Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
<!-- Rawi -->
*[[image:Rawi_Baghdad.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786073226/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786073226&linkCode=as2&tag=thebookbag-21&linkId=6245c9160510471e2771ab88fd40a18d]]
 
===[[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi]]===
 
[[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
 
''The Baghdad Clock'' is a tale of two friends growing up during the first and second Iraqi war. Shahad Al Rawi uses magic realism to illustrate the displacement felt by a young girl and her neighbourhood. The novel introduces us to the various characters surrounding the protagonist. They are full of life and yet never seem to add anything to the central narrative. Rawi, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi|Full Review]]
<br>
 
<!-- Clements -->
*[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472204271?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1472204271]]
|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]. I myself missed out, but that seemed to be vignettes from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and a host more, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent before. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] series, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection of shorts. Was it the ideal calling card? Let's face it, the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or two, as we see here. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Raja Alem, Katharine Halls (translator) and Adam Talib (translator)
|title= The Dove's Necklace
|rating= 3
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= I always hated Lit-Crit at school, so it came as something as a surprise that I ended up reviewing books, for fun. Now I understand. Finally, I see why literary critics get so up-in-arms about lowly book reviewers. There is a difference. This book explains it all. The author is ''the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic fiction'' for this book. The book also the LiBerator prize for ''the best book translated into German'' in 2014. I suspect it's not done yet. ''The Times'' tells us that it ''exemplifies everything that is currently shaking the foundations of Arab society.'' I am sure that not only will more plaudits fall upon the author and the book, but also that it will become a classic, spoken of in the same breath as the international classics: Proust, Márquez, Joyce, Rushdie, Nabokov…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715651757</amazonuk>
}}