto del romanzo è narrato dal punto di vista dai tre “pretendenti” di Zahra, Hosni ‘Allam, Mansur Bahi e Sarhan al-Buheiri. Tutti e tre si innamorano della ragazza, con sfumature diverse. Si percepisce il maschilismo della società egiziana, ma anche l’indipendenza e la caparbietà delle sue donne.
La storia che mi ha colpito di più è quella di Sarhan al-Buheiri, che ha una relazione con una ragazza, Safiyya, una “poco di buono”, ma non vuole sposare né lei né nessun altra. Si innamora all’istante di Zahra e dice di amarla veramente, ma non la considera adatta al matrimonio, perché non ha un’istruzione né un lavoro che gli permetta una minima ascesa sociale. Si fa molti scrupoli sulla faccenda e arriva al punto di volerla sposare con il matrimonio islamico originale, senza testimoni. Sarhan sostiene che l’amore è una cosa e il matrimonio un’altra, ed infatti finisce per sposare ‘Aliyya, la maestra che Zahra aveva chiamato per farsi dare un minimo di istruzione, con la vana speranza di essere accettata da Sarhan.
Miramar narra la stessa storia quattro volte, da quattro punti di vista differenti. Ma la cosa più affascinante è che tutta la storia è una metafora: Zahra rappresenta l’Egitto moderno, onesto e laborioso ma senza istruzione. Zahra – e l’Egitto – vengono influenzati da diverse forze: gli europei, i nazionalisti, la ricca alta borghesia e i Fratelli Musulmani, ma alla fine dimostra la sua indipendenza e caparbietà. Miramar è anche un romanzo giallo, sebbene alquanto inusuale, perché c’è un mistero che non verrà risolto fino più o meno alla fine del libro.

Sull’autore: Nagib Mahfuz (1911 – 2006), nato in una famiglia piccolo-borghese al Cairo, si è laureato in filosofia all’Università del Cairo e scrisse più di cinquanta romanzi, molti dei quali sono stati adattati per il cinema. I suoi primi romanzi possono essere definiti storici, ma poi i suoi interessi divennero piuttosto sociologici, con una serie di romanzi intitolati come vie e palazzi del Cairo e perciò denominati "trilogia del Cairo": Tra i Due Palazzi, Il Palazzo del Desiderio, La Via dello Zucchero. Disilluso dal regime di Nasser, smise di scrivere per qualche anno e poi riprese con Chiacchiere sul Nilo (1966), critico verso la decadenza della società egiziana e proibito da Sadat. Il Rione dei Ragazzi (1959), uno dei suoi libri più famosi, fu proibito per presunta blasfemia nell’allegorico ritratto di Dio e delle religioni monoteistiche. Come molti altri intellettuali arabi, è stato nella lista nera dei fondamentalisti (fu, tra l’altro, sospettato di ateismo, motivo per il quale fu trasferito dal Ministero della Religione a quello della Cultura). Mahfuz, che credeva fermamente nella libertà d’opinione, difese Salman Rushdie contro il quale l’ayatollah Khomeini aveva dichiarato una fatwa, seppur non condividendo le posizioni sull’Islam dello scrittore anglo-indiano. La cosa fece riaffiorare delle vecchie polemiche riguardo al suo romanzo Il Rione dei Ragazzi e Mahfuz fu messo sotto scorta, come Rushdie. Questo non bastò e Mahfuz venne comunque aggredito e pugnalato, provocandogli una lesione permanente alla mano destra. Incapace di scrivere per più di qualche minuto al giorno, Mahfuz scrisse sempre di meno, fino alla morte avvenuta nel 2006. Mahfuz rimane uno dei grandi scrittori in lingua araba e il primo fra questi ad aver vinto il Premio Nobel per la Letteratura.