Tag: 2011

Purgatory by Tomas Eloy Martinez

~ winstonsdad ~ 10 Comments

Purgatory by Tomas Eloy Martinez

Argentina fiction

Translator – Frank Wynne

I read his Santa Evita a mythical magic realism tale based around the life of Eva Peron early on in the blog and have Tango singer sat on my shelves so when this arrived from Bloomsbury I was excited even more so when I saw it was one of Frank Wynne’s translation ,for me one of the best translators  in the world and certainly when in comes to complex fiction like this .

So Purgatory was Tomas last novel and the fact that in part it is narrated by a north american based Argentina writer as Tomas Eloy himself .The story is centre on Simon and Emilia these where husband and wife, when thirty years earlier in the seventies at the height of the disappearances in Argentina by the Junta .Simon disappear whilst doing his job as a cartographer .Now thirty years later his wife Emilia walks in a bar and sitting there is Simon ,but he hasn’t aged a day ,is it him or a ghost that never really gets answered but as the story progress Martinez jumps from the events leading up to Simon disappearance there married life ,their work as cartographers ,also what was going on around them .We also her Emilia talking to the writer in the modern day about her life and Simon .Also the outside world of the world cup of 78 which was held in Argentina ,Orson Welles    and UFO  all crop up along the way .

Simon disappeared in Tucuman at the beginning of July .The days were mild and the nights frosty .He and Emilia had been sent to the Tucuman by the automobile club on an easy mission , virtually a holiday .They were to map a ten kilometre stretch of an invisible route – nothing more than a dotted line on the map to the south of the province .

in this quote it seems ok til you read it closer .

 

Now this story is layered the title is a give away to the subject Purgatory and even this has many faces ,Emilia unable to properly move on with her life after Simons disappearance as she has been in limbo like many wifes of the disappeared  ,has maybe by see him purged this feeling  from her life .Argentina its self maybe after a time of not looking at what happened during the time of disappearances and now is maybe  just recently is able to face what happened during that time of the junta .I ve seen this in a number of recent Argentina novels I ve read Kamchatka and open secret to name two  .Also Martinez who at time he wrote book had cancer and maybe this book is his way of purging what happened at the time as well he saw many thinks at first hand and at a distance as he was a journalist at the time .The story mixes what happened with fiction so well and also how it affect everyday Argentina’s .Again Martinez shows his ability to use magic realism to make reality even bolder than before .A fitting testament to his writing life and a great job as ever by Frank bring it to English.

Have you read Martinez ?

What are you listening to Wednesday ?2:54 a new band

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

Dolce Bellezza start this meme a couple of months ago but I keep missing it but now I bring you a new british band that I ve just found and want to share 2:54 are a london based band formed round two sisters this song is there debut single scarlet and so reminds me of the early ninties band curve that I loved at the time .I always think everything new these days has echos of what has come beofre .

Ordained by the oracle by Asare Konadu

~ winstonsdad ~ 20 Comments

Ordained by the oracle by Asare Konadu

Ghanaian Fiction

When Kinna announced Ghanaian lit week I had just read this novel so I put it to one side and decided to review it for Ghanaian lit week .Samuel Asare Konadu was born in 1932 ,he worked as a reporter and for the Ghana information services ,in the mid sixties he studied traditional customs ,he also started a publishing venture Anowuo book ,how publish some books in the sixties to success .

SO what is Ordained by the oracle about well we follow Boateng ,he is a successful trader in a the Elmina (a coastal town in the south of Ghana ) ,he is a modern man dealing in the modern world in his day-to-day life ,his wife is in hospital dying it turns out ,now she grew up in a small village and via her grandmother ,has mor belief in the old tribal ways of life .So when Dora the wife dies ,Boateng decides to follow his wifes wishes and to sp[end forty days and nights wife his wife’s body .So with his wife he returns to the village his wife is from and then  spends the forty days and nights with the body.As he does this he reflects on his life and his wife’s life also the people they know .he is helped by people in the village as he spend the forty days and nights .AS he starts to putting things in order in his mind having the time to just think and dwell

Boateng found his sleep after two nights of keeping awake .He thought in the first few hours of the life that faced him without his wife ,but the company he had in the presence of the guide took away the fear that gripped him .When he was locked up with his dead wife .The room they now occupied was a few yards from where Dora  lay in state .

Just after the forty days .

