Under the Frangipani

Under the Frangipani PDF Author: Mia Couto
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781846686764
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Captivating magical realism from a leading African writer.

Under the Frangipani

Under the Frangipani PDF Author: Mia Couto
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781846686764
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Captivating magical realism from a leading African writer.

Under the Frangipani Tree

Under the Frangipani Tree PDF Author: Anthea Syrokou
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780648157472
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Cassandra Jensen, the forever loyal friend and qualified counsellor, is always ready to lend a non-judgmental ear to anyone in need of finding answers. However, when she receives an invitation to her old friends' wedding, her coping abilities are challenged. Cassandra has serious reservations about accepting Cynthia and Ryan's invite, despite her handsome and gregarious fiancé Connor insisting that it will be a great chance to visit the town Cassandra grew up in: the breathtaking Barossa Valley in the heart of the wine country in South Australia.But going back home means facing her charismatic ex-boyfriend, and 'unfinished business' with her father who has always treated her with irreverence. What was the underlying reason her parents had relocated from Europe to the robust hills and vineyards of the Barossa Valley, at the peak of their acting careers to set up an acting school and theatre company? And why had they given up on their bold venture soon after?Under the Frangipani Tree is the third book in the Julie & Friends series. Join Cassandra and her friends in this roller coaster journey of the heart, set amongst lush, rolling hills, and enchanting vineyards. Experience romance, tears, and joy, sprinkled in the crisp country air.

The Frangipani Tree Mystery

The Frangipani Tree Mystery PDF Author: Ovidia Yu
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1472125215
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
First in a delightfully charming crime series set in 1930s Singapore, introducing amateur sleuth Su Lin, a local girl stepping in as governess for the Acting Governor of Singapore. 1936 in the Crown Colony of Singapore, and the British abdication crisis and rising Japanese threat seem very far away. When the Irish nanny looking after Acting Governor Palin's daughter dies suddenly - and in mysterious circumstances - mission school-educated local girl Su Lin - an aspiring journalist trying to escape an arranged marriage - is invited to take her place. But then another murder at the residence occurs and it seems very likely that a killer is stalking the corridors of Government House. It now takes all Su Lin's traditional skills and intelligence to help British-born Chief Inspector Thomas LeFroy solve the murders - and escape with her own life. 'Simply glorious. Every nook and cranny of 1930s Singapore is brought richly to life, without ever getting in the way of a classic puzzle plot. But what's a setting without a jewel? Chen Su Lin is a true gem. Her slyly witty voice and her admirable, sometimes heartbreaking, practicality make her the most beguiling narrator heroine I've met in a long while.' Catriona McPherson 'Charming and fascinating with great authentic feel. Ovidia Yu's teenage Chinese sleuth gives us an insight into a very different culture and time. This book is exactly why I love historical novels.' Rhys Bowen

The Frangipani Hotel

The Frangipani Hotel PDF Author: Violet Kupersmith
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812983475
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
An extraordinarily compelling debut—ghost stories that grapple with the legacy of the Vietnam War A beautiful young woman appears fully dressed in an overflowing bathtub at the Frangipani Hotel in Hanoi. A jaded teenage girl in Houston befriends an older Vietnamese gentleman she discovers naked behind a dumpster. A trucker in Saigon is asked to drive a dying young man home to his village. A plump Vietnamese-American teenager is sent to her elderly grandmother in Ho Chi Minh City to lose weight, only to be lured out of the house by the wafting aroma of freshly baked bread. In these evocative and always surprising stories, the supernatural coexists with the mundane lives of characters who struggle against the burdens of the past. Based on traditional Vietnamese folk tales told to Kupersmith by her grandmother, these fantastical, chilling, and thoroughly contemporary stories are a boldly original exploration of Vietnamese culture, addressing both the immigrant experience and the lives of those who remained behind. Lurking in the background of them all is a larger ghost—that of the Vietnam War, whose legacy continues to haunt us. Violet Kupersmith’s voice is an exciting addition to the landscape of American fiction. With tremendous depth and range, her stories transcend their genre to make a wholly original statement about the postwar experience. Praise for The Frangipani Hotel “[A] subversively clever debut collection . . . These stories—playful, angry, at times legitimately scary—demonstrate a subtlety of purpose that belies [Kupersmith’s] youth.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magical, beautiful, modern stories, all based on traditional Vietnamese folktales, [The Frangipani Hotel] invokes the ghosts of the land that was left behind.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[A] sparkling debut . . . playful and wise, an astonishing feat for a young writer.”—Chicago Tribune “A series of short stories that are as fresh as they are mesmerizing, The Frangipani Hotel will haunt you long after the last words have drifted off the page.”—Lisa See “Auspicious . . . wildly energetic.”—Elle “Enthralling stories . . . teeming with detail and personality.”—Asian Review of Books “Chilling and lovely . . . Kupersmith has combined traditional storytelling with a post-modern sense of anxiety and darkness, and the result is captivating.”—Bookreporter “The stories shimmer with life. . . . Kupersmith [is] one to watch.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In The Shadow Of The Banyan

In The Shadow Of The Banyan PDF Author: Vaddey Ratner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1849837619
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
A stunning, powerful debut novel set against the backdrop of the Cambodian War, perfect for fans of Chris Cleave and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labour, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyanis testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience. 'In the Shadow of the Banyanis one of the most extraordinary and beautiful acts of storytelling I have ever encountered' Chris Cleave, author of The Other Hand 'Ratner is a fearless writer, and the novel explores important themes such as power, the relationship between love and guilt, and class. Most remarkably, it depicts the lives of characters forced to live in extreme circumstances, and investigates how that changes them. To read In the Shadow of the Banyan is to be left with a profound sense of being witness to a tragedy of history' Guardian 'This is an extraordinary debut … as beautiful as it is heartbreaking' Mail on Sunday

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair PDF Author: Nina Sankovitch
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062092162
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
“NinaSankovitch has crafted a dazzling memoir that remindsus of the most primal function of literature-to heal, to nurture and to connectus to our truest selves." —Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us Catalyzedby the loss of her sister, a mother of four spends one year savoring a greatbook every day, from Thomas Pynchon to Nora Ephron and beyond. In the tradition ofGretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and Joan Dideon’sA Year of Magical Thinking, Nina Sankovitch’ssoul-baring and literary-minded memoir is a chronicle of loss,hope, and redemption. Nina ultimately turns to reading as therapy andthrough her journey illuminates the power of books to help us reclaim ourlives.

