Yazidis have been persecuted for centuries by groups - from Ottomans to Saddam’s Ba’athists - who looked at Yazidism, which is a monotheistic religion having elements in common with the many religions of the Middle East, with disdain. Many of those stories, sadly, are tragedies.” Barely four pages into the novel, she sets the tone of the narrative by penning the most poignant lines I have read in a while: “I think of my religion as being an ancient tree with thousands of rings, each telling a story in the long history of Yazidis. Murad’s writing cuts through one’s cultural conditioning, no matter how tough you think you are. Nadia Murad - the Yazidi author and Nobel Peace Prize winner - was one among the hundreds of women who were driven off in droves to Mosul and Syria, repeatedly raped, beaten up and sold off or exchanged between militants. The Islamic State, shortly after taking over Mosul in the summer of 2014, captured Kocho - rounding up and slaughtering hundreds of Yazidi men and elderly women for refusing to convert to Islam, brainwashing young boys and recruiting them into their militia, carting off young women like cattle and deploying sexual slavery as an orchestrated combat tool against them. The extermination of Yazidis - a religious minority group settled in the village of Kocho in western Iraq, 2014 - comprises the greater chunk of this agonising universe. If a book were like a home reflecting a tragedy that befell its inhabitants, The Last Girl would be like a universe teetering on the edge of collapse.
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She initiated several legal proceedings for better employment rights and wages, and for the implementation of prescribed quotas for lower-caste employees and students. Her mother, who was a teacher at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai, one of India's premier schools, became subsequently involved in debates around the Brahmin-led domination at the institution. Her parents, both low-caste Hindus, or "Dalits" from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, got married under the self-respect marriage act. The law, passed in the early 1940s in their state, rejects caste and enables Hindu marriages without the presence of a Brahmin priest, she says. But the motivations behind her work can't be summarized easily, she says: "I don't know where to start."Ī look back at her childhood and family background provides some insight into her work.Ī lot of Kandasamy's writing is the result of her sensitivity to injustice and the battles against inequity she witnessed as a child. Meena Kandasamy said she was in shock when she learned in September that she had won PEN Germany's 2022 Hermann Kesten Prize.ĭW contacted her ahead of the prize ceremony, held on November 15, to discuss her journey as a writer. Art must be given away to maintain its gift value, and the artist must fully nourish their creative spirit by sharing their art. But once the work is done, if the artist holds onto his painting, doesn’t show it, doesn’t share it, keeps it in a closet for no one to see-the art stalls out and ceases to be a gift. Art moves through the artist first: creative inspiration arrives as a gift, which gives the artist the momentum to do the work (“talent” is another gift, not to mention the luxury of time). So, if people pay money for art, is it a commodity? Hyde argues that art functions more like a gift because of the emotions involved, the soul work the artist put into the art, and because art creates a connection between giver and receiver.Īrt also is more like a gift than capital because art thrives when it moves. When you buy something, on the other hand, no bond is created the checkout person never thinks of me again. Gifts are, Hyde says, an important way to create ties between strangers: a gifted cigarette, cookies for the new neighbors. Hyde’s book is a study of gift-giving and the relationship between an artist and the recipient of the artwork (a reader, in my case). Masie Cochran, an editor at Tin House, called my agent and said she wanted to buy it, “as long as she reworks the scene where the sleepwalking sister kills all the chickens.”Īnd then, finally, only then, perhaps to celebrate, I bought and read The Gift. I was one of the lucky ones, and my first book, Rabbit Cake, was bought, eventually, following a healthy amount of rejection. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years-leaving the world in a state of panic. What if you knew exactly when you’d die? The first book of The Chemical Garden Trilogy.īy age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. I could go on and on about Bennett's lyrical writing voice, his expansive smarts, his winning humor (Q: What's your favorite blonde joke? A: Courtney Love), his iconic hair, but that would just be gushing. (I dunno where it went, but Bennett had a short story on Figment that included extensive X-Men references, which I probably should have saved somewhere just to re-read over and over, it was so good.) If you know anything about me, that's pretty much two of my favorite things ever. His blog, his Twitter, whatever the heck was out there in the technology wasteland of the late 2000s.īasically I unabashedly, and stalkerishly, became a fan.Ī few years later, I went to an author thing in New York and saw Bennett there and maybe said out loud, "Wow, Bennett Madison." I met him and we talked the shared language of X-Men and Wizard of Oz obsession. And of course I started following author Bennett Madison's, well, everything. After I read the first Lulu Dark, I Googled the heck out of everything and was delighted to discover that there was a sequel. A girl detective with killer fashion sense and Mean Girl-esque snark to match? I was hooked. Years ago, before I had ever read any young adult books, my agent told me to pick up Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls. I wouldnt be writing this if I didnt, but I have all sorts of physical problems that are directly the result of my brain damage.