Rather like tail of the blue bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes ,this book deals with the clashing of to worlds the old village tribal world of Dora and her grandparents that she spent time with when she was younger ,and that of Boateng his modern world and him wanting to turn his back  on traditional ways .These meet when the modern world in the form of the modern Hospital his dying wife is in can’t keep her alive ,so this sends Boateng down a path of rediscovering the past and the values he was in trouble of losing .Konadu writing is poetic and he keep the pages turning with shortish economical written  chapters ,your never left with endless pages of unnecessary writing .The feeling is this is Konadu own world he is describing ,he himself was born in southern Ghana .I think this is a real lost gem of african writing it was part of the early African writer series no 55 an earlier work by him is no40 also in the first series of the African writer series  .It was first published in 1969 .

Have you read this book ?

What is your favourite Ghana book ?

Homo Faber by Max Frisch

~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

Homo Faber by Max Frisch

Translator – Michael Bullock

Swiss Fiction

Max Frisch was Swiss writer ,he worked for a early part  of his career as a journalist ,then study architecture and became a architect .he was a member of gruppe Olten a group of post war swiss writer that meet in a old swiss rail cafe they beleived in a democratic  socailist   society .Homo Faber is the story of Walter Faber he is an  engineer,we meet him as he is travleing roun the world on behalf of the united nations .He is onn a flight that crashes in Mexican desert .This leads Walter to confront his life firstly loooking back to an affair in europe when younger ,this in turns leads to a meeting with a daughter he never knew he had .all this has the feel of a Greek tragedy Walter is on a journey through hisd life and what has happened in his life first his love of Hannah who is now married to some one else ,he sits next to a man on the flight who is the brother of his old friend that married hannah ,this is all in what is the first section then in the second section after the crash and he returns to europe and takes a cruise on this cruise he meets a young women called Sabeth that he falls in love with mainly due to the fact she so reminds him of his first love Hannah ,is she her daughter ? well you’ll have to read Homo faber to find out so they spend the night together after watching a lunar eclipse ,at the same time Walter is having stomach trouble this leads to the fact when he arrives in athens he has to have an operation .this where the book ends or the reports end as Max Frisch use a report style to narrate the novel .

Sabeth was standing above and beside me .I could see her rope soled shoes ,then her bare calves ,her thighs ,which even when foreshortened very slender ,anmd her pelvis in the tight jeans she was standing with both hands in her trouser  pockets

Walter is weight up Sabeth a younger women that may be his daughter

I so pleased for german lit month and it making me look up and down the library shelves for some new german language fiction tpo me this is one such ,although after some rersearch I ve a feeling I may have seen the film version of this book callerd voyager a number of years ago .Max Frisch is a clever writer this book has so many layers and twist and turns ,it links the modern world to that of Greek legend ,but also you can see his architects eye in the structure of the prose the abilty to see what has been and what will be and able to link them together like drawing up the plans for a modernist building .there are so many themes in this book forbidden love ,lost ,growing use of technology for man , feminism it is a book that will have you thinking for weeks after you put it down it did me oh and just for my friend rob Walter types his reports on a hermes baby typewriter .The translation was by Michael Bullock exiled for this is a ook that has so many turns and Bullock kept it a page turner .

Have you read this book ?

The wall jumper by Peter Schneider

~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

The wall jumper by Peter Schneider

Translator – Leigh Harfey

German Fiction

Peter Schneider is a German writer in the sixties he was very active on the German student movement ,he has written numerous novel ,short stories and film scripts ,he currently teaches at Georgetown in the USA .This book was originally published in the early Eighties and is about the Berlin wall we are introduced to an array of characters that have jump the Berlin wall and survived from east to west ,one such character is Robert an east Berliner who was attracted to the bright lights ,we meet him in a bar in Berlin and we find that he is finding it hard to adjust to his new life in the west .As he struggles he has descended into drink .Other stories are about people wanting to see western films .Lena an ex lover of the narrator of this book whose whole family are still stuck in the east side of germany .There is a lot of sorrow at times in these tales of the grass not being greener on the other side of the fence .

In conversations with Robert ,it has become clearer what I’m looking for :the story of a man who lose himself and starts turning into a nobody .By a chain of circumstances still unknown to me ,he become a boundary walker between the two german states .

the narrator weighing up Robert .

