Provocative, disturbing group of novellas that humanize international problems of violence and the plight of refugees.
A collection of three disquieting novellas featuring young women seeking better lives, from prolific Venezuelan-Danish author Tarazona (Daggryets Barn, 2014).
In the first novella, 29-year-old Saja, a well-educated, formerly well-off Sri Lankan, finally accepts that her political prisoner husband is dead. She seeks asylum in Denmark, but her life at the refugee camp there is troublesome. Forced to deal with racism, jealousy and would-be rapists, Saja finally receives word her application has been approved by the Danish Immigration Service. Building a new life for herself, she becomes involved with Peter, an immigration employee who is fired due to their relationship—a minor hurdle as they work toward a future together. In the second story, young Yonna’s entire Wayuu family is massacred by a rival clan. After her captor rapists tire of her, she finds a degree of safety weaving for a tradeswoman in Maracaibo. She is rescued by Dorothea “Thea” Weiss, a German expatriate. They form a close bond, and newly confident Yonna meets Daniel, a Danish engineer working in Venezuela. The two embark on a romantic adventure, uncertain what the future will bring. In the third story, Taraji, the least sympathetic of the young women affected by violence, was adopted from South Africa by a Danish couple, Jacob and Liva. When teenage Taraji begins asking questions about her birth parents, she misinterprets Liva’s reticence as insecurity rather than protective instinct; Liva doesn’t wish Taraji to know that her conception resulted from a violent rape. Despite her loving parents and stable boyfriend, Taraji embarks on self-destructive behavior. While the stories have an optimistic tone, the voyages in all three are painful ones. Saja and Yonna both exhibit great strength of character and highly developed principles; Taraji shows willfulness and selfishness. Saja’s story is perhaps the most affecting as the reader witnesses the disbelief of Danish authorities that she could be an educated, intelligent young woman; they see only a destitute woman who must be lying about her past. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the stories is that all three are set in the recent past—1990s through the present—a time that, we’d like to think, should be more enlightened.
Provocative, disturbing group of novellas that humanize international problems of violence and the plight of refugees.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-8799737949
Page Count: 324
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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