The Time In Between is essential reading for those who thought that reading about the Spanish Civil War meant Hemingway and Orwell. In her lush and sprawling novel, María Dueñas presents the era via the perspective of "an independent woman in difficult times". There was no room for a seamstress like
House of Anansi, 2011 Edem Awumey’s Dirty Feet is a slim volume, but its contents are hefty indeed. Askia’s story reminds the reader that one is wise not to judge insides by outsides, that the dimensions of an individual’s inner life expand even beyond personal experiences, that one
The Love Letter was longlisted in 1996, the year that Helen Dunmore's The Spell of Winter won the Orange Prize. The idea intrigued me straight away, even before I saw the 1999 film of the same name: a love letter addressed and signed ambiguously, discovered by a 42-year-old
Jaspreet Singh's Chef Vintage Canada, 2008 Kirpal is on the train when he overhears a child ask her mother what people miss most when they die. He thinks, food. "We miss peaches, strawberries, delicacies like Sandhurst curry, kebab pasanda and rogan josh. The dead do not eat marzipan. The smell
Rosy Thornton's More Than Love Letters (2006) Headline, 2007 "Don’t you think it would be sad if nobody ever wrote each other love letters any more?" The genesis of Rosy Thornton's debut novel could well have been that statement. Of course it's a character -- not the author
