As some of you may know, I am working on establishing a website which will have a link to this blog. The blog will be devoted to two activities, reading and writing. All of you are invited to post on these subjects as well. I know I don't have to remind you to show consideration for opinions different from yours. Discussion is most interesting when people have varied opinions. However, in order for all of us to feel comfortable about expressing our point of view, it's vital for us to be respectful of each other.
If you know someone else in a book club, please give the address of this blog to them. We want to hear from book club members and individual readers from all over the world.
Terri, a writer friend, will be running the proposed website and blog with me. About a month ago we went to a reading sponsored by Words Without Borders. www.wordswithoutborders.org and The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in Soho. At the reading, we heard a story and poem from a young Jamaican short story writer and poet named Kei Miller. I will be using his book FEAR OF STONES in the Scarsdale Adult School's spring session of BookTalk. Miller said he started writing poetry in order to improve his prose. I could be wrong and often have been, but given eoough exposure, I think his work might please a wide audience.
A Caribbean writer who already has been noticed by US critics is Junot Diaz (sorry, no tilde on my keyboard). I have been reading some of his stories in old New Yorkers about his characters in the well reviewed THE SHORT WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO. Michiko Katutani's reveiw can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/books/04diaz.html Diaz also has a collection of short stories titled DROWN, published before his novel.
I get the feeling that as the US becomes more diverse, readers may have to be a bit relaxed about finding foreign words in contemporary literature. Those of us who read Chabon's THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION and don't know Yiddish will recognize this phenomena. Either we will have to become multi lingual or we will have to improve our contextual reading skills.
I just finished SAMIRA AND SAMIR which I found compelling but don't know whether other people will .If you're interested check it out. This is the informaiom on the book and author from Amazon UK.
Synopsis
When the young Afghanistanian girl Samira is born, her father, a commander fighting in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, decides to raise her as a boy called Samir. The fact that Samir is really a girl is soon forgotton as Samir learns to fight, ride and shoot as well as any boy and when her father is killed she becomes the head of the family. As an adult, she falls in love with the male friend of her youth and is forced to reveal her true identity. In order to marry Bashir, she must relinquish the freedom she is afforded as a man. Samira follows her heart but hates wearing the veil. Eventually, the torment becomes too great and she decides that there must be a third way to live, as a confident woman not confined by the rules of her culture. This is her story.
About the Author
Siba Shakib:
Born in Iran, Siba Shakib grew up in Tehran and attended a German school there. A writer and maker of documentaries and films, she has travelled to Afghanistan many times over the last five years, visiting the north as well as the territory that was commanded by the Taliban. Several of her documentaries have won awards, including the moving testimonials she has made of the horrors of life in Afghanistan and the plight of the Afghan women. She lives in New York and Germany.
I found the writing terse, the situations authentic and shocking. The writing is not beautiful but appropriate to the subject. THE SIRENS OF BAGDHAD, Yasmina Khadra's book, Which I have just started, is also a page turner, as most of his books are, but I don't find the writing as strong as Shakib's,
Still, I don't know whether other people will like SAMIRA AND SAMIR. If you're interested in tribal Afghan lives, about which, most of us know nothing, I think you'll want to read it. It's advertised as a true story, but from what I've read, the author either heard the tale or met the woman who is the heroine/hero, but the book reads as a novel and I think much of it is imagined by the author.
Also on my night table is a library copy of the 2007 fiction National Book Awartd winner, TREE OF SMOKE by Denis Johnson. I've read a few pages and the writing grabbed me. It's long but I look forward to reading it.
That's enough for now. Look forward to hearing about what you're thinking and reading. I will try to post something each week and will email you all the address.
Harriet
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