Andrew Blackman
From the monthly archives: February 2010
In the final part of this series of posts, I’m reviewing stories by Mavis Gallant, V.S. Naipaul, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Hal Porter and Chinua Achebe.
Mavis Gallant (Canada) – Orphans’ Progress
According to the introduction, Gallant’s work mostly deals with broken families, and this is no exception: two girls are taken into care because [...]
Continuing the series, here are my notes on the short stories by Randolph Stow, Janet Frame, Andrew Salkey and Ezekiel Mphahlele.
Randolph Stow (Australia) – Magic
This is based on the ‘sulumwoya’ myth of the Trobriand Islands, where incest between a brother and a sister is the supreme sexual taboo. The introduction says he [...]
This is a continuation from yesterday’s post, which was becoming too long! Today, I’m reviewing stories by Mordecai Richler, Lee Kok Liang, Wilson Harris, Frank Sargeson and Amos Tutuola.
Mordecai Richler (Canada) – The Summer my Grandmother was Supposed to Die
The story is a narrated by a child, and starts with his grandmother [...]
There are some excellent stories in here, from big names like V.S. Naipaul, Patrick White, George Lamming, Chinua Achebe and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (although this book is so old he is credited as James Ngugi, his birth name which he rejected as a sign of colonial influence). Also some good ones from writers I [...]
I liked the premise of this book. It’s set in 1983 against the backdrop of the Grenadian revolution, and is basically a love story, with a lot of complications due to the family backgrounds of Ramona and Fabian and also the turbulent political events. I like this combination of personal and political, and the [...]
“We all need some time to ourselves – just a few minutes a day to get reacquainted with the one who’s been there since the beginning.”
- seen in Starbuck’s, Muswell Hill
So it seems that due to a procedural anomaly, a whole year’s worth of novels missed out on being considered for the Booker Prize. This is being remedied by a retroactive award, with a shortlist of novels from 1970 being drawn up by three judges and then a public vote to decide the [...]
I’m a bit behind the times – this actually happened at the end of last year. But wanted to let you know that my debut novel On the Holloway Road has been digitised and is available as an eBook download, for those of you who are into such things.
Personally I prefer the [...]
I got a voucher recently for £75 of free advertising on Google Adwords. I wasn’t really planning to use it, because I think Adwords is quite expensive for someone like me. I don’t exactly do a “hard sell” on this website, so even if I get extra traffic, probably only a small percentage would actually [...]
What struck me about these stories is the similarity between traditional folk tales in different parts of the world. I grew up, of course, with British or European stories, whereas these stories are either of Carib or African origin. Yet many of them sounded familiar, not in the specifics but in the general themes [...]
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