When I saw this on the library shelf I was quite looking forward to it as one of my favourite films is der himmel über berlin (wings of desire )which is set just before the Berlin wall fell and the wall is a large character in that film ,and it is in this book but some how I found Schneider writing very dry almost Journalistic in a way .The description of the people the narrator talks to all feel like the could have been drawn from the newspapers of the time ,you never get further than the story of how they got there and how they are coping ,we also get a lot of factual info that slow the narrative at a point .I m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book I did I just think if I d read it twenty years ago just as the wall was there or just after it has fallen  I d called it the best book I d ever read but time has passed and it is a good book on the time and the power the wall had on the city not just as a barrier but also as a symbol for the cold war .I m sure in another twenty years this will be a must read for the generations that can’t remember the wall .The book was translated by Leigh Harfey a reasonable translation you get no clue to if the book was a s dry in the original german but I think it may have been .

Have your read this book ?

Shadow man asian booker judges

~ winstonsdad ~ 16 Comments

I received a E- mail from Lisa of anzlitlovers the other day inviting me to join her and three other bloggers in reading and judging this years MAN Asian longlist,of course I said yes I really want to read more Asian fiction than I do at moment  .She was inspired by the long running Giller shadow list that is run by Kevin of Kevin from Canada where he choose bloggers and they decide on a winner of that prize from the long listed books .Now I have to hold my hand up I was am already planning something similar for next years IFFP and had spoken to book trust about it , but more about that another day, any way. The bloggers Lisa have brought together are –

Matt from novel approach 

Sue from Whispering gums 

Fay from Read,ramble

and our chair Lisa from ANZlit lovers .

So here are the books in the longlist

2011 Longlist

JAMIL AHMAD (Pakistan) – The Wandering Falcon

TAHMIMA ANAM (Bangladesh) – The Good Muslim

JAHNAVI BARUA (India) – Rebirth

RAHUL BHATTACHARYA (India) – The Sly Company of People Who Care

MAHMOUD DOWLATABADI (Iran) – The Colonel

AMITAV GHOSH (India) – River of Smoke

HARUKI MURAKAMI (Japan) – 1Q84

ANURADHA ROY (India) – The Folded Earth

KYUNG-SOOK SHIN (South Korea) – Please Look After Mom

TARUN J TEJPAL (India) – The Valley of Masks

YAN LIANKE (China) – Dream of Ding Village

BANANA YOSHIMOTO (Japan) – The Lake

The  books all link back to the MAN Asian prize pages on the writers .I ve read one already Please look after Mother by Khung-Sook Sin . I ve chosen to read the The wandering falcon ,The good Muslim ,The sly company of people who care and The valley of masks .We all be reading a few so I ll be share the other reviews over the course of the prize .

Have you read any of the books listed ?

Do you have a favourite Asian writer ?

 

 

 

 

 

Jarmilla by Ernst Weiss

~ winstonsdad ~ 15 Comments

Jarmilla A Love Story From Bohemia by Ernst Weiss

German Fiction

Translated by Rebecca Morrison and Petra Howard-wuerz

Ernst Weiss was a German  jewish writer that was good friends with both Franz Kafka who edit some of his earlier works and Stefan Zweig This book Zweig considered Weiss best writing  .Jarmilla is set in the 1930’s in a small rural Bohemian village The title character Jarmilla is a pretty young women described as the village beauty  that married her sugar daddy a local feather merchant a rich man who keeps her in the way she has grown accustom too .But then a younger man a watch  maker appears creating a love  triangle ,Jarmilla is offer a new life by this man in America away from the feather merchant but also away from the money .we see the love affair blossom between the watch maker and Jarmilla he at one point compares her breasts to bohemian apples full of scent and skin like down .But as much as the is love in this affair Jarmilla is always held back by the life she has living with the rich feather merchant and in  That is the crux of the book that decision it is about what is important in people’s lives love or money ,safety or danger .  The book is very short only 80 odd pages long .It  was also lost for a long time until a copy was found in Prague university in 1990 and published in 1998 and this translation published in 2004 by Pushkin press .

It was around the time that my mother died ,she wasn’t old but in a lot of pain .The funeral left me devastated Jarmilla slipped away to see me .This time her silvery hand didn’t hold any wretched watch which had been broken Deliberately ” I noticed how cautiously he pronounced the word silvery as though trespassing .

Jarmilla gets closer to the watch maker

I can see why Zweig  so loved this story from his friend Weiss ,there are echos of his work in it that thing about crossing lines from rich to poor ,from old world europe to new world America .Similar feeling to the post office girl except in this one Jarmilla has control of what happens unlike Christine in the post office girl .As for Weiss his own story is very sad he fled Germany when Hitler rose to power to Paris and eventually killed himself as the german troops rolled into Paris in 1940 .

