"Embers" by Sandor Marai

Sandor Marai was born in Kassa in the Austro-Hungarian empire, on April 11, 1900 to an old Saxon family. He became famous in 1930 as one of the prominent writers in Hungary. When he was young, Marai lived in many different cities: Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, then lived in Budapest in 1928.

Persecuted by the communist regime in 1948 - the communists banned Marai's books and destroyed every copy they could find - Marai escaped to Italy before deciding to settle in San Diego in the USA where he obtained citizenship.

Marai considered writing in German but in the end settled for Hungarian, his mother tongue. Even when living in San Diego he continued to write in his native language. His work was not published in English until the mid 1990s. After his wife's death, Marai lived a secluded life before committing suicide by shooting himself in the head in 1989 in San Diego.

Marai is a novelist, short story and memoir writer, a poet, a journalist and a playwright. He wrote “Casanova in Bolzano” in 1940, "Embers"in 1942, “The Rebels” to be published in 2007 and “Memoir of Hungary” in 1971. Marai was the first reviewer of Kafka's work.

Marai's work was unknown outside Hungary for a long time. He has been rediscovered recently and republished in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and many other languages. He is now considered one of the important writers of the 20th century. In 1990 he posthumously received the Kossuth prize. "Embers" became a best-seller both in Europe and the USA, and the English version of "Embers" has been translated from German.

"Embers"is an original and unusual book. The setting is a fairy tale from the pre-war splendid era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The aristocrat's life is described with all its splendour, its rules and values. The novel is set along those lines. It's about how sacred friendship is, and how the important sentiment of honour, betrayal, love, hate and passion can grow old and weak with time. It's a deeply moving monologue, a sort of meditation related out loud. It is also about age and patience that grows wise with maturity.

The General had all the patience it took to wait for 41 years for the return of his one and only best friend Konrad. He was convinced that like all criminals, Konrad was bound one day to return to the scene of the crime, when his waiting has been rewarded, by Konrad announcing his long awaited visit. He set meticulously the same setting of the last dinner the three of them had together forty one years ago, the General, his wife Krisztina and his best friend Konrad, after the unforgettable stag hunt in the forest. Not forgetting any little detail. It's in the same dining room, in the same old castle at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. He even remembers the exact date: the 2nd of July 1899, 41 years and 43 days ago.

The General spent his life counting the days until his friend Konrad came back after the unspoken act of betrayal that shattered three lives, and left each one of the inseparable threesome to live in complete solitude.

Now the time for explanation has arrived, at last. Since the memorable day of the hunt in the forest with Konrad, Henrik (the General) lived secluded like a hermit. He knew the day would come when things will be solved. He spent a good part of his existence dreaming of this day and preparing for it, for his revenge. But with age he become more wise and deliberate. His revenge ended up being like a duel without swords. The two old men who were once the best of friends, sit opposite each other after dinner in front of a smoldering fire. The General in front of an almost silent protagonist, starts to unravel very slowly, layer by layer, their whole, long dead past friendship. He ponders over all the events that lead to break the honourable tie that once united them, despite their differences and despite the fact that Henrik was born into nobility and Konrad was impoverished.

The seventy five year-old retired general keeps us in suspense. Throughout his pedantic narration we expect a twist at the end. We discover that the twist is that there is no twist, as the guest, Konrad says quietly: “why do you ask me when you know that the answer is yes”. The general knew the answer to all his questions all the way along, but because of his obstinate obsession, he had to go through this confrontation for his peace of mind and as a last farewell to his once best and loyal friend.

In “Embers” or “The Candle Burns to a Stub” (its Hungarian title), nothing much happens, there is no plot. Just the smoldering fire inside an old man's heart and soul. We discover that for him finding the truth is of no importance any more; with age and time everything mellows, the important thing is to discharge oneself from a burden. Once this is dealt with, his wife's portrait can be hung back on the wall again, and he can sleep peacefully, knowing that he accomplished the task he has been longing to accomplish all these years. “Now you may hang it up again.” “Yes,” says the nurse (Nini). “It's of no importance anymore” the general says. “Are you feeling calmer now? asks Nini. “Yes,” says the General.” Now he is relieved after things have been said once and for all. He can go to sleep now. “Good night Nini.” “Good night.”

