The Wonderous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana

The Wonderous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana
Author: MARYSE. CONDE
Publisher:
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2020-05-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781912987092

Ivan and Ivana are twins with a bond so strong they become afraid of their feelings. As young adults in Paris, Ivana joins the police while Ivan walks the path of radicalisation. Unable to live with or without each other, become perpetrator and victim in a wave of violent attacks. With her most impressive novel to date, this master storyteller offers an impressive picture of a colourful yet turbulent 21st century.

Segu

Segu
Author: Maryse Conde
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 513
Release: 1996-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 014025949X

“Condé’s story is rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader’s heart.” —Maya Angelou “A wondrous novel” (The New York Times) by the winner of the 2018 New Academy Prize (The Alternative Nobel prize in literature) and author of The Gospel According to the New World The year is 1797, and the kingdom of Segu is flourishing, fed by the wealth of its noblemen and the power of its warriors. The people of Segu, the Bambara, are guided by their griots and priests; their lives are ruled by the elements. But even their soothsayers can only hint at the changes to come, for the battle of the soul of Africa has begun. From the east comes a new religion, Islam, and from the West, the slave trade. Segu follows the life of Dousika Traore, the king’s most trusted advisor, and his four sons, whose fates embody the forces tearing at the fabric of the nation. There is Tiekoro, who renounces his people’s religion and embraces Islam; Siga, who defends tradition, but becomes a merchant; Naba, who is kidnapped by slave traders; and Malobali, who becomes a mercenary and halfhearted Christian. Based on actual events, Segu transports the reader to a fascinating time in history, capturing the earthy spirituality, religious fervor, and violent nature of a people and a growing nation trying to cope with jihads, national rivalries, racism, amid the vagaries of commerce.

The Belle Créole

The Belle Créole
Author: Maryse Condé
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0813944236

Possessing one of the most vital voices in international letters, Maryse Condé added to an already acclaimed career the New Academy Prize in Literature in 2018. The twelfth novel by this celebrated author revolves around an enigmatic crime and the young man at its center. Dieudonné Sabrina, a gardener, aged twenty-two and black, is accused of murdering his employer--and lover--Loraine, a wealthy white woman descended from plantation owners. His only refuge is a sailboat, La Belle Créole, a relic of times gone by. Condé follows Dieudonné’s desperate wanderings through the city of Port-Mahault the night of his acquittal, the narrative unfolding through a series of multivoiced flashbacks set against a forbidding backdrop of social disintegration and tumultuous labor strikes in turn-of-the-twenty-first-century Guadeloupe. Twenty-four hours later, Dieudonné’s fate becomes suggestively intertwined with that of the French island itself, though the future of both remains uncertain in the end. Echoes of Faulkner and Lawrence, and even Shakespeare’s Othello, resonate in this tale, yet the drama’s uniquely modern dynamics set it apart from any model in its exploration of love and hate, politics and stereotype, and the attempt to find connections with others across barriers. Through her vividly and intimately drawn characters, Condé paints a rich portrait of a contemporary society grappling with the heritage of slavery, racism, and colonization.

Crossing the Mangrove

Crossing the Mangrove
Author: Maryse Conde
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2011-03-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307787702

In this beautifully crafted, Rashomon-like novel, Maryse Conde has written a gripping story imbued with all the nuances and traditions of Caribbean culture. Francis Sancher--a handsome outsider, loved by some and reviled by others--is found dead, face down in the mud on a path outside Riviere au Sel, a small village in Guadeloupe. None of the villagers are particularly surprised, since Sancher, a secretive and melancholy man, had often predicted an unnatural death for himself. As the villagers come to pay their respects they each--either in a speech to the mourners, or in an internal monologue--reveal another piece of the mystery behind Sancher's life and death. Like pieces of an elaborate puzzle, their memories interlock to create a rich and intriguing portrait of a man and a community. In the lush and vivid prose for which she has become famous, Conde has constructed a Guadeloupean wake for Francis Sancher. Retaining the full color and vibrance of Conde's homeland, Crossing the Mangrove pays homage to Guadeloupe in both subject and structure.

The Hotel Tito

The Hotel Tito
Author: Ivana Bodrozic
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609807960

The most powerful autobiographical novel written about the Yugoslav wars. A timely and deeply accessible book that speaks to what it is like to be displaced by war. Hotel Tito is an award-winning autobiographical novel of the Serbo-Croatian War. Author Ivana Bodrožić was born in the Croatian town of Vukovar, just across the Danube from Serbia. In the fall of 1991, Vukovar was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army for eighty-seven days. When the army broke the siege, people came up out of the basements where they'd been sheltering from bombardment; women and children were allowed out of the besieged city, but the army bused 400 men from the hospital to a farm on the outskirts where soldiers and Serbian paramilitaries massacred them. Bodrožić's father was among those taken and murdered. In Hotel Tito, after fleeing the war zone their town has become, the mother and two children are housed along with other displaced persons at a former communist school in the village of Kumrovec (the birthplace of Josip Tito). For years they share a single room just large enough for their three beds, waiting to hear whether the narrator's father survived and when they'll be granted an apartment of their own. In the meantime life goes on for the teenage protagonist, first loves bloom and burn quickly, new friendships are acquired and lost, new truths emerge, and new emotions. But she never loses her shy, insightful voice, nor her self-deprecating sense of humor. Hotel Tito is a sensitive and forthright coming of age novel in a time of atrocity and loss.

