Our Lives Our Words

“Fear. I was scared to walk on the road for fear of people recognizing me. I was afraid the police might arrest me. I avoided taking the bus, not sure whom I could sit next to. I was scared to use the public toilet for fear that people might know my difference. I was scared that rotten tomatoes might hit me in the market. I was scared of falling in love for fear of being hit hard.”

The stories in this landmark volume chronicle, in their own words, the lives of aravanis* with narratives of pain and courage, of despair and triumph.

Aravanis have long been the invisible yet hyper-visible subjects of a societal gaze that reduces them to stereotype. Imagined as often as looked at or talked about, simultaneously revered and cursed, they have, in the process, been refused individual histories, lives and identities, even selves. Yet the community continues to challenge and subvert this view, persistently refusing to allow itself to be shamed or victimized. Some of the greatest recent victories in this ongoing battle for rights have been won in Tamil Nadu (a state in southern India), where the government first began to recognize many of the rights of the hijra community.

These stories are amongst the first accounts of hijra lives to be produced entirely by the members of the community themselves.

*As Identiversity notes, “nonbinary identities may seem like a new phenomenon in Western culture, but that’s not the case in other parts of the world. In India, a third gender identity known as hijra (or aravani in Tamil Nadu) has been intertwined with Indian culture for thousands of years, with hijras holding a prominent place in some of the most significant ancient Hindu texts.

Prior to British rule, hijras enjoyed a degree of acceptance in Indian society, playing a key role in celebrations. However, the colonial era was marked by criminalization and persecution, and today’s hijras—which include people who are intersex, transgender, and eunuchs—continue to occupy an uneasy space in Indian culture. Many are forced to eke out a living through begging or functioning as sex workers.

Efforts to gain legal protections took a significant step forward in 2014, when the Supreme Court of India officially recognized hijras as a third gender.

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I Hope We Choose Love

American Library Association Stonewall Book Awards Honor Book & Winner, Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature

What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith?

In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, acclaimed poet and essayist Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as Adrienne MareeBrown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.

“In this brave and skillfully written collection of essays, Kai Cheng Thom dares to be really honest—to write truths that go beyond easy orthodoxy to her and our own messy, complex, real stories. As a suicide survivor and someone who does work around suicide in queer and femme communities, I deeply appreciate her clarity about how suicide shows up in queer and trans communities and the ways in which social justice, queer, trans and/or Black and brown communities turn on and hurt each other while trying to keep ourselves safe. This is a brave book, and an essential text for everyone trying like hell to create something that will come after the end of the world. Read it, and prepare to have your mind challenged and opened.” —Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

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Little Fish

Winner, Lambda Literary Award; Amazon Canada First Novel Award; Firecracker Award for Fiction; A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year

It's the dead of winter in Winnipeg and Wendy Reimer, a thirty-year-old trans woman, feels like her life is frozen in place. When her Oma (grandmother) passes away, Wendy receives an unexpected phone call from a distant family friend with a startling secret: Wendy's Opa (grandfather)—a devout Mennonite farmer—might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, but as Wendy's life grows increasingly volatile, she finds herself aching for the lost pieces of her Opa's truth.

But this isn’t a story about her Opa. It’s a slice-of-life story about Wendy. Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.

“I have never felt as seen, understood, or spoken to as I did when I read Little Fish. Never before in my life. Casey remains one of THE authors to read if you want to understand the interior lives of trans women in this century.” —Meredith Russo, author of If I Was Your Girl

“A touching and beautiful novel.” —The Independent (UK)

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The Archer

From the #1 best-selling author of The Alchemist comes an inspiring story about a young man seeking wisdom from an elder, and the practical lessons imparted along the way. Includes stunning illustrations by Christoph Niemann.

In The Archer we meet Tetsuya, a man once famous for his prodigious gift with a bow and arrow but who has since retired from public life, and the boy who comes searching for him. The boy has many questions, and in answering them Tetsuya illustrates the way of the bow and the tenets of a meaningful life. Paulo Coelho’s story suggests that living without a connection between action and soul cannot fulfill, that a life constricted by fear of rejection or failure is not a life worth living. Instead one must take risks, build courage, and embrace the unexpected journey fate has to offer.