"Embers"is a sad book. A lot of sadness is revealed in the General's monologues and throughout his reminiscence, which he had time to develop and dwell upon during his many years of solitude. “And when the longing for joy disappears, all that are left are memories or vanity, and then finally, we are truly old. One day we wake up and rub our eyes and do not know why we have woken... Nothing surprising can ever happen again.”

"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

Suzanna Arundhati Roy was born on the 24th November 1961, the daughter of a Christian woman from Kerala and a Bengali Hindu tea planter. Her parents divorced when she was a child. She hardly knew her father, she only saw him a couple of times in her whole life.

“I grew up in very similar circumstances to the children in the book. My mother was divorced. I lived on the edge of the community in a very vulnerable fashion. Then when I was 16 I left home and lived on my own... in a squatter's colony in Delhi.” She made some money by selling empty beer bottles. Later on she joined the Delhi School of Architecture.

Arundhathi Roy spent her childhood in Aymenem, province of Kerala, she said “a lot of the atmosphere of The God of Small Things is based on my experiences of what it was like to grow up in Kerala. Most interestingly, it was the only place in the world where religions coincide, there's Christianity, Hinduism, Marxism and Islam and they all live together and rub each other down. When I grew up it was the Marxism that was very strong, it was like revolution is coming next week. I was aware of the different cultures when I was growing up, and I am still aware of them now... To me, I couldn't think of a better location for a book about human beings. I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives in you. I don't think it's true of people who have grown up in cities so much, you may love building but I don't think you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth, it's a different kind of love.”

“The God of Small Things is a very sad book and somehow the sadness is what stays with me. It took five years to write and I keep finding myself making an effort to be happy. A lot of people ask is it autobiographical? It's a very difficult question to answer because I think all fiction does spring from your experience, but it's also the melding of the imagination and your experience. It is the emotional texture of the book and the feelings which are real. Even though I think of myself as a writer, I can't write unless it comes from within.”

Arundhati Roy's first novel "The God of Small Things", was published on April 4th 1997 in Delhi and won the Booker prize in London on October 14th 1997. The rights to her book were sold in 21 countries and was translated to 18 languages. Two weeks later, nearly 400.000 copies had been sold all over the world. It has since topped the best-seller lists everywhere. In October 1997 Arundhati Roy became the first non-expatriate Indian author and the first Indian woman to win the Booker prize.

After "The God of Small Things" was published, Arundhati Roy dedicated her time and effort to other non-fiction subjects. She wrote books like “"The Cost of Living"” in 1999, “"The Algebra of Injustice"” in 2002, “"Power Politics”" in 2002, "“War Talk"” in 2003, "An Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire"” in 2004, “"Public Power In The Age of Empire"” in 2004, and "“The Check Book" and "“The Cruise Missile"” in 2004.

She also wrote essays, articles and has given several speeches. "“Insult and Injury in Afghanistan"” in 2001, "“War is Peace"” in 2001, “"Stop Bombing Afghanistan” and “Instant Democracy” in 2003.

In 2002 she was awarded the Lannan Foundation's cultural Freedom Award “for her ongoing work in the struggle for freedom, justice and cultural diversity.” And in 2004 she won the Sydney Peace Prize “for her work in social campaigns and her advocacy of non-violence.”

She was presented with the Sahitya Akademi award in 2006 for her collection of essays on contemporary issues in her book "“The Algebra of Infinite Justice”", but she declined to accept it.

The God of Small Things is set in Aymenem, a province of Kerala, in southern India,in 1969. It is a story of the decline and fall of an Indian family.

After the death of Sophie Mol and the scandal of Ammu and Velutha, the whole family is shattered beyond retrieve.

