The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer | Book Review

“I’ll never discover where they ended up, no one knows the humble fates of so many people. (…) this entire world is no more than a delusion of my crippled mind. (…) another such world is possible, (…) but a little less heinous.” “I’ve always believed I didn’t come into […]

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The Map by Barbara Sadurska | Book Review

The Map by Barbara Sadurska

“The turning point came one day when we were searching the house of someone wed brought in for interrogation. I came across a black and white photograph. On the back, written in pencil, was a place name and a date: April 1940. (…) Women standing in a line on a […]

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What Have You Left Behind? Voices From A Forgotten War by Bushra Al-Maqtari | Book Review

“From that morning, what’s engraved on my mind (…) it is the shock of how war was conjured, how life collapsed in one fell swoop: civil infighting, the humiliation of hunger, the indignity of it all, our generation’s lost dreams. They split the citizens into two warring camps, leaving the […]

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Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love by Huma Qureshi | Book Review

Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love by Huma Qureshi is a collection of ten profoundly moving short stories, written in lyrical and luscious prose underpinned by a variety of subtle emotions. Each story explores themes of loneliness, relationships, connections, misunderstandings, silences, unspoken emotions and feelings, internal turmoil, […]

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20 Books about Immigration, Belonging and Identity

I have prepared a list of 20 books exploring themes of immigration, belonging and identity related to social class, ethnicity, and nationality. Often the theme of immigration intersects with the theme of belonging and identity. Therefore, I have decided to include all these themes in one list. As usual I […]

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Michel The Giant. An African in Greenland by Tete-Michel Kpomassie | Book Review

Michel the Giant by the Togolese writer and adventurer, Tete-Michel Kpomassie is an extraordinary book about a long journey that Michel took from his home in Togo via Europe to reach Greenland, the land of eternal ice he had become fascinated with as a child and dreamt of visiting. In 1950s when he […]

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Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao | Book Review

Sanmao belongs to the 20th century most iconic women. She was a writer, traveler, and university teacher born in China in 1943 and then raised in Taiwan. As an adult she travelled extensively across Spain, Germany, Central America and spent a few years living in the Western Sahara where she […]

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12 Books with the Inspirational Female Protagonists

I hope you all are doing well. I would like to share with you a few book recommendations with the Inspirational Female Protagonists. These are characters dealing with loneliness in its various forms, trauma, ageing, poverty, life within strict religious and social norms, no opportunities for ‘better’ life. I have […]

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The Desert and The Drum by Mbarek Ould Beyrouk | Book Review

“I refused to be intimidated by the chapters of the past or the indecipherable pages of the future. (…) It was time to detach myself from the old ways: I was no longer from here. I was from nowhere, and I was going faraway”. “I am nothing. I am the […]

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Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda | Book Review

“The soul of life is the little things, the minor events no one notices…. That’s where life is, the pleasure of being alive, otherwise there’s just this vast blueness casting its shadow over us.  (…) Take care of your soul as the wind does, have fun your own as a […]

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