A Beautiful Prayer by Joanne Ekamdeiya Gobure

a nutshell: across eight stanzas, Nauruan poet Joanne Ekamdeiya Gobure shares what she believes her religion is all about – compassion for others

a line: “I asked God to grant me patience. God said, No. Patience is a byproduct of tribulations; it isn’t granted, it is learned”

an image: at one point the poet is told she must grow on her own but God would prune her to make her fruitful, which struck me as a curious image

a thought: as I finished this poem and started to read more on Nauru, I discovered today marks the 7th anniversary of Australia’s decision to resume transferring asylum seekers offshore, including to Nauru – today, still, almost 400 people have to choose between enduring horrific conditions in Nauru/PNG or being forced back to conflict/persecution where they came from (read about Nauru’s history here)

a fact: formerly known as Pleasant Island, this is the world’s smallest island nation with around 10,800 residents; according to this report, just under two-thirds of the population is Protestant and one-third is Catholic

want to read A Beautiful Prayer? visit here

The Wind That Lays Waste by Selva Almada (tr. Chris Andrews)

a nutshell: this highly charged, palpable prose is ignited by the sparks thrown off a heady encounter between a preacher, his daughter, a mechanic and his assistant in the wilds of northern Argentina

a line: “But Leni has no lost paradise to revisit. Her childhood was very recent but her memory of it was empty.”

an image: I found the omniscient narrator’s passage about the reverend’s sermons deeply unsettling, with the escalating intrusions of Christ’s tongue, finger, tongue until the climactic disgorging of the slimy black Devil-infused fabric

a thought: through its potency, this story carried me into a world profoundly different to the one I inhabit – immersing me for several hours in belief systems & ways of life so far from my own (a very useful exercise given how much time I spend in a filter bubble)

a fact: according to a 2017 survey, 76% of Argentina’s population is Christian – 66% Roman Catholic, 10% Evangelical Protestant; last year’s failure of the bill to legalise abortion highlighted the enduring power of the church in Argentinian politics

want to read The Wind That Lays Waste? visit here

[PS. big thanks to Charco Press for the copy!]

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

a nutshell: 15yo Kambili lets us peek into her household, where the deep-rooted reign of her tyrant father – a fanatical Catholic – is starting to show signs of decay

a line: “Perhaps we will talk more with time, or perhaps we never will be able to say it all, to clothe things in words, things that have long been naked”

an image: Kambili’s father’s renouncement of his own father (Papa-Nnukwu) since the old man holds onto ancestors’ faith means Kambili & her brother are permitted just one very fleeting, futile meeting annually with their poverty-stricken grandfather, which makes for a moving scene in his ramshackle yard

a thought: for me the novel flagged up how a sense of fear and worship meshes in such an inextricable way – both within a family unit and within the religious sphere

a fact: Chimamanda grew up in Nsukka as the fifth of six children in an Igbo family whose ancestral village was Aba – these towns are at the centre of her debut

want to read Purple Hibiscus? visit here