įirst of all, I ended up having forty-two teeth. And even if I somehow survived the mini-Hoover, I was supposed to suffer serious brain damage during the procedure and live the rest of my life as a vegetable. I was only six months old and I was supposed to croak during the surgery. Maybe the whole thing is weird and funny.īut, jeez, did my mother and father and big sister and grandma and cousins and aunts and uncles think it was funny when the doctors cut open my little skull and sucked out all that extra water with some tiny vacuum? Okay, so maybe thats not a very serious way to say it, either. My thinking and breathing and living engine slowed down and flooded.īut that makes the whole thing sound weirdo and funny, like my brain was a giant French fry, so it seems more serious and poetic and accurate to say, I was born with water on the brain. But weirdo me, I was born with too much grease inside my skull, and it got all thick and muddy and disgusting, and it only mucked up the works. And brain grease works inside the lobes like car grease works inside an engine. But cerebral spinal fluid is just the doctors fancy way of saying brain grease. I was actually born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside my skull. Ruth wanted NOTHING to do with Isabel, blaming her for the abandonment years ago and having not a single ounce of forgiveness in her. This sisterly bond was tumultuous at best. This book really did put their relationship front and center. I really loved the growth that both of their characters were able to undergo throughout the series. In this story, they really found a way to rely on each other, respect each other, and to become a unified team. She has hated him at times, and she has adored him at others. Isabel and Curzon’s relationship has seen some definite highs and some significant lows. She created incredible character relationships and dynamics in this series that developed so beautifully and came to perfect fruition in this final installment. Review: This was an incredible finale to the Seeds of America trilogy! Anderson did so well at bringing all of the different pieces from the series to a well-developed close in this story, and I thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment of this book. Their journey now brings them to the forefront of the Revolutionary War, traveling with the Continental Army and, whether they want to or not, joining the revolution. This won’t stop them from searching for Ruth, though. Summary: Isabel and Curzon are on the move, this time as reported runaway slaves – a severe crime. As their relationship grows, the Mycenaean king Agamemnon calls on the various Achaeans to join his military campaign against Troy, whose prince Paris has kidnapped his brother Menelaus' wife Helen. Convinced that a mortal of low status is an unsuitable companion for her son, Thetis attempts to separate the pair by sending Achilles to train under Chiron for two years, though Patroclus ultimately joins Achilles in his training. They become close friends and Patroclus develops feelings for Achilles. After Patroclus accidentally kills the son of one of his father's nobles, he is exiled to Phthia where he meets Achilles, the son of Phthia's king Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis. He is then obliged to take a blood oath in defense of her marriage to Menelaus. He is presented as a potential suitor to Helen of Troy. The book is narrated by Patroclus, the son of King Menoetius. In 2012, The Song of Achilles was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel follows Patroclus' relationship with Achilles, from their initial meeting to their exploits during the Trojan War, with focus on their romantic relationship. Set during the Greek Heroic Age, it is an adaptation of Homer's Iliad as told from the perspective of Patroclus. The Song of Achilles is a 2011 novel by American writer Madeline Miller. Cops who ingest drugs they’ve never heard of and then hit the streets bushy-tailed the next morning. 357 can generate enough force to embed a head hair in the ceiling. Cops who call a high-suicide area “Lemmingsville.” Cops whose sole reaction to splattered brains is wonderment at how a. For one thing, she’s got to earn her stripes among a cabal of enforcers callous as cobblestones. “Somehow,” she says before her maiden perjury, “I feel like I just did six lines of pink Peruvian.” truth so help you God, but it takes the dealers off the streets.” “You go in there and you answer and no, it isn’t the whole. “Everybody in (court) lies,” Kristen is told. To make their charges stick, they must perjure themselves in court. To win confidence, they must do the drugs they’re buying. To make their buys, they must win the confidence of the dealers. To make a case, the narcs don’t bend the rules they powder them down and swallow them whole. With partner Jim Raynor, Kristen is righteously hell-bent on meeting the drug-bust quota of an oleaginous, amoral police chief in Beaumont-a Texas town where races don’t mix and “the locals were always sighting UFOs and having personal encounters with aliens out there in the piney woods.” Cecile has borne Ferronaire two children, Marcel and his sister Marie. His mother, Cecile, is the mistress of Philippe Ferronaire, a rich French plantation owner. The story centers on Marcel, a young man who has one white parent and one parent who is half white and half black. The novel takes place in the 1840s, at which time there was a large population of free people of color living in New Orleans. Their mistresses however, were not all enslaved, some were free women of color whose families had been free for several generations. It was a common practice for the early caucasian settlers to free their children by their slave mistresses. The gens de couleur libres were the descendants of European settlers of Louisiana, particularly the French and Spanish and people of African descent. This novel is about the gens de couleur libres, or free people of color, who lived in New Orleans before the Civil War. |