The story is narrated by seven year old Rahel who moves crabwise, backwards and forwards. In fact it's a constant shuttle between the twins Rahel and Estha's past. They learn that things can change in a day and that life can take sometimes an ugly twist. “A few dozen hours can affect the outcome of a whole lifetime” Estha predicted . It took only Chacko's ex English wife, Margaret Kochamma, and his daughter, Sophie Mol, to arrive on a Christmas visit to Aymenem for the tragedy to unfold. Estha
will go through a terrible experience with “the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man” that no child should ever experience. It's also during this visit that Ammu will discover her love to the untouchable Velutha, and that Sophie Mol will drown in the river and die.

The book begins from the end, the whole story is a flash back. The novel tackles important issues like family, race and class. Through the narrator we are confronted with a very conservative society, no one is allowed to break the rules or cross the frontier of long established things.

The novel portrays very varied characters, some endearing and some less so. The description of the landscape is detailed which helps the reader to be transported to Aymenem.

Arundhati Roy's style of writing is original and unique. She plays with words, repeats sentences, creates her own vocabulary “a viable, dieable age”. “Little Man. He lived in a caravan. Dum dum”.

“For me, the way words and paragraphs fall on the page matters as well –the graphic design of the language. That was why the words and thoughts of Estha and Rahel were so playful on the page...Words were broken apart, and then sometimes fused together. “Later” became. “Lay. Ter” “An owl” become “A Nowl”. “Sour metal smell” became “sourmetalsmell”.

“Repetition I love, and used because it made me feel safe. Repeated words and phrases have a rocking feeling, like a lullaby. They help take away the shock of the plot.”

“"The God of Small Things" is not just about small things, it's about how the smallest things connect to the biggest things – that's the important thing. And that's what writing will always be about for me...”

"The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger was born in June 1963 in south Haven Michigan. She grew up in Evanston, Illinois, which is the first suburb north of Chicago. She is a spinster with a permanent boy friend, a writer and an artist.

She obtained a BFA in 1985 from the school of The Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA in 1991 from Northwestern University.

She is a full time professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, where she teaches writing, letterpress printing, and fine edition book production.

Audrey Niffenegger loved writing books and illustrating them since she was a young girl, as a part-time.

Her first book was about an imaginary road trip that she went on with The Beatles (the pop group). She was eleven years old when she wrote and illustrated this book.

But Niffenegger's first real book is The Time Traveler's Wife published in 2003. It was a bestseller when it came out.

She says: " The title came to me out of the blue, and from the title sprang the characters, and from the characters came the story... I got the title first, and played around with it for quite a long time, slowly evolving the characters in my head. I wrote the end before anything else, and then began to write scenes as they occurred to me.
The Time Traveler's Wife was written in a completely different order than the one it finally took. I understood early on that it would be organized in three sections, and that the basic unit was the scene, not the chapter. It has a rather chaotic feel to it, especially at the beginning, and that is deliberate-there is a slow piecing together, a gradual accumulation of story, that mimics the experience of the characters. I made a lot of notes about the characters. I had two timelines to help me stay organized, but no outline of the plot.”

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a love story in a science fiction setting.

Clare and Henry love each other very dearly. Clare knows that she is destined to marry Henry, which creates an element of fatalism in the story.

They have to live with each other, go through the every day tasks, Clare being a free- lance artist, and Henry De Tumble a librarian in the famous Newberry Library in Chicago, while overcoming Henry's genetic disorder called Chrono-Displacement Order. Which whisks him around in time. He disappears against his own will, to find himself transiting somewhere in a different year at any time or season.

For Clare to have Henry appearing and disappearing without any notice, spontaneously, and unpredictably, when he is needed, is quite a challenge for her love. She fears the consequences of Henry’s disappearance since she doesn’t know each time he comes back how that is going to affect her life in real time, according to whether he is returning from the past or the future.

Periodically, Henry finds himself travelling in time, faced with very emotional and sometimes dangerous situations in his existence. He is struggling to keep his sanity and is coping with his disease quite well.

Like Tamino and Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute, Clare and Henry had to undergo the Love Test in order to come out of it worthy of each other.

Niffenegger says:" I wanted to write about a perfect marriage