Death is Hard Work

“A finalist for the National Book Awards in translated literature & shortlisted for the Saif Shobash Banipal prize

Abdel Latif, an old man, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. Before he dies, he tells his youngest son Bolbol that his final wish is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya in the Aleppo region. Though Abdel Latif was not the ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, he decides to persuade his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and their father's body to Anabiya—only a two-hour drive from Damascus.

But the country is a warzone, with the landscape of their childhood now a labyrinth of competing armies, whose actions are at once arbitrary and lethal, the siblings' decision to set aside their differences and honour their father's request quickly escalates from a dutiful commitment into an epic and life-threatening quest. Syria is no longer any place for heroes, and the trials that confront the family along their journey—while they are captured and recaptured, interrogated, imprisoned, and bombed—will prove to have enormous consequences for them all.

A mixture of brutal, front-line reportage and surreal humor evocative of Beckett and Kafka, Death is Hard Work is an unforgettable journey into a contemporary heart of darkness.”

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

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Cinnamon

“Late at night, Hanan sees a ray of light under her husband’s bedroom door. She opens the door to her old husband in bed with her beloved maid Alia. Blinded by rage, Hanan throws Alia out in the middle of the night. She watches Alia walk away, hoping she will turn back, and bitterly regrets having pushed her lover away.

Alia, who hasn’t turned 20 yet, has been Hanan’s maid for over eight years. She hasn’t heard from her family since her father brought her to the villa, in exchange for some money. Leaving home, she thought, would help her mother, brothers and sisters out. They all lived in a single room in the ghetto under the tyranny of her brutal father.

Life is not worth much in the ghetto, especially that of little girls. This is how Alia grew up to be so fierce. She was eight years old, and would carry a knife. But even that didn’t prevent her from being raped by the garbage collection leader. At least she got her revenge. She scratched his face with her knife, and didn’t let herself die of shame, like her old paralyzed sister, who had been repeatedly raped by their neighbor in that same tin room she couldn’t leave.

Alia walks away from the villa, with nowhere to go. She didn’t love Hanan, but felt safe in the golden cage. Being Hanan’s lover was an easy game she played in exchange of a little comfort. She heads towards the ghetto, fearing her father, recalling the misery she thought she had left behind, holding her little knife tight as she feels unsafe again.

As Hanan watches her leave, she remembers her own despair of a different kind. That of a lonely wealthy woman, married to a quiet, disgusting cousin against her will. Hanan’s life may be smooth, but it’s desperately empty. The two women’s encounter was unlikely anywhere else except in the villa, where Alia was the maid during the day, and a lover at night. Two tormented women who brought comfort to each other, and yet still engaged in a relationship of power and control over each other.”

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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The Crossing

International winner of the PEN Pinter Prize

“An eloquent, gripping and harrowing account of the country’s decline into barbarism by an incredibly brave Syrian.” - Irish Times

“Samar Yazbek's searing new book about her Syrian homeland is a testament to the indomitable spirit of her countrymen in their struggle against the Assad regime. . . shocking, searing, and beautiful.” - Daily Beast

“Journalist Samar Yazbek was forced into exile by Assad's regime. When the uprising in Syria turned to bloodshed, she was determined to take action and secretly returned several times. The Crossing is her rare, powerful and courageous testament to what she found inside the borders of her homeland.

From the first peaceful protests for democracy to the arrival of ISIS, she bears witness to those struggling to survive, to the humanity that can flower amidst annihilation, and why so many are now desperate to flee.”

“One of the first political classics of the 21st century.” - Observer

“Extraordinarily powerful, poignant, and affecting. I was greatly moved.” - Michael Palin

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

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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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Syrian Folktales

“This delightful book relates folktales from the fourteen muhafazah (i.e., governorates or provinces) of Syria. Each folktale is located on a regional map and is accompanied by a local, related recipe that’s easy to follow.“ Also woven into the book are folk sayings, Syrian history, songs, riddles, and hadith (i.e., the words and teachings from the Prophet Muhammad which serve as the second primary source of Islamic teachings). The author also includes a glossary of Syrian terms for reference.