A Postmodern Nationalist

A Postmodern Nationalist PDF Author: Phillip Rothwell
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 9780838755853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
"This is the first book in the English language devoted to the study of the work of Mozambique's leading contemporary author, Mia Couto. Couto's fiction is riddled by a central paradox - it forges a distinct postmodern national identity for a country historically plagued by repeated and detrimental interference from abroad. Phillip Rothwell argues that Couto is a writer who eschews and reinforces the national frontier. In fact, Couto produces a cultural phenomenon that is markedly Mozambican by corrupting aspects of the European legacy Portugal left on the African continent, fusing this distortion with a corrupted version of African heritage, and demarcating literary boundaries through fluidity." "The book details Couto's life and literary trajectory, and interprets essential aspects of Mozambican political and cultural history before undertaking a range of analyses of his work. The postmodern relativization of the concept of a unitary truth furnishes the springboard for an interrogation of what "truth" has meant to Mozambique as exemplified in Couto's texts. The paradoxes inherent in the politics of orthography are scrutinized in Couto's universe to illustrate the aporia prevalent in an atavistic reclaiming of a pre-Portuguese system of writing. Rothwell then engages with the moral meaning of orality and literacy in the tradition Couto both defies and defines, to demonstrate Couto's simultaneous disavowal of misographic and graphophile epistemologies. The manners in which Couto breaches the frontier between the conscious and unconscious realms and blurs gender distinctions are read alongside traditional delineations in order to understand the extent to which Couto's message is radically political. Rothwell concludes with a reading of one of Couto's most potent works in which, through an empowering attack on the United Nations' invasion of Mozambique, Couto enjoins his fellow nationals to begin to resist the postmodern age." "Couto's ambivalent use of the tropes of postmodernism are discussed throughout the book, particularly the way in which it has evolved into a political agenda that is fiercely Mozambican. Rothwell demonstrates Couto's reevaluation of Grand Narratives and shows how, in the case of the Mozambican culture of today, postmodernism has become the only Grand Narrative left worth critiquing." "Rothwell explores a broad cross-section of Couto's literary output, from his early short stories to his more recent novels. He places these within the context of a Mozambican and wider lusophone cultural backdrop, providing essential reading and source of reference for all interested in contemporary Portuguese, African, and world literatures."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Sleepwalking Land

Sleepwalking Land PDF Author: Mia Couto
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
"On almost every page of this witty magical realist whodunit, we sense Couto's delight on those places where language slips officialdom's asphyxiating grasp."--The New York Times Book Review on The Last Flight of the Flamingo "The most prominent of the younger generation of writers in Portuguese-speaking Africa, Couto passionately and sensitively describes everyday life in poverty-stricken Mozambique."--Guardian (London) "Quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa."--Doris Lessing As the civil war rages in 1980s Mozambique, an old man and a young boy, refugees from the war, seek shelter in a burnt-out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem. Written in 1992, Mia Couto's first novel is a powerful indictment of the suffering war brings. Born in 1955 in Mozambique, Mia Couto ran the AIM news agency during the revolutionary struggle. He now lives in Maputo where he works as an environmental biologist and heads the Mozambique side of the Limpopo Transnational Park. In 2007 he was the first African author to win the Latin Union Award for Romance Languages; in 2013 he was awarded the 100,000 Camoes Prize for Literature, in recognition of his life's work. In 2014 he received the $50,000 Neustadt Prize for Literature, and in 2015 he was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

The Angkor Abduction

The Angkor Abduction PDF Author: Austin I Pullé
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1669844897
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
When sex-traffickers kidnap a beautiful Eurasian teenager when she is on a school trip to the famous Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia, Alex reluctantly agrees to join in the search but then finds himself fighting a ruthless former Khmer Rouge warlord to rescue the beautiful Imogen and reunite her with her mother.

Contemporary World Fiction

Contemporary World Fiction PDF Author: Juris Dilevko
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1598849093
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
This much-needed guide to translated literature offers readers the opportunity to hear from, learn about, and perhaps better understand our shrinking world from the perspective of insiders from many cultures and traditions. In a globalized world, knowledge about non-North American societies and cultures is a must. Contemporary World Fiction: A Guide to Literature in Translation provides an overview of the tremendous range and scope of translated world fiction available in English. In so doing, it will help readers get a sense of the vast world beyond North America that is conveyed by fiction titles from dozens of countries and language traditions. Within the guide, approximately 1,000 contemporary non-English-language fiction titles are fully annotated and thousands of others are listed. Organization is primarily by language, as language often reflects cultural cohesion better than national borders or geographies, but also by country and culture. In addition to contemporary titles, each chapter features a brief overview of earlier translated fiction from the group. The guide also provides in-depth bibliographic essays for each chapter that will enable librarians and library users to further explore the literature of numerous languages and cultural traditions.