With the wisdom, generosity, simplicity, and grace that have made him an international best seller, Paulo Coelho provides the framework for a rewarding life: hard work, passion, purpose, thoughtfulness, the willingness to fail, and the urge to make a difference.

“A novelist who writes in a universal language.” —The New York Times

“[Coelho’s] books have had a life-enhancing effect on millions of people.” —The Times (London)
 
“His writing is like a path of energy that inadvertently leads readers to themselves, toward their mysterious and faraway souls.”  —Le Figaro

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It was Only Yesterday

It was Only Yesterday is an insider's story about life as a royal teenager and growing up in the Jubilee Palace in Africa’s first royal family under the protective eyes of her great grand-father Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lion of Judah, and Elect of God. In February 1974, her privileged life comes to an abrupt end with the advent of a bloody upheaval which overthrows her great grand-father’s government and lands her mother and close family in a rotting Communist jail. By this time, Hannah Mariam has fled to United Kingdom where she is granted status as a refugee.

Interested in writing from a very young age, her first book It was Only Yesterday offers unique insights about the hardship she faced growing up in a new setting and how she effectively managed change and uncertainty. It was Only Yesterday is a delightful account of her interactions with friends and family in the backdrop of the intricate world of imperial protocol and palace politics. The book’s narrative is based on diaries kept over the past forty-three years, a collection of family photographs, informal chats and interviews, generational stories, and researching academic books about her great grand-father and family. A promising new author, her readers will enjoy how she has interwoven personal experiences with firsthand knowledge of her great grand-father, one of the world’s longest reigning monarchs and an important historical figure in Ethiopian, African and world history. The book’s memoir genre will appeal to all, in particular to those interested in understanding the cultural, social, political and historical ramifications of pre-socialist Ethiopia of 1974.

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A Burning

For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.

In this National Book Award Longlist honoree and “gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary” (USA Today), Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan’s fall. Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.

Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.

“Powerful… propulsive…This is a book to relish for its details, for the caress of the writer’s gaze against the world.” —The New York Times

“A gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary… It’s hard not to feel intense heartache while reading A Burning. Majumdar’s powerful debut is carefully crafted for maximum impact, carving out the most urgent parts of its characters for the whole world to see. This novel rightfully commands attention.” —USA Today

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Zorba the Greek

A stunning new translation by Peter Bien of the classic book brings the clarity and beauty of Kazantzakis’ language and story alive.

First published in 1946, Zorba the Greek, is, on one hand, the story of a Greek working man named Zorba, a passionate lover of life, the unnamed narrator who he accompanies to Crete to work in a lignite mine, and the men and women of the town where they settle. On the other hand it is the story of God and man, the Devil and the Saints; the struggle of men to find their souls and purpose in life and it is about love, courage and faith.

Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the truly memorable creations of literature—a character created on a huge scale in the tradition of Falstaff and Sancho Panza. His years have not dimmed the gusto and amazement with which he responds to all life offers him, whether he is working in the mine, confronting mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the tales of his life or making love to avoid sin. Zorba’s life is rich with all the joys and sorrows that living brings and his example awakens in the narrator an understanding of the true meaning of humanity. This is one of the greatest life-affirming novels of our time.

Part of the modern literary canon, Zorba the Greek, has achieved widespread international acclaim and recognition. This new edition translated directly from Kazantzakis’ Greek original by Peter Bien is a more faithful rendition of the original language, ideas, and story, and presents Zorba as the author meant him to be.

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

Note: While there is another translation of this book, this particular translation by Peter Bien is the one we recommend. It’s a direct translation from Greek to English instead of the previous version which translated the Greek into French before translating the French into English introducing a wide variety of mistakes.

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Austerity Measures

A remarkable collection of poetic voices from contemporary Greece, Austerity Measures is a one-of-a-kind window into the creative energy that has arisen from the country’s decade of crisis and a glimpse into what it is like to be Greek today.