Thoughtfully written, Syrian Folktales is a culturally-relevant and unique counterpoint to all the negativity heard about Syria presenting a view of the country that isn't political or war torn. This slim volume provides a rich look into Syrian culture and is a wonderful read for all ages.

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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Syria Speaks

“An English Pen Award winner, this anthology forms a rich, creatively diverse motif sublimely representative of a country and its people awash in strife and insurgency.” - Kirkus

“In Syria, culture has become a critical line of defence against tyranny. Syria Speaks is a celebration of a people determined to reclaim their dignity, freedom and self-expression. It showcases the work of over fifty artists and writers who are challenging the culture of violence in Syria.

Their literature, poems and songs, cartoons, political posters and photographs document and interpret the momentous changes that have shifted the frame of reality so drastically in Syria. Moving and inspiring, Syria Speaks is testament to the courage, creativity and imagination of the Syrian people.

“Syria Speaks is a remarkable achievement and a remarkable book—a wise, courageous, imaginative and beautiful response to all that is ugly in human behaviour. This extraordinary anthology gives a voice to those we may have forgotten, or whom we may classify as simply passive and silent victims. The people shown living, dreaming and speaking here are far more than victims and only silent if we refuse to hear them.'“ - A.L. Kennedy

“An extraordinary collection, revealing a dynamic and exciting culture in painful transition—a culture where artists are really making a difference ... You need to read this book.” - Brian Eno

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

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Blindness

“This is a shattering work by a literary master.” - Boston Globe

“A stunningly powerful novel of humanity's will to survive against all odds during an epidemic by a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

 A city is hit by an epidemic of ‘white blindness’ which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of our worst appetites and weaknesses—and humanity's ultimately exhilarating spirit.”

“This is a an important book, one that is unafraid to face all of the horror of the century.” - Washington Post

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The Plague

Written by a French-Algerian philosopher whose “insistence on placing individual moral responsibility at the heart of all public choices cuts sharply across the comfortable habits of our own age” - NY Review of Books

“The Nobel prize-winning Albert Camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain.

Set in Algeria, in northern Africa, The Plague is a powerful study of human life and its meaning in the face of a deadly virus that sweeps dispassionately through the city, taking a vast percentage of the population with it.

A haunting tale of human resilience in the face of unrelieved horror, Camus' novel about a bubonic plague is a classic of twentieth-century literature.”

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Fever

“From the international bestseller: an Afrikaner boy and his father navigate post-Apocalyptic South Africa—’reminiscent of The Stand and The Passage’ - Stephen King

"Nico Storm and his father, Willem, drive a truck filled with essential supplies through a desolate land. They are among the few in the world, as far as they know, to have survived a devastating virus that has swept over the planet. In this new reality, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father’s protector, even though he is still only a boy.
 
Willem Storm, though not a fighter, is a wise and compassionate man with a vision for a new community that survivors will rebuild from the ruins. And so Amanzi is founded, drawing Storm’s ‘homeless and tempest-tost’—starting with Melinda Swanevelder, whom they rescue from brutal thugs; Hennie Fly, with his vital Cessna plane; Beryl Fortuin and her ragtag group of orphans; and Domingo, the man with the tattooed hand. Then Sofia Bergman arrives, the most beautiful girl Nico has ever seen, who changes everything.
 
As the community grows, so do the challenges they face—not just from the attacks of biker brigands, but also from within. Looking back later in life, Nico recounts the traumatic events that led to the greatest rupture of all—the murder of the person he loves most.”
 
