BOOK REVIEWS FOR WRITERS
The book reviews on this site bring together my love of literature, political science background, and experience living abroad in an attempt to understand the world. As a novelist, I also write about what these writers teach me about craft and how they influence my writing.
AFRICA
Chinua Achebe and Why I Don’t Read Enough About Africa
When novelist Chinua Achebe died late last week, I remembered that I had several of his books sitting at home and had still not read any of them. I thought for a few minutes about why I hadn't. … [Read More...]
ASIA
Reinventing Language with The God of Small Things
Of The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, John Updike wrote, “A novel of real ambition must invent its own language, and this one does.” This quote alone is neither complimentary nor … [Read More...]
LATIN AMERICA
Gabriela and the Widow: Jack Remick Teaches Writing through Writing
The old adage, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” does not at all apply to Jack Remick. Before I read Gabriela and the Widow, Jack taught me about writing with the insightful questions … [Read More...]
USA & CANADA
Coming Home with Truman Capote’s The Grass Harp
Maybe the reason you can't go home again is that you can never see all of what it was—you could only glimpse one angle of it and as you age you see another and then another, but the place you grew … [Read More...]
ARABIA
Dunya Mikhail Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea
On the tenth anniversary of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, I listened on NPR as Renee Montagne interviewed an Iraqi poet who fled her homeland and I knew immediately it was Dunya Mikhail and that I had … [Read More...]
EASTERN EUROPE
Adapting Kafka’s The Trial for the Western Stage
When I read that New Century Theatre Company was staging Kenneth Albers' adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Trial in the former INS building, I knew I had to go. When I read The Trial, one of the things … [Read More...]
SOUTH PACIFIC
Kira Salak and Adventures in Travel (Writing) with The White Mary
I read The White Mary by Kira Salak on a flight from Seattle to Paris at the start of my first trip abroad in four years. The story of a journalist on a quest for her idol who the world thinks is dead … [Read More...]
WESTERN EUROPE
The Quiet Menace of Inner China by Eva Sjödin
Frequent readers of this blog will know how much I appreciate spare language. Inner China by Eva Sjödin and translated from the Swedish by Jennifer Hayashida shows brilliantly just how much horror … [Read More...]