The 2008 debt crisis shook Greece to the core and went on to shake the world. More recently, Greece has become one of the main channels into Europe for refugees from poverty and war. Greece stands at the center of today’s most intractable conflicts, and this situation has led to a truly extraordinary efflorescence of innovative and powerfully moving Greek poetry. Karen Van Dyck’s wide-ranging bilingual anthology—which covers the whole contemporary Greek poetry scene, from literary poets to poets of the spoken word to poets online, and more—offers an unequaled sampling of some of the richest and most exciting poetry of our time.

“It was no more than two or three poems in before I started to sense the book’s atmosphere, to see it as an uncommon chance to share Greek experience beyond the headlines—in a way that is fascinating, revelatory and only possible through poetry. Most poems here do not overtly address the crisis. But the collective spirit is new-minted, unmediated and bracing (the quality of translation high).” —The Observer

“The light these poets work in, and the language they speak, are still the light and the language of Homer and the great tragedians. The wonderfully inventive translations reveal a different Greece to English readers: one that does not cancel the past but builds upon it.” —Ruth Padel, award-winning British poet and author

(Group read suggestion from Julie Jacobs, book club moderator.)

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Better Dead than Divorced

Winner of 8 national awards

A romance.
A forced marriage.
A scandalous affair.
A hit man.
A true story.

“I tried to open my eyes, hoping to stir up enough courage to face the frightening commotion just outside our window. It was no use. My imagination ran wild as I conjured up all kinds of horrors unfolding out in the darkness.” These are the words of a young boy living in a small Greek mountain village in the 1950s trying to understand the booming noises out in the night that turned out to be gunshots. It’s a defining moment from Better Dead than Divorced. The boy is Lukas Konandreas, the author of this true story about the forced marriage and murder of Panayota, his father’s cousin.

Even after becoming a doctor and then immigrating to the US, Konandreas remained haunted by what happened in his village so long ago. “It has taken me years to piece together this story,” says Konandreas. “I didn’t want filial love to blind me to the truth, but my family reacted strongly to my research. ‘It’s a story that must be told,’ some said, ‘for Panayota if for no other reason.’ Others were less supportive. ‘Leave the dead alone,’ they said. ‘Let them lie peacefully in the cemetery of St. Anthony.’”

But needing to know what happened, Konandreas went on to conduct more than 160 interviews along with painstaking research of historic court records and old newspaper accounts to discover all the details.

Hollywood could not invent a better antagonist than George Nitsos. Outwardly, he had it all—good looks, money, charisma, power, and influence—while Panayota was a young village beauty. When it was discovered that George had taken Panayota’s virginity, her family, led by the author’s father, forces George to marry the girl. Yet the other village girls still could not resist George’s boyish charms. And he certainly wasn’t going to let marriage stand in the way of his indiscretions. Friends encouraged Panayota to leave George, but she felt this would bring shame to her. “Better dead than divorced,” she’s quoted as saying. And dead is how she ends up, killed by a hired hit man. But the story doesn’t end there as the author’s father driven by honor and conscience fights beyond his modest means to seek justice in a corrupt system.

Romance. Marriage. Scandal. Murder. The pursuit of justice. Sometimes, the truth is stranger and more compelling than fiction.

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

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Diaries of Exile

Winner of the 2014 PEN Literary Award for Poetry in Translation

Yannis Ritsos is a poet whose writing life is entwined with the contemporary history of his homeland. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this volume, which presents a series of three diaries in poetry that Ritsos wrote between 1948 and 1950, during and just after the Greek Civil War, while a political prisoner first on the island of Limnos and then at the infamous camp on Makronisos.

Even in this darkest of times, Ritsos dedicated his days to poetry, trusting in writing and in art as collective endeavors capable of resisting oppression and bringing people together across distance and time. These poems offer glimpses into the daily routines of life in exile, the quiet violence Ritsos and his fellow prisoners endured, the fluctuations in the prisoners’ sense of solidarity, and their struggle to maintain humanity through language. This moving volume justifies Ritsos’s reputation as one of the truly important poets in Greece’s modern literary history.