Have you read Weiss books ?

The pigeon by Patrick Suskind

~ winstonsdad ~ 18 Comments

The pigeon by Patrick Suskind

German fiction

translator – John E. Wood

 

Suskind is best known for his book Perfume and also the fact he doesn’t give any interview so very little is known about his life .This book is a very short fable like story of a man driven to the edge by a pigeon .er that sounds familiar a bit like the raven by Edgar Allen Poe yes this is sort of homage to that .

So we meet Jonathan Noel a french security guard this man likes order in his life in fact you could say he is a little to order and has borderline OCD .hiding himself from the world since his wife left him .So when one day a Pigeon decides to make his home in his apartment.

Now he saw the pigeon .It was sitting to his right a distance of about five feet ,at the very end of the hall crouched in one corner ,So light fell on the spot and Jonathan cast such a brief glance in that direction ,that he could not discern whether it was asleep or awake ,whether its eyes was open or closed .

Jonathan weighing up the pigeon .

I could imagine Jonathan being a reality tv star ,the man who hide for 30 years with a job that has minimal contact with people as that is what Jonathan thinks he wants little human contact  and a small apartment in a large building where he can hide as he dash trying to be unseen for the communal bathroom .You feel  Suskind is maybe using this as wider vision of modern man don’t we all live somewhat in bubbles these days ?This story has that strong German tradition of fables like Grimm the story can be read in many ways and although very short 77 pages in this edition from penguin with a largish font  .is the pigeon a symbol of something Jonathan lost in his life and by trying to chase the pigeon he may find again ?The book owes much to the Poe poem for the inspiration of the bird to drive some one to the very edge and has what many would call a Kafkaesque edge to it in the fact that Jonathan is facing a unknown foe in the pigeon and also facing the world some what a new because of the pigeon .I liked perfume and was pleased this although different to perfume completely is still beautifully written tale .

Have you read this book ?

do you like fables ?

 

Nadirs by Herta muller

~ winstonsdad ~ 20 Comments

Nadirs by Herta Muller

German Fiction

translator Sieglinde Lug

Nadirs published under the title Niederungen was her debut collection from the Nobel prize winning German writer ,it was published by University of Nebraska press and was the first to be translated into English  .Like the other book Passport , I ve read by Herta Muller  it is again set in the romania of her youth (she was born and grew up in Banat the german speaking area ).The book is formed of one long almost novella length story that of the title Nadirs and then 13 shorter stories som less than a page  ,I will leave nadirs for you to read  and mention a couple of the short piece .One I loved was Swabian Bath at just over a page long it descibes a family having the weekly bath in front of the fire .as we see the family one after another jump in the bath .

Grampa must be in the bathtub ,Gandma thinks .Grandma closes the bathroom door behind her. Grandpa drains the bathwaterfrom the bath the little gray rolls of mother, of father ,of grandma and of granpa swirl round the drain .

saturday night bathing from The swabian bath .

another really short one workday does what it says on the tin and that is describe a day bit by bit from waking in the morning getting there and then work day and journey home .I love the imagery in Mullers writing she uses unusal terms to describe things so we get things decribes as black toad like ,rotten pear like .I believe a lot of this is due to the style of german that Muller writes and speaks in, that due to being broken off from mainland germany since the second world war has retained a lot of the old high german style of speaking and writing .She also has a dream like feel to her stories as they walk that fineline between realism and magic realism very well .Now this said Nadirs isn’t the easiest read it has abuse alcoholism animals been mistreated all contained within the  118 pages .But that said you get a great insight into growing up and being part of minority in another country as the people in this book are .Muller was a real shock when she won the nobel relatively unkown outside germany ,but even in this her debut collection that is now nearly 25 years old you can see a writer that is destined for the greatness and accolades she got later in her writing life   .I ve seen some people say the translation isn’t great but having read passport I think it is just Muller use of words that sometimes seem odd to us the english reader .

Source – library .

Have you read Muller ?

