Primo Levi’s memoir The Reawakening begins where his Survival in Auschwitz ended. It’s the last days of the WWII, and Levi is trying to stay alive in what passes for a hospital or sick bay in concentration camp. Levi, who committed suicide in 1987, was an Italian Jewish writer and a chemist. He was arrested in as a part of the Italian resistance in 1943, and to escape being shot as a partisan, he confessed to being Jewish, and after a short interment in Italy, […]
There’s Always Someone Lower
Bessie Head was born in 1937 in South-Africa, a daughter of a wealthy white man and his black servant. She exiled to Botswana in the 60’s, and died in 1986, aged only 48. Maru is the only one of her 12 published works that’s easily available for Finnish readers. And it’s a beautiful piece of fiction. In the center of the book we find Margaret Cadmore, and orphaned daughter of the despised and oppressed Masarwa tribe, which is one group belonging to people that have […]
We’ll see how brave you are
Catherynne M. Valente’s The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
In a year 2525 (or thereabouts)
First published in 1960, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. is considered a somewhat of a classic of post-apocalyptic science fiction. I’ve wanted to read it for years, thanks to goodreads and its recommendations page. See, goodreads thought that since I intend to read Russel Hoban’s Riddley Walker one day, I would also enjoy A Canticle for Leibowitz. And it wasn’t entirely wrong. The novel is divided into three parts, with each part taking the reader further and further into the post […]