A worthy if overlong introduction to a unique and atmospheric African writer’s work.
A career-spanning collection from the Mozambican writer, seeking an intersection between his country’s folklore and its colonial past.
Many of the stories here appear in English (from the Portuguese) for the first time, drawing from works first published in 1986 to a clutch of new material. Despite that breadth, Couto’s concerns, and much of his style, have remained consistent: He focuses on the inner lives of everyday people, usually with a twist involving mysticism or superstition. “The Tale of the Two Who Returned From the Dead” is about just that, about two apparitions caught up in the local bureaucracy. In “The Flagpoles of Beyondwards,” an allegory about the impossibility of isolation from outside forces, a man tries to protect his daughter from a visitor’s attention. Shape-shifting abounds: A heart gives birth to a child in “The Child’s Heart and the Heart’s Child” while a man’s wife takes the form of multiple women in “Ezequiela, Humanity,” much to the husband’s pleasure and, eventually, fear. Stories drawn from the collection Rain: And Other Stories(2019) deal more explicitly with Mozambican history, specifically its civil war that ran from the 1970s through the '90s, but he’s more interested in conjuring a melancholy mood. That’s not always to his credit; stories often don’t end so much as drift to lyrical conclusions; his recent Sands of the Emperor Trilogy (Woman of the Ashes, 2018, etc.) is on sturdier historical footing. But his most potent stories here merge the humane and surrealistic, often with nautical premises. A whale is believed capable of providing whatever a man might wish; a mute girl who finds her voice at the seashore and the neighbors in the closing title story speak in bittersweet tones about their (and our) connection to the sea: “A tear is the sea caressing your soul. That little speck of water is us as we return to the womb we came from.”
A worthy if overlong introduction to a unique and atmospheric African writer’s work.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7796-388-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.
A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.
In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489277
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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