Thank you Harper Collins UK for gifting me an advanced review copy of The Family! Readers, brace yourself, this is a book that is very different to the genres and stories I usually read…but I mentioned wanting to diversify my reads in 2022 and I wasn’t disappointed with this one. Here’s the blurb: A captivating …
Continue reading Book review – The Family by Naomi Krupitsky
Set during the Ottoman Empire’s greatest period, Elif Shafak’s novel transcends all the ontologically engrained dichotomies : East/West, Self/Other, Domestic/Foreign etc… Jahan, arrives in Istanbul with the long-awaited White Elephant “Chota”. He starts working for the Sultan as Chota’s tamer in the Palace’s menagerie. His bright mind and quirkiness quickly impress the Palace’s master architect, …
Dans le Maroc des années 30, deux fils racontent la renaissance de la femme Marocaine qui se libère de l’aliénation conjugale et des normes sociales pour s’ouvrir au monde extérieur et au savoir. C’est à travers un récit boulversant décrivant leur mère que cette libération est explorée. D’abord obnibulée par des objets qu’elle associe à …
Continue reading La civilisation, ma mère…! de Driss Chraïbi
Celestial bodies - Winner of the 2019 Man Booker International PrizeThe first novel by a Omani woman to be translated to English! The story follows the lives of three sisters and their families who embody the intense transformation of Oman, decades after achieving its independence from Britain in 1951. As readers, we progressively witness the …
Mahmoud Darwish on poetry and identity « I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home. »« I am from there. I am from here. I am not there and I am not here. I have two names, which meet and part, and I have two languages. I forget …
شعر نزار قباني من أجمل القصائد التي قرأتها حيث يتمكن الشاعر من قدرة خارقة على إيجاد استعارات و تشبيهات رائعة. خلال هذه الأزمة الصحية التي تقتحم الشبكات الاجتماعية، أردت أن أقاطع الخطابات السلبية بهذه الأبيات الفريدة من نوعها Nizar Qabbani’s poems are one of the most beautiful I have ever read as his poetry encompasses …
A very special book to me. I have always been a big fan of Elif Shafak’s writing but this one exceeded all my expectations. Elif Shafak was inspired by an article which claimed that the mind still functioned for 10 minutes and 38 seconds after death. During these last moments of consciousness, memories of one’s …
Continue reading 10 minutes, 38 seconds in this strange world – Elif Shafak
Eid Mubarak to all celebrating! My current fiction read is The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. If you have been following me for a while, you probably know that I love her novels and vivid writing. In this book, we are following the interwoven stories of two women and their families, one Turkish and …
I’m currently reading Who rules the world? by Noam Chomsky 📖 and I learned a lot so far! The author examines the truth behind the mainstream US Foreign Policy narratives we tend to hear about in the media. Many issues are covered such as US-China relations, the sanctions on Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the so-called …
Prisoners of Geography examines how the decisions of political leaders are constrained by mountains, rivers, seas and many other geographical factors which tend to be overlooked. The book is divided into ten parts: Russia, China, the USA, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan and Korea, and the Arctic. I think that this book …
Aïcha's bookshelf 