An exciting, pithy translation that will surely leave readers electrified and wanting to read more of Saba's work.
Set at the cusp of the 20th century, Saba’s story takes the reader into the mind of a teenager in small-town Trieste, Italy.
Living at home with his mother and aunt, 16-year-old Ernesto is an apprentice to become a flour merchant. As a worker, he is frustrated, angry, and, most of all, hungry. Saba (Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba, 2009, etc.) began writing this novel in 1953 but hadn't completed it by the time he died in 1957 at age 74. Written in three episodes, the story follows Ernesto's involvement with an older co-worker (“The Man”) to the point of jeopardizing his job, his relationship with his mother, and his own sanity. The Man propositions Ernesto in the opening scene of the book. Curious and desired, Ernesto agrees to various episodes of sex, at times playful but also violent, on top of the haystack while the boss is out. These moments catapult Ernesto into a world of confusion. As he navigates a complicated, lukewarm relationship with his mother, Ernesto is guilt-ridden about what has occurred (and keeps occurring). Interspersed through these scenes are interjections by the author, who can’t help but provide contextual notes to what he has written—almost to justify his text by providing more depth to his characters: “Of course, there were other reasons too, deeper ones, but [Ernesto] wasn’t aware of them.” Ernesto’s character is captivating, and it's clear that the author poured his heart out in creating him. In her introduction, translator Gilson (Ms. Juvenal, 2014, etc.) explains the deep relationship the author developed with Ernesto, and this love seeps through the sentences—a complicated love that puts up with Ernesto’s thoughts and whims and that, at times, tires Saba. As he wrote in a one-page section called "Almost a Conclusion": “Add to those pages, Ernesto’s breakthrough to his true calling, and you would in fact, have the complete story of his adolescence. Unfortunately, the author is too old, too weary and embittered to summon up the strength to write all that.”
An exciting, pithy translation that will surely leave readers electrified and wanting to read more of Saba's work.Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68137-082-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing...
Here’s a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan’s tragic recent past.
Moving back and forth between Afghanistan and California, and spanning almost 40 years, the story begins in Afghanistan in the tranquil 1960s. Our protagonist Amir is a child in Kabul. The most important people in his life are Baba and Hassan. Father Baba is a wealthy Pashtun merchant, a larger-than-life figure, fretting over his bookish weakling of a son (the mother died giving birth); Hassan is his sweet-natured playmate, son of their servant Ali and a Hazara. Pashtuns have always dominated and ridiculed Hazaras, so Amir can’t help teasing Hassan, even though the Hazara staunchly defends him against neighborhood bullies like the “sociopath” Assef. The day, in 1975, when 12-year-old Amir wins the annual kite-fighting tournament is the best and worst of his young life. He bonds with Baba at last but deserts Hassan when the latter is raped by Assef. And it gets worse. With the still-loyal Hassan a constant reminder of his guilt, Amir makes life impossible for him and Ali, ultimately forcing them to leave town. Fast forward to the Russian occupation, flight to America, life in the Afghan exile community in the Bay Area. Amir becomes a writer and marries a beautiful Afghan; Baba dies of cancer. Then, in 2001, the past comes roaring back. Rahim, Baba’s old business partner who knows all about Amir’s transgressions, calls from Pakistan. Hassan has been executed by the Taliban; his son, Sohrab, must be rescued. Will Amir wipe the slate clean? So he returns to the hell of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and reclaims Sohrab from a Taliban leader (none other than Assef) after a terrifying showdown. Amir brings the traumatized child back to California and a bittersweet ending.
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible.Pub Date: June 2, 2003
ISBN: 1-57322-245-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
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A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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