Waiting for the Waters to Rise

Waiting for the Waters to Rise
Author: Maryse Condé
Publisher:
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2021-08-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781642860733

Babakar is an African doctor living alone until the child Anaïs comes into his life. Forced to abandon his solitude, he takes her to Haiti in search of her family.

Why Not Say What Happened?

Why Not Say What Happened?
Author: Ivana Lowell
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-09-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1408810042

Beautiful, intelligent and wealthy, Ivana Lowell seemed to have it all. Part of the Guinness dynasty, her family were glamorous and well-connected. Her charismatic but spoilt grandmother Maureen had made an excellent marriage with the Lord of Dufferin and Avon and was a leader of the fashionable set in her youth. Her mother, the writer Caroline Blackwood, socialised with the most glitteringly bohemian and high-profile figures of New York and London. Caroline had intense love affairs and was married to the painter Lucian Freud and the talented composer Israel Citkowitz before finally settling down with the poet Robert Lowell.However, being born into the Guinness inheritance was not the blessing that it appeared to be. Ivana's life of glamour and high-living has been marked by tragedy and loss. Like her brilliant but troubled mother, she has been plagued by an addiction to alcohol which took root when she was still a self-conscious schoolgirl. Having survived a childhood accident which left her physically scarred and the instability of a frenetic home life, she is also faced with the discovery of a secret which threatens to undermine her entire past.This frank and witty memoir is both vibrant and sad. It is laced with anecdotes and familiar names from the 1940s to the present, but it is ultimately an account of the relationship between mother and daughter, the story of two women whose deep affection for each other withstands everything that life has to throw at them.

Romanov

Romanov
Author: Nadine Brandes
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0785217258

My name is Anastasia. The history books say I died. They don’t know the half of it. Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before. Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are either to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her. That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other. Praise for Romanov: "I am obsessed with this book! A magical twist on history that will have Anastasia fans wishing for more. I loved every detail Brandes wrote. If you love magic and Imperial Russia, you want Romanov on your shelf!" —Evelyn Skye "Romanov will cast a spell on readers and immerse them in a history anyone would long to be a part of." —Sasha Alsberg "If you think you know the story behind Anastasia Romanov, think again! The perfect blend of history and fantasy, Romanov takes a deeper look at the days leading up to the family’s tragedy, while also exploring the possibilities behind the mysteries that have long intrigued history buffs everywhere. Brandes weaves a brilliant and intricate saga of love, loss, and the power of forgiveness. Prepare to have your breath stolen by this gorgeous novel of brilliant prose and epic enchantment." —Sara Ella Full-length historical fantasy Includes discussion questions for book clubs Paperback contains special bonus chapter

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-07-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780374534684

For the centenary of the Russian Revolution, a new edition of the Russian Nobel Prize-winning author's most accessible novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an undisputed classic of contemporary literature. First published (in censored form) in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, it is the story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. On every page of this graphic depiction of Ivan Denisovich's struggles, the pain of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's own decade-long experience in the gulag is apparent—which makes its ultimate tribute to one man's will to triumph over relentless dehumanization all the more moving. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced-work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary works to have emerged from the Soviet Union. The first of Solzhenitsyn's novels to be published, it forced both the Soviet Union and the West to confront the Soviet's human rights record, and the novel was specifically mentioned in the presentation speech when Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Above all, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich establishes Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy" (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times). This unexpurgated, widely acclaimed translation by H. T. Willetts is the only translation authorized by Solzhenitsyn himself.

Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?

Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?
Author: Maryse Condé
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2004-08-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1416505083

The deeply prolific and widely celebrated author of such books as Segu and Tales from the Heart, Maryse Condé returns with an unforgettable new novel, Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? Inspired by a tragedy in the late twentieth century, Condé sets this fiction in the late nineteenth century with her characteristic blend of magical realism and fantasy. Condé lyrically, hauntingly imagines Celanire: a woman who was mutilated at birth and left for dead. Mysterious, seductive, and disarming, she is driven to uncover the truth of her past at any cost. On one hand, Celanire appears to be a saint; she is a tireless worker who has turned numerous neglected institutions into vibrant schools for motherless children. But she is also a woman apprehended by demons, as death and misfortune seem to follow in her wake. Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? follows both her triumphs and her trials as this survivor becomes a beautiful and powerful woman who travels from Guadeloupe to West Africa to Peru in order to solve the mysteries of her past and avenge the crimes committed against her. This beautifully rendered story, translated by Richard Philcox from the French edition, is sure to be considered the most dazzling addition to Condé's brilliant body of work.