biography

Enver Hoxha

Note: If this book is chosen for the group read, we’ll read it over 2 months since it is 414 pages.

Stalinism, that particularly brutal phase of communism, came to an end in most of Eastern Europe with the death of Josef Stalin in 1953 or at least with the Khrushchev reforms that began in the Soviet Union in 1956. However, in one country—Albania—Stalinism survived virtually unscathed until 1990. The regime that the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha led from the time of the communist takeover in 1944 until his death in 1985, and that continued unabated under his successor Ramiz Alia until 1990, was incomparably severe. Such was the reign of terror that no audible voice of opposition or dissent ever arose in the Balkan state, a European country that became as isolated from the rest of the world as North Korea is today. When the Albanian communist system finally imploded, it left behind a weary population, frightened and confused after decades of purges and political terror. It also left behind a country with a weak and fragile economy, a country where extreme poverty was the norm.

“Absolutely a fascinating read, being rather a journalistic approach to the subject than a classic biography.” —Passionnée des Livres

“The extraordinary story of how one man held an entire country hostage for 40 years—and got away with it. More importantly, it provides a voice to the dead, the disappeared, the exiled, and the purged, who are brought to life in a number of absorbing vignettes. Giving them a voice, something which Hoxha desperately tried to deny them, is perhaps Fevziu’s most profound achievement.” —Wild Tour Albania

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King of Kings

He was the scion of a dynasty that was reputed to descend from King Solomon, a pioneer of African unity and independence, a staunch confederate of the Allies in their fight against the fascist Axis powers and the messiah of the Jamaican Rastafarian movement. He was a reformer and an autocrat, whose rule was brought to a brutal and ignominious end when he was toppled and murdered by communist rebels. The impressive, dazzling and complex personality of Haile Selassie, King of Kings, is brilliantly conveyed in this biographical portrait by Asfa-Wossen Asserate, his great-nephew.

The author spent his childhood and youth in Ethiopia, though he never held political office in his native country, where his father was the last president of the Imperial Crown Council. The background of the author, who knew Haile Selassie in person, afforded him intimate insights into life at the imperial court and the increasingly controversial policies pursued by the emperor. Asserate’s own experiences, augmented by intensive research in both family and public archives, combine to produce a uniquely detailed portrayal of the last King of Kings, and the turbulent and tragic history of the country over which he reigned supreme for much of the 20th century.

“Haile Selassie is one of the most bizarre and misunderstood figures in 20th-century history, alternately worshipped and mocked, idolised and marginalised. This magnificent biography is diligently researched and fair-minded; he is at last accorded a proper dignity.” —Guardian

“This is a superb, magnificent and totally gripping biography.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore

(A special thank you to book club member, Eydis West for the suggestion.)

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Telling People What They Don't Want to Hear

Very few Jews, or whites in general, were openly and vocally adversarial to white domination and the brutality of the post-1948 Afrikaner regime. And very few of the Jews who did oppose apartheid were able to live comfortably with their own Jewishness.

Jock Isacowitz played a key role during the 1940s and 1950s in forging and defending the progressive ideals on which post-apartheid South Africa was built. He was national chairman of the Springbok Legion, the radical ex-servicemen’s “union”, and the brains behind the Torch Commando, the last popular movement to take to the streets against the Apartheid regime.

A member of the Communist Party during WWII, he resigned before the end of the war over its totalitarian approach and subservience to Moscow. He was a founder of the Liberal Party and, in 1955, became the first party member to be issued with a banning order. After the Sharpeville massacre, he was imprisoned under emergency orders. Towards the end of his life, Jock was a radical anti-apartheid activist, a Zionist and a leader of the local Jewish community. As such, he was, if not unique, a rare commodity. Only his sudden illness and death prevented Jock from contributing further to the anti-apartheid opposition.

Written by Jock’s son, Roy, this biography takes an unflinching, second-generation look at a life that intersected with those of Jan Smuts, Alan Paton, Bram Fischer, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Joe Slovo and many others. A veteran journalist and writer, Roy Isacowitz brings the remarkable character of his father vividly to life, along with the hopes and dreams of his generation.

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The Pianist from Syria (aka The Pianist of Yarmouk)

“‘Ahmad has created a moving and visceral account of conflict, hope and the power of music' - Observer

The inspirational true story of one young man's struggle to find peace during war, and the power of music to bring hope to a desperate nation.

One morning in war-torn Damascus, a starving man drags a piano into a rubbled street. Everything he once knew has been destroyed by war.

Amidst ruin and despair, he begins to play. He plays of love and hope, he plays for his family and his fellow Syrians. He plays even though he could be killed for doing so.

As word of his defiance spreads around the world, he becomes a beacon of hope and even resistance. Yet he fears for his wife and children—the more he plays, the more he and his family are endangered until, finally, he must make a terrible choice . . .

