Belletrista Issue 4

This is an archived issue of Belletrista. If you are looking for the current issue, you can find it here

Belletrista - A site promoting translated women authored literature from around the world


Meet Italy's Award-winning author Lia Levi in this interview with Paola Sergi.	Fifteen years old and All Grown Up? Rachael Beale takes us on an Orange Prize retrospective journey.	In Praise of New Zealand's Patricia Grace

Welcome to our fourth issue, and a further excursion into the wonderful world of literature! This time we feature an interview with Italy's celebrated Lia Levi, and we also introduce the works of Patricia Grace from New Zealand, Assia Djebar from Algeria, and two new authors, Maaza Mengiste and Nadifa Mohamed, from East Africa. Our very own Rachael Beale talks to some of the women behind the British Orange Prize in a retrospective piece. And just in case you don't have enough to read, we present 22 reviews of books by authors representing 17 different countries. Finally, we've included more than 60 original and distinctive titles from around the globe in the New and Notable section, for your browsing pleasure. We have thoroughly enjoyed producing this issue for you, and hope that you'll relish it!

Reviews
Below is a small tantalizing selection of this month's reviews....

THE LAST BROTHER

Nathacha Appanah

Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

When David comes to him in a dream, Raj, now an old man, is transported back to his childhood over 60 years earlier, to a few months which were to mark his life for ever.
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Reviewed by Rachel Hayes

THE JEWISH HUSBAND

Lia Levi

Translated from the Italian by Anthony Shugaar

The Jewish Husband is a haunting, thought provoking novel about the desperate compromises made in the pursuit of love. Unconditional love collides with an increasingly prejudiced and oppressive society, and the tide of history.
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans

MOONLIGHT IN ODESSA

Janet Skeslien Charles

Moonlight in Odessa might refer to the light cast by that silvery orb on the waters of the Black Sea, but in this compelling debut novel by Janet Skeslien Charles moonlight takes on worlds of other meanings for its chief character, Daria Kirilenko.
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Reviewed by Tui Menzies

THE LAST RIVER CHILD

Lori Ann Bloomfield

Troubles plague the lives of the people of Walvern, a fictitious Canadian town rife with gossip, superstition, and scandal. However, alongside these troubles lies a story of hope, and the love a person can find amidst rejection.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir

BENEATH THE LION'S GAZE

Maaza Mengiste

This debut novel begins as Hailu, the patriarch of a successful family in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, operates on a young man who has sustained a bullet wound in his back that will paralyze him permanently. It is 1974, and Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia and the "King of Kings", is old, tired, and far removed from his country's numerous problems.
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Reviewed by Darryl Morris