From this collection:

“Smooth-cheeked kid uncombed unwashed
at morning call with clouds for company
dark red sweater unbuttoned pants
still sleepy - a scrap of sleep melting in his hair
a rembetika song in his pocket
I’ll comb you, I’ll wash you, I’ll tighten your belt
I’ll take back all the words they took from me
the words no one knows to give me
the words I can’t ask for”
— December 5

(Group read suggestion from Julie Jacobs, book club moderator.)

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Lysistrata and Other Plays

Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens, Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist.

An ancient Greek comedy, Lysistrata was originally performed in Athens in 411 BC detailing a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy that instead inflames the battle between the sexes.

The play is also notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. Greek theatre was a profound form of entertainment and was extremely popular as it addressed political issues relevant to that time.

Two other plays are also included. The Achanians is a classic of the highly satirical genre of drama known as Old Comedy which is set against the background of the long war with Sparta. The Clouds is a darker comedy which satirizes Athenian philosophers and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.

(A special thank you to book club member, Sue Attalla for the suggestion.)

Note: We recommend this translation by Alan H. Sommerstein which contains 3 plays, however, as a club read, we’ll be focusing on Lysistrata, the main comedy included. There are free versions of this comedy, but the translation is nowhere near as good.

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Something Will Happen, You’ll See

Something Will Happen, You’ll See is a heart-wrenching elegy on the impoverished working-class Greeks populating the neighborhoods around Piraeus, the large port southwest of Athens.

Ikonomou’s luminous and poignant short stories center around laid-off steelworkers, warehousemen, families, pensioners, and young couples faced with sudden loss and turmoil. Between docks, in tenement buildings, and on city streets Ikonomou’s men and women sustain their traumas on flickers of hope in the darkness and on their deep faith in humanity.

An illuminating examination of the human condition, Ikonomou’s award-winning book has become the literary emblem of the Greek crisis; stories so real, humane, and haunting that they will stay with the reader long after the final page.

“The Greek Faulkner... one of the most touching chronicles of the economic crisis to have come out of Greece.” —La Repubblica

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

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The Folding Star and Other Poems

Nominated for the Nike Award, the Cogito Award, & the Gdynia Award.

In his triumphant collection, The Folding Star and Other Poems, poet of the imagination Jacek Gutorow offers thirty-one gems that will help change our understanding of Polish poetry.

“His poems are meditative and beautiful, his diction fragile and clear...In short, it is a lovely book.” —Hey Small Press

“The ability of poetry to deal with nearly any topic and to tell little stories encapsulated in a few lines has long been a tradition of the Poles and an area they’ve displayed exceptional expertise. Gutorow has placed himself strongly within this tradition but in the most contemporary sense.” ―Gently Read Literature

From this collection:

“I fell in love with language again this evening.
The excess of reality had left me stranded.
The stairs with littered with phrases and headwind.
The clock struck reticent midnight.
I roamed from the forest of nouns to the valley of adverbs
and even farther, to the vast plateau of pronouns.
There, in a building of gold-yellow walls (matte latex),
mallows and loudly climbing roses were in charge.
Tracks like phrases that turn back upon themselves.
A beach was put together with a few words that hurt the eyes
with dirty foam. In the western sky a streak left behind by a rickety jet
and its commas beginning to fray.
But that was earlier,
before I again fell in love with language
that stood there mute in the wind.”

Out Stealing Horses

Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses is a “masterpiece of death and delusion in a Nordic land” (The Guardian).

At age sixty-seven, Trond has settled in an isolated part of eastern Norway to live out his life in solitude, but a chance encounter with his only neighbor stirs up long-dormant memories. Trond recalls the fateful July morning when he and his friend Jon impulsively stole a ride on horses at a nearby farm, an adventure shrouded by Jon’s inexplicable grief. Trond soon learned of the tragic events that befell Jon the day before, which would haunt them both forever.

“Petterson’s spare and deliberate prose has astonishing force.” —The New Yorker

“Petterson fluently jumbles his chronology, sustaining mysteries within several subplots. . . . But the real trick is in the way everything finally converges into an emotional jolt.” —Entertainment Weekly

(Group read suggestion from Ivor Watkins, book club moderator.)