“Compelling, action-packed and fraught with emotion . . . bears favourable comparison with landmarks of the genre such as Stephen King’s The Stand and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Simply stunning.” - John Coates, Express (UK)
 
“Great stuff.” - Stephen King

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Red Dust

“Honest, raw, insightful. . . . The Chinese equivalent of On the Road.” - Time

“[Ma’s] powers of description make every page buzz with life. . . . Someone who could rank among the great travel writers.” –The NY Times Book Review

“A tour de force, a powerfully picaresque cross between the sort of travel book any Western author would give his eye-teeth to write, and a disturbing confession.” - The Independent

“Ma captures the feel of wandering off China’s beaten track, which is to say most of the country, far from the tour buses and souvenir stands.” –Los Angeles Times

In 1983, at the age of thirty, dissident artist Ma Jian finds himself divorced by his wife, separated from his daughter, betrayed by his girlfriend, facing arrest for ‘Spiritual Pollution,’ and severely disillusioned with the confines of life in Beijing. So with little more than a change of clothes and two bars of soap, Ma takes off to immerse himself in the remotest parts of China.

His journey would last three years and take him through smog-choked cities and mountain villages, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility.

Remarkably written and subtly moving, the result is an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both insider and outsider in his own country could have written.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Judy Tanguay for the suggestion.)

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Red Sorghum

“Mo Yan . . . brilliantly and fondly re-creates life with visceral writing that reeks of gunpowder, blood, and death.” - The NY Times Book Review

“Yan tempers his brutal tale with a powerfully evocative lyricism . . . A powerful new voice on the brutal unrest of rural China.” - Kirkus Reviews

“The acclaimed novel of love and resistance during late 1930s China by Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature

Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty, as the Chinese battle both Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s.

A legend in China, where it won major literary awards and inspired an Oscar-nominated film directed by Zhang Yimou, Red Sorghum is a book in which fable and history collide to produce fiction that is entirely new—and unforgettable.”

(A special thank you to book club members, Carol Weldon & Sena Karataşlı for the suggestion.)

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The Three Kingdoms

“This exciting new translation with footnotes is more readable than past versions and will appeal to modern readers.

The Three Kingdoms is an epic Chinese novel written over six centuries ago. It recounts in vivid historical detail the turbulent years at the close of the Han Dynasty when China broke into three competing kingdoms and over half the population were either killed or driven from their homes. Part myth, part fact, readers will experience the loyalty and treachery, the brotherhood and rivalry of China's legendary heroes and villains during the most tumultuous period in Chinese history.

Considered the greatest work in classic Chinese literature, The Three Kingdoms is read by millions throughout Asia today. Seen not just as a great work of art, many Chinese view it as a guide to success in life and business as well as a work that offers great moral clarity—while many foreigners read it to gain insights into Chinese society and culture. From the saga of The Three Kingdoms, readers will learn how great warriors motivate their troops and enhance their influence while disguising their weaknesses and turning the strengths of others against them.

This first volume in a trilogy introduces Liu Bei and his sworn brothers-in-arms Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, whose allegiance is sorely tested in a society that is in flux where each group is fighting for its survival against the other.”

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Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

“From the acclaimed author of Brothers and China in Ten Words: here is Yu Hua’s unflinching portrait of life under Chairman Mao.

A cart-pusher in a silk mill, Xu Sanguan augments his meager salary with regular visits to the local blood chief. His visits become lethally frequent as he struggles to provide for his wife and three sons at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Shattered to discover that his favorite son was actually born of a liaison between his wife and a neighbor, he suffers his greatest indignity, while his wife is publicly scorned as a prostitute. Although the poverty and betrayals of Mao’s regime have drained him, Xu Sanguan ultimately finds strength in the blood ties of his family.

With rare emotional intensity, grippingly raw descriptions of place and time, and clear-eyed compassion, Yu Hua gives us a stunning tapestry of human life in the grave particulars of one man’s days.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Elke Richelsen for the suggestion.)

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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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Death of a Red Heroine

“Xiaolong knows that words can save your soul and in his pungent, poignant mystery, he proves it on every page.” - Chicago Tribune

“A marvelously assured debut . . . Engrossing, immensely readable.” - The Wall Street Journal

“Qiu Xiaolong's award-winning debut introduces Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police.

A young ‘national model worker,’ renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.”

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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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Red Azalea

“The book sings. It is a small masterpiece. . . [No one] has written more honestly and poignantly than Min about the desert of solitude and human alienation at the center of the Chinese Communist revolution.” —Vogue

”Gripping. . . .reads like raw testimony. . .epic drama, and. . .poetic incantation. . . . It was passion and despair that made [Min] fearless; it was fearlessness that made her a writer.” —The NY Times

“A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, this is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, Min was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. This national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is exceptional for its candor, its poignancy, its courage, and for its prose which Newsweek calls “as delicate and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush painting.”

