Timely and at times wrenching stories about contemporary Zambian women fighting to establish their identities.
A debut collection about women living in Zambia and abroad.
Winner of the 2024 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Kalimamukwento’s stirring stories explore the lives of women weighing their debts to tradition and family against their desire to break free and express their true selves. In “Azubah,” Funso has to return home to Zambia to care for the mother who never seemed to love her. The past still has a grip on her, even though she believes she has bought her freedom by moving to America and remitting her “Black Tax” with every paycheck to ensure her mother is cared for. In “Inswa,” the young female narrator discovers her sexuality with her best friend, another girl, and would rather endure her mother’s abuse than give up the pleasure she’s found. Kalimamukwento has an eye for the poetic possibility of the natural world. After her first kiss, the narrator says her “stomach exploded into an army of golden flying termites, spilling out of their underground castles after a December storm,” and her ears “filled with bees fighting to escape.” In “Mastitis,” another standout, the narrator loses her mother the same day she gives birth to a daughter, though her mother reappears—an apparition—with sage advice and common sense when the narrator needs her most. This collection covers a lot of ground—from the price of privileging English over one’s native language to the dehumanizing U.S. immigration system, from the AIDS epidemic in Zambia to illegal adoption rings. These are complicated and important issues, but at times it feels like Kalimamukwento is cataloging all the social ills that Zambian women face and the steep cost of global imperialism rather than slowing down and deepening our understanding of the particular women and girls who are emmeshed in these heartbreaking circumstances.
Timely and at times wrenching stories about contemporary Zambian women fighting to establish their identities.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780822948360
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Univ. of Pittsburgh
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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