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Don Quixote

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain.

Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly 400 years.

With its experimental form and literary playfulness, Don Quixote has been generally recognized as the first modern novel. The book has been enormously influential on a host of writers, from Fielding and Sterne to Flaubert, Dickens, Melville, and Faulkner, who reread it once a year, “just as some people read the Bible.”

Note: Great on audio. We recommend Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of this Spanish masterpiece.

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Anxious People

A Book of the Month Club selection, Best of Fall in Good Housekeeping, PopSugar, The Washington Post, NY Post, and more

“[A] quirky, big-hearted novel…Wry, wise, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” —People

From the bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an 87-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.

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Last Fight of the Old Hound

A different kind of fantasy series…

Roy van Waldenberger is two people.

To those who know him, he's just Roy—a middle-aged man, tired of the limelight, and looking forward to retirement.

To everyone else, he's The Wolf of the North, celebrity wrestler and werewolf. One of the most fearsome fighters in the history of blood sports.
It's a mask he wears, and he hates it.

But this story is about Roy—not The Wolf.

It's about how he prepares for the last fight of his career. How he must stand against the only opponent he can't beat: his own inner beast. But it's also about how he must let go of a past that binds him, and of a love that was never meant to be. If he can't, it'll be the end of not just him, but of everyone he still cares about.

A deeply character-driven story in a modern-day fantasy world.

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Cutting for Stone

A sweeping, emotionally riveting novel with over 1 million copies sold—an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to NYC and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.
 
“A masterpiece. . . Verghese expertly weaves the threads of numerous story lines into one cohesive opus. The writing is graceful, the characters compassionate and the story full of nuggets of wisdom.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Lush and exotic. . . Shows how history, landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life. . . . Verghese creates this story so lovingly that it is actually possible to live within it for the brief time one spends with this book. You may never leave the chair.” —LA Times
 
“Absorbing, exhilarating. . . . If you’re hungry for an epic . . . open the covers of Cutting for Stone, [then] don’t expect to do much else.” —The Seattle Times

(A special thank you to book club member, Christine Jensen for the suggestion.)

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Addis Ababa Noir

Named one of the Top African Books of 2020

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original anthologies. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.

What marks life in Addis Ababa are the starkly different realities coexisting in one place. It’s a growing city taking shape beneath the fraught weight of history, myth, and memory. It is a heady mix. It is in this space that the stories of Addis Ababa Noir reside . . .

Despite the varied and distinct voices in these pages, no single book can contain all of the wonderful, intriguing, vexing complexities of Addis Ababa. But what you will read are stories by some of Ethiopia’s most talented writers.

“Addis Ababa Noir is a beautiful read, and it succeeds in the historical excavation it undertakes . . . a powerful collection, carefully curated and plunging unexpected depths.” —New Frame

“Each contributor embraces day-to-day life in Ethiopia, and fills each story with a rich sense of time, place, and character. The authors also reveal much about a culture unfamiliar to many American readers.” —Publishers Weekly

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

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The God Who Begat a Jackal

The 17th-century feudal system, vassal uprisings, African folklore, and the Crusades are intertwined with the love between Aster, the daughter of a feudal lord, and Gudu, the court jester and family slave. Aster and Gudu's relationship is the ultimate taboo, but supernatural elements presage a destiny more powerful than the rule of man. With Mezlekia's enchanting storytelling and ironic humor, readers glimpse African deities that have long since weathered away and the social cleavages that have endured through time.

“Mezlekia takes the elements of the simplest of fairy stories—forbidden love, an heiress and a storytelling slave—and embroiders them lushly . . . The imagined world ends up. . . fabulous in the most literal of senses.” —The NY Times

“The God Who Begat a Jackal is everything a novel should be. It delivers an entire world—a profound, comical, moving, and memorable one. The moral and social truths of this novel—subtly and brilliantly evoked—are reminiscent of the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Mezlekia is a writer with extraordinary vision.” —M. Cezair-Thompson

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

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