Interview with Carolyn Howard-Johnson The author of This is the Place talks about the inspiration for her book, her characters, the difficulties involved in getting a first book published, her free e-book Cooking by the Book, and her upcoming projects. Interview by Magdalena…
A Review of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a book of moderate length, Kundera provides a richness of content out of all proportion to its length. He achieves this by a use of narrative loops. These loops cover areas that are approximately the same…
An Interview with Philomena Van Rijswijk
Interview with Philomena Van Rijswijk Philomena Van Rijswijk talks about living in Tasmania, the importance of Antarctica, the research involved in writing The World as a Clockface, major themes, her writer’s retreat at Varuna, and lots more. (photography credit: Ray…
Philomena Van Rijswijk’s The World as a Clockface
Following in the footsteps of the early Carey, Borges, Marquez, de Bernieres, and Fowles, Van Rijswijk uses her knowledge of the sea, and her antipodean base of Tasmania, to create a unique voice, taking the reader on a descriptive journey from the mythical antipodean island state of Esmania, past a small island to the east called Aotearoa, Antartica, Tierra del Feugo, Paraguay, the Cape of Africa, and back to the Antipodean mainland Incognita.
A Review of Banana Yoshimoto’s Asleep
A Small Resurrection: A Review of Banana Yoshimoto’s Asleep The combination of very realistic, interesting, and believable characters, with a hint of supernatural epiphany which turns the ordinary into something magic and extraordinary, is very powerful. With delicate strokes of…
A Review of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections
The style is edged in irony as one might expect with such a subject but there are few quotable passages. Franzen is more concerned with the production of a seamless narrative. Although there are no solecisms, a few sentences are…
A Review of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift
A Review of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift Humboldt’s Gift has its picaresque side and the selection of types and traumas may be looked at as modern translations of Huck’s own troubles and concerns. The honesty of the writer is a…
A Review of This is the Place by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
The book is about how the persecuted become the persecutors; how those who have suffered from bigotry and prejudice become bigoted and prejudiced. It is about “us” and “them”, about inclusion and exclusion, about the comforts and benefits of belonging…
A Review of Isabel Allende’s Portrait in Sepia
Portrait in Sepia is a very easy to read, well researched, straightforward narrative, which is interesting for its historical context, and perhaps relaxing, albeit devoid of serious philosophical depths, real characterisation, or linguistic innovation. Reviewed by Magdalena Ball Portrait in Sepia…
A review of Hilary McPhee’s Other People’s Words
McPhee’s life is certainly an interesting one, touching as it does, on the history of Australian publishing, the seminal authors in the Australian literary life, a taste of Australian life in the 70s and 80s, and the worldwide impact of commercialism and technology on the world of literacy, books and the reader: “The gulf between literary and commercial publishing could only get wider as cultural literacy levels plummeted and the much more visual mass media took over”.