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The Girl Who Played Go

“Breathtaking. . . . While exploring epic themes like the loss of innocence and the meaning of honor, it lingers on the tiny, exquisite details of life.” - Vogue

“Dreamy . . . powerful. . . . This unlikely love story . . . is beautiful, shocking, and sad.” - Entertainment Weekly

“As the Japanese military invades 1930s Manchuria, a young girl approaches her own sexual coming of age. Drawn into a complex triangle with two boys, she distracts herself from the onslaught of adulthood by playing the game of go with strangers in a public square—and yet the force of desire, like the occupation, proves inevitable.

Unbeknownst to the girl who plays go, her most worthy and frequent opponent is a Japanese soldier in disguise. Captivated by her beauty as much as by her bold, unpredictable approach to the strategy game, the soldier finds his loyalties challenged. Is there room on the path to war for that most revolutionary of acts: falling in love?”

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Water Margin

“Based upon the historical bandit Song Jiang and his companions, this Chinese equivalent of the English classic Robin Hood and His Merry Men is an epic tale of rebellion against tyranny and has been thrilling and inspiring readers for hundreds of years.

First translated into English by Pearl S. Buck in 1933 as All Men Are Brothers, the original edition of the J.H. Jackson translation appeared under the title The Water Margin in 1937. In this updated edition, Edwin Lowe addresses many of the shortcomings found in the original J.H. Jackson translation, and replaces the original grit and flavor of Shuihui Zhuan found in Chinese versions, including the sexual seduction, explicit descriptions of brutality and barbarity, and the profane voices of the thieving, scheming, drinking, fighting, pimping lower classes of Song Dynasty China. Similarly, the Chinese deities, Bodhisattvas, gods and demons have reclaimed their true names, as has the lecherous, over-sexed and ill-fated Ximen Qing. All of which was sanitized out when first published in 1937.

While Chinese in origin, the themes of The Water Margin are universal enough that it has served as a source of inspiration for numerous movies, television shows and video games up to the present day.”

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Map

“Both plain-spoken and luminous…Szymborska’s skepticism, her merry, mischievous irreverence and her thirst for the surprise of fresh perception make her the enemy of all tyrannical certainties. Hers is the best of the Western mind—free, restless, questioning.” - NY Times Book Review

One of Europe’s greatest recent poets is also its wisest, wittiest, and most accessible. Nobel Prize–winner Wislawa Szymborska draws us in with her unexpected, unassuming humor. Her elegant, precise poems pose questions we never thought to ask. “If you want the world in a nutshell,” a Polish critic remarks, “try Szymborska.” But the world held in these lapidary poems is larger than the one we thought we knew.

Carefully edited by her longtime, award-winning translator, Clare Cavanagh, the poems in Map trace Szymborska’s work until her death. Of the approximately 250 poems included, nearly 40 are newly translated; 13 represent the entirety of the poet’s last collection never before published in English.

“Nobel laureate Szymborska’s gorgeous posthumous collection interweaves insights into the suffering experienced during WWII and the Cold War brutalities of Stalin with catchy, realistic, colloquial musings. Her poems are revelatory yet rooted in the everyday. She writes about living with horrors, and about ordinary lives: people in love, at work, enjoying a meal. This is a brilliant and important collection.” - Booklist

"Szymborska has her impressive poetic repertoire on full display in this volume [which] reveals her development over seven decades, including a gradual departure from end rhyme and the sharpening of her wit. As multitudinous as Whitman, she conveyed deep feeling through vivid, surreal imagery and is able to revive clichéd language by reconnecting it in startling ways. Odes, critiques, and persona poems are just a few of the forms her writing took. Yet, despite their diversity, the constants of her poems were nuance and observational humor. Also apparent is Szymborska’s rare ability to present an epiphany in a single line.” - Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed review

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