Aeham Ahmad's spellbinding and uplifting true story tells of the triumph of love and hope, the incredible bonds of family, and the healing power of music in even the very darkest of places.

'In amongst the wreckage scenes of hope. An amazing man - Ahmad played the piano just to spread love' Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2

'The music of Aeham Ahmad became a symbol of resistance' Today, BBC Radio 4”

(A special thank you to book club member, Beth Cummings for the group read suggestion.)

Note: If you’re looking for the paperback in Amazon US, it appears as if it is available under a different link & a slightly different title so if you want the paperback version or are having an issue seeing the paperback version that’s available now, use this link: https://amzn.to/2vpZfKk.

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Mao

“A triumph. It is a mesmerising portrait of tyranny, degeneracy, mass murder and promiscuity, a barrage of revisionist bombshells, and a superb piece of research.” - The Sunday Times

“The detail and documentation are awesome. The story told, mesmerising in its horror, is the most powerful, compelling, and revealing political biography of modern times. Few books are destined to change history, but this one will.” - Daily Mail

“The most authoritative life of the Chinese leader every written, Mao: The Unknown Story is based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao’s close circle in China who have never talked before—and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned, and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao’s rule—in peacetime.”

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Wild Swans

“The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author.

An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.”

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Empress Dowager Cixi

“Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age.

At the age of 16, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor’s numerous concubines. When he died, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China—behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.

In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, the telegraph, and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women’s liberation and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot.

Cixi reigned during extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, wars with France and Japan—and an invasion by 8 allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia, and the US.

Based on newly available (mostly Chinese) historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and eyewitness accounts, this biography will revolutionize historical thinking about a crucial period in China’s history. Packed with drama, fast paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population, and as a unique stateswoman.”

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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When There Were Tigers in Singapore

“Japan invades and captures the British colony of Singapore in 1942. All Europeans on the island are being interned. Edward Schirmer, the author’s grandfather, faces a dilemma—he is German, but born as a British subject. In a strange stroke of fortune, he finds himself friends with General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the famed ‘Tiger of Malaya’. Seeing the fate of the other Europeans, Edward reluctantly lets the Japanese assume he is a friendly German national. The secret of his true identity remains between the two men only…but when politics removes the protective Yamashita from the picture, betrayal ensues and Edward finds himself in prison, his family scattered.

Using the personal history from his family’s saga & extensive research to confirm his father’s account, the author then details the true-life account of Edward’s son (the author’s father)—a hellish tale of a six year-old boy’s quest for survival, alone on the streets of a war-torn vanquished nation.

Part autobiography, part microhistory of WWII with some lesser-known details of famous figures from the WWII era, but wholly the story of the fight for survival in and after the harshest of wars.

Where everyone is hungry and racial tension is rife.

Where martial law allows the occupiers to summarily execute at will.”

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The Great Thinkers of the Kazakh Steppe

“This book is a collection of biographies of great people from Kazakhstan's history. Some were real heroes of their time, some were not understood and were even thought to be traitors. However, their input into the future was very significant and their achievements cannot be diminished. Here, you will find out about the national composers-akyns, poets, and Khans. You will learn about the three judges that established the first legal system in Kazakhstan. Some of the characters might seem mythical, but the stories about them still live among us.

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Yerkebulan Dzhelbuldin was born in 1934 in Kazakhstan. He worked as a teacher in the Soviet Union for all his life and began gathering Kazakh materials for his book after Kazakhstan acquired its independence. Many facts were concealed from the Kazakh people and even Kazakhs did not know about their Khans and philosophers.

This book has never been published before. I translated Yerkebulan’s materials and put them into a book along with the sketches of all the characters. My name is Dana Jeteyeva and I specialize in translations of Kazakh fairy tales and other interesting facts about Kazakhstan. I want people all over the world to learn about my country—even though it is a big country in the middle of the large continent of Eurasia, few people know anything about it.”

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A Matter of Rats

"It is not only the past that lies in ruins in Patna, it is also the present. But that is not the only truth about the city that Amitava Kumar explores in this vivid, entertaining account of his hometown. We accompany him through many Patnas, the myriad cities locked within the city—the shabby reality of the present-day capital of Bihar; Pataliputra, the storied city of emperors; the dreamlike embodiment of the city in the minds and hearts of those who have escaped contemporary Patna's confines. Full of fascinating observations and impressions, A Matter of Rats reveals a challenging and enduring city that exerts a lasting pull on all those who drift into its orbit.

Kumar's ruminations on one of the world's oldest cities, the capital of India's poorest province, are also a meditation on how to write about place. His memory is partial. All he has going for him is his attentiveness. He carefully observes everything that surrounds him in Patna: rats and poets, artists and politicians, a girl's picture in a historian's study, and a sheet of paper on his mother's desk. The result is this unique book, as cutting as it is honest."

A special thank you to book club member, Ester Elbert for the suggestion.

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