The tongue’s blood does not run dry by Assia Djebar

~ winstonsdad ~ 14 Comments

The tongue’s blood does not run dry by Assia Djebar

Algerian Fiction

Translator – Tegan Raleigh

Assia Djebar name has flown high in the nobel odds the last couple of years so I decided to try her ,before she does win it .Assia Djebar is her pen name her real name being Fatima-Zohar Imalayen ,she is a Algerian of Berber origins , she was the first Algerian women to go the prestigious ENS  the elite Parisian college .Her first book was published in 1957 ,she was also the first Maghreb to be voted on to the  Académie française and won the Neustadt prize .I must say given all that she is still not well-known in the english speaking world and really should be .

This collection the first of two books I got by her from the library is a collection of short stories and a 80 page novella Felicie’s body ,I ll leave the stories mainly set in Algeria and all dealing with a female perspective on what it is to be a women in modern Algeria ,Felicie’s body deals with a women near the end of her life and indeed after her death she is french catholic and was married for her life to her Algerian husband who died before her now nearing the end of her life we see her having to take a muslim name to be buried beside her beloved husband this story really catches what it is to be between two worlds as this family is some of her children drawn to Algeria other to France we see how this family copes with her death of the mother and her wishes to be buried beside her husband in Algeria .

You arrive on a Monday morning in February ,unconscious already.In the ambulance ,I sit down next to my sister Ourdia ,who’s come with you from Oran .I tell myself this time you’ve come to die by my side ,right under my eyes .But will you at least look at me ,just once ? Smile at me ,maybe talk ?

The opening of Felicie’s body .

I was trying to  think of a way to sum up her writing and how it impacted me but I think  she  has  best summed up by a quote of her own –

I write like many other Algerian women with a sense of urgency against regression and misogyny .

That sums up so well how this book grabbed me and her as a writer feisty and lots of strong female characters .I asked my self is this a potential nobel winner having read other Nobel winners work and the answers is yes and I hope she does so her work can reach a wider audiences of readers .Her’s is a voice that lifts the lid on the female Muslim world of north africa and also how these women or there families are effected in France .The translation works a treat her the translator is new to me but has done a great job here .The book was published in the US  by seven stories press in 2006 and the original stories were published in French in 1997 .

Have you read her works ?

Have you a favourite North African writer ?

winstons coffee and muffin – plugged in

~ winstonsdad ~ 22 Comments

 

Well after a week away for blog and google reader ,Facebook  for most part ,I feel refreshed and ready to face the blogging world again .I had a busy week at work til thursday and then I’ve had the weekend with Amanda we went to Sheffield on friday and I called in there Waterstones which is much large than the one than we have in Chesterfield .So here are the books I got .

Dona Flor and her two husbands by Jorge Amado – Brazil’s most famous writer of modern times ,a women loses her first husband,she  remarried and then her first husband reappears on her first night with her husband .I liked sound of this one in the shop .

Petersburg by Andrei Bely – This was mentioned on a radio show the other week and I remembered it was one I had noted a time ago as to read .So this new penguin edition seemed a great buy Vladimir Nabokov choose it as one of his five favourite books .He is often called the russian James Joyce .

Cairo swan song by Mekkawi Said – the other day I noticed my supply of Arabic books had run down in last couple of years so this is a welcome addition to that pile short-listed for the Arabic booker prize in 2008 .Mustfa tells the story of himself and his friends growing up in modern Egypt .

I brought the fourth book at tesco the other day as Amanda saw a book she wanted and I saw this one .

The savage altar by  Asa Larsson – this is the first in the Rebecka Martinsson series ,after I enjoyed until thy wrath be past .I looking forward to seeing where this story starts .

 

I also visited the local Oxfam on saturday and brought three books –

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino – A Japanese thriller ,every one is 1Q84 at mo .I’ll try something else and I liked the sound of this very dark sounding book .

Malgudi days by R K Narayan – I had this from library as part of a collection of four of his books but didn’t get to read it so this was a good find as I love the world of Malgudi Narayan drew in his books .

The hard life by Flann O’Brien – I keep saying to Kim mainly of reading matters I need to read some irish fiction so got another of O’brien to read he is clever and funny but sometimes I find him a little hard to get hold of and I like that when I m reading .

Have you read any of these ?

What did I miss ?

