Translated from Portuguese by Garry Craig PowellPublished by 8th House Publishing, 2024, 394 pages. Original version published in 2024. This is the portrait of a dictatorship and its aftermath, told through the lives of ordinary people as well as those in power. Set in a fictional Eastern European country called Slavia, the first part of …
Continue reading Perestroika—An Eye for an Eye, A Tooth for a Tooth: João Cerqueira
Published by Pushkin Press, 2012, 322 pages. The stray cats of Nizamuddin are on edge. They sense a new cat in their neighbourhood. This is no ordinary feline: this is a Sender. The cats of Nizamuddin, an old neighbourhood of Delhi, can communicate with each other over long distances, not just by mews but by …
Published by Canongate, 2021, 550 pages. “Stories never start at the beginning, Benny. They differ from life in that regard. Life is lived from birth to death, from the beginning into an unknowable future. But stories are told in hindsight. Stories are life lived backward.” “Things speak all the time, but if your ears aren’t …
Translated from Portuguese by Peter BushPublished by Bloomsbury Press, 2008, 396 pages. Original version published in 2003. It is a rainy morning in December 1905, and Luís Bernardo Valença is on a train from Lisbon to Vila Viçosa: he has been summoned by the King of Portugal. He has no idea why the King wants …
Andrew Terrill is a writer and photographer from London, England, who now lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. His books The Earth Beneath My Feet (2021) and On Sacred Ground (2022) describe a solo 7,000-mile walk from Italy to Norway. This walk raised funds and awareness for homeless people in the …
Continue reading Walking the Wild Places: An Interview with Andrew Terrill
Published by Tebot Bach, 1997, 95 pages. “I wonder if any life goes far enough to ever heal itself.” The vivid and sensual poems tell the story of a woman from childhood to adulthood. They act as snapshots, highlighting important moments of her life. The poems in the first section are about childhood, life seen …
Translated from Spanish by Fionn PetchPublished by Charco Press, 2020, 111 pages. Original version published in 2017. “But have we not heard this in countless songs that begin all over again after a refrain? Or when the volume gradually fades, giving the impression that the band is disappearing into the distance and the song is …
Published by Penguin, 1963, 239 pages. Stories originally published in 1953 and 1957. “Some kids are cissies by nature but I was a cissy by conviction. Mother had told me about geniuses; I wanted to be one, and I could see for myself that fighting, as well as being sinful, was dangerous.” A child competes …
Continue reading My Oedipus Complex and Other Stories: Frank O’Connor
This article was first published in Teacher Plus, May-June 2024 (https://www.teacherplus.org/building-bridges-through-stories/) Photo: bee boys via Shutterstock Stories are an integral part of our lives. They shape us and are the way in which we remember, turning our lives into narratives. As children, we are raised on fables and fairy tales that teach us how to …
Published by Time Warner Books / Sphere, 2003, 488 pages. Cambridge, 1354. “The winter that gripped England was the worst anyone could remember. It came early, brought by bitter north winds that were laden with snow and sleet. The River Cam and the King’s Ditch—usually meandering, fetid cesspools that oozed around the little Fen-edge town …
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