One More Year by Sana Krasikov

a nutshell: this debut collection holds eight stories of immigrants scattered across challenging circumstances, hailing from the no-longer Soviet Empire

a line: “To her, friendship still meant coming face-to-face with another’s unmediated existence”

an image: a woman knows she’d have to overcome the urge to look for her ex-partner, like a gaunt animal migrating uphill before a flash flood without quite knowing why

a thought: at one point Krasikov writes that a character knew anyone could be fearless as long as there was no other option, which struck a chord

a fact: for a month between homes Krasikov slept in one of the ‘war rooms’ at a law firm where she worked, which had a decisive impact on her becoming a writer – writing is all about finding a place for personal freedom in the public sphere, she says

want to read One More Year? visit here

How Dare the Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana with Abigail Pesta

a nutshell: this moving memoir follows Uwiringiyimana’s journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through the Gatumba massacre, to the US where she resettled with her family and began to confront her trauma

a line: “We must not fall prey to the kind of thinking that separates us”

an image: Uwiringiyimana vividly recalls the sense of displacement in the family’s arrival in the US, for instance how her father says he feels like the cold wind is electrocuting him

a thought: I was astonished to learn the family did not receive any counselling during their resettlement, which seems like an extreme oversight in the program – I was very moved by Uwiringiyimana’s frank account of her mental health in the years following the massacre

a fact: Uwiringiyimana’s activism grew out of a photo exhibition she created with her brother, Alex, which led to an invitation to speak at Women in the World – here‘s part of that interview she did with Charlie Rose

want to read How Dare the Sun Rise? visit here

Crick Crack Monkey by Merle Hodge

cover with portait of young girl on front

a nutshell: written from the perspective of Tee, whose mother dies in childbirth & whose father emigrates to England, this short novel explores an upbringing suspended between the worlds of two aunts – aunt Tantie’s informal & exuberant world and Aunt Beatrice’s pretentious & ‘refined’ world

a line: “Books transported you always into Reality and Rightness, which were to be found Abroad” (underlining the oppressively ‘colonial’ nature of education)

an image: the vividly atmospheric descriptions of food & music at Tantie’s conjure such a warmth and richness that contrasts starkly with the coldness of Aunt Beatrice’s

a thought: Tee’s feeling of unnaturalness/alienation at Aunt Beatrice’s is conveyed powerfully in the two scenes in which she observes the sea “offensively” rolling in & out with “no respect” for anything, as if all is right in the world

a fact: published in 1970, when Hodge was in her mid-20s, this novel’s title refers to a Caribbean oral tradition whereby at the start/end of a story the storyteller calls “crick?” and the audience responds “crack”

want to read Crick Crack Monkey? visit here

The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper

The House at Sugar Beach book next to plant

a nutshell: this memoir covers some distance – from a wealthy childhood among Liberia’s ‘Congo’ class to a (post-coup) adolescence in the US, it’s an unflinching reflection on destructive divisions within societies and families

a line: “‘What makes us not refugees?’ ‘Because we paid for our own plane tickets.”

an image: Cooper recalls her classmates trying to make sense of soldiers’ extreme violence against their families during the coup d’état, with the kids themselves having been beaten and violated

a thought: ahead of describing the mass executions, persecutions & humiliations that came with Doe’s military coup in 1980, Cooper makes many observations on the inequality & injustice of society before the coup as well – she doesn’t mask the fact that her elite class ignores the immense poverty of the ‘native Liberians’ who were colonised when American black freemen (one of who was her direct ancestor) founded Liberia

a fact: Liberia was the first African republic to proclaim its independence (in 1847, from the US) and is Africa’s first & oldest modern republic

want to read The House at Sugar Beach? visit here

Luisa in Realityland by Claribel Alegría (tr. D J Flakoll)

a nutshell: flitting between poetry & prose vignettes, this short autofictional book conjures Alegría’s mystical, occasionally haunting memories of her early life in El Salvador

a line: “Any psychoanalyst would tell you that you’re horribly envious of Chagall”

an image: Luisa refuses to take home a bird from her childhood friend, saying her grandfather believes birds should be free – the boy then reveals, twisting his bare & dirty toes, that his mum is planning to cook her as they have nothing but the bird to eat

a thought: in its afternote, the book mentions that the author has long been an outspoken advocate of the liberation struggle in El Salvador and Central America more widely – this comes across in the later stages of the book, particularly through the poetry

a fact: Alegría was born in Nicaragua but when she was nine months old her father was exiled for protesting human rights violations during the US occupation, so she grew up in Santa Ana (western El Salvador) where her mother was from and considered herself Nicaraguan-Salvadorean

want to read Luisa in Realityland? visit here

Wedding in Autumn & Other Stories by Shih Chiung-Yu (tr. Darryl Sterk)

a nutshell: set in Taiwan in the 1970-80s, this is a collection of three novellas focusing on marginalised people (particularly women) who suffer due to conflicts between nations, generations, and racial prejudices

a line: “Women’s wombs are strange places: they can nourish new life and discharge it, over and over again. In that respect, a womb’s kind of like my big sister’s temper.”

an image: a disturbingly vivid scene in which a traumatised woman suffers a miscarriage and a young boy unwittingly deserts her was difficult to shake from my mind

a thought: the importance of investing time & effort in learning about women’s rights issues globally was reinforced for me when I found out that Chiung-Yu’s titular story was inspired by her involvement in Irish protests for women’s reproductive rights while she was living in Dublin, as these had prompted her to think about how women in her own society could be seen as second-class citizens

a fact: born in 1968, the author grew up in Taitung County – the setting of her novellas – along the southeastern shore of the island of Taiwan

want to read Wedding in Autumn? visit here