Trevor for booker

~ winstonsdad ~ 6 Comments

I ve long been a fan of the Irish writer William Trevor ,for those of you not familiar with him he is often called the irish Chekov ,Tim Adams of the observer said of him “widely believed to be the most astute observer of the human condition currently writing fiction .He has long been a booker bridesmaid with five nominations one long list in 2009 and four shortlists 1970 (Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neils hotel ),1976(The children of Dynemouth) ,1991(Reading Turgenev) ,2002(The story of Lucy Gault ).So rather than the Booker prize do what they did with the other booker bridesmaid Beryl Bainbridge and have a prize after she died why not honour the man whilst he is here I feel after the fuss this years prize caused say oh well we’ll stop for a year give it to William as a special one-off price for 2012 for the body of his work ,I would imagine many readers would be disappointed with this choice also it would honour William’s contribution to modern English literature he is a writer that has mixed Chekov, Maupassant short story talent with a touch of Irish tradition from Joyce and O’Connor with the English literature of Maugham and Greene .I love the booker I felt I gave the wrong impression last week it has led me to many good books ,my problem was with this year and recent years that I felt let down with the prize that has been dear to me .But never wanted to lessen the prize and I don’t think readability is dumbing down it is up to each of us what is readable .I felt near the prize being given some people went a little over the top with the vileness of the opinions and also the puppets that think these people are a sort of demi god of English literature !Any way if you think this is a good idea please write a post maybe if enough of us little people shout loud we can make the Horton’s of this world listen !!!! Please support this William Trevor is a writer that touches the soul !!

Borges – Tom Castro ,the implausible impostor

~ winstonsdad ~ 11 Comments

Tom castro – published 30 sept 1933

translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni

Collection  A universal history of infamy

Well after a couple of months I finally get round to my Borges project ,the stories I choice will be ad hoc todays is Tom castro this is one of Borges earliest stories from the thirties .It is about Tom castro or Arthur Orton a con man from the 1800’s ,he and his manservant a black man called ben Bogle tried to pass them selves of as the long dead Sir Roger Tichborne ,The story actually is an authentic telling of the actual  story .Castro a large built australian man tried to pass him self of as the slim English heir to the ninth largest fortune in england  as his Tichbourne mother believes he is still alive even thou she was told he died .This case made the headlines and had a lengthy court case ,which Castro was found guilty .Borges is at his sparest with his writing here no fleshing out just the bare facts and a little window dressing but enough to get the facts of the story in ten pages .This story was also made into a film called The Tichbourne Claimant  in the 1980’s

Have you read this story or seen the film ?

Accaabadora by Michela Murgia

~ winstonsdad ~ 10 Comments

Accabadora by Michela Murgia

Italian Fiction

Translator – Silvester Mazzarella

Well sometimes a book drops on the doorstep from a publisher and you go oh ,this was one I look at it and saw on the back cover that it had won six literary prizes in Italy ,that spike my interests as I can’t remember a recent  English book winner that many garlands in recent times .The other thing I liked about getting sent this book is the fact I probably wouldn’t have got it myself .so what is it about . The title is the name give to a women that acts as an angel of death to the dying in rural Sardinia this particular Accabadora is called Bonaria Urrai ,she had adopt a young girl Maria hows mother was struggling looking after her .Maria think Bonaria is just a simple dressmaker, as Bonaria has tried to shield her daughter from her other job but over time Maira wonders where she disappears to at night  times  .But when maria finds out after Bonaria makes a difficult call on one young man she has been asked to attend , this sets of a chain of events that leads to her leaving her rural life and heading to the big city in this case Turin ,in a way this is just like any young women wanting to break free of family but in Maria’s case its overtures of what happened played on her mind whilst there leading to an interesting climax .

The attittadora had meanwhile changed her note ,intoning an improvised poem in praise of the dead man .To hear her shrieking in rhyme you would imagine no better man than Giacomo Littora had lived .

We meet the Attittadora (official mourner)

I could instantly se why this book won so many prizes Michela has tackle euthanasia in such an even and non-judgemental way ,one of the most even views of this subject I ve ever read  ,I found it hard to imagine some such as Bonaria being around Italy at the time the book is set  but a little web browsing show there were such people in real life ,hard to think as Italy is such a strong catholic country  .The book deals with what family is too people and also how we all deal with death and the thought of a midwife of death as we brought into life by a women and thus should be seen into death by a women when needed .But also an underling theme to me is changing world of  the traditional   rural life and the busy modern cities of Turin ,I remember the films of Italy at the time the book is set in the forties  and  fifties the neo realism movement films like Rome open city and Stromboli   and felt this book would have made a great neo realism film the quality of realism that falls of the page would work so well on the screen and you could imagine real people in rural Sardinia maybe letting us into this traditional world that I knew little of myself .so if you after a touching page turner this is the book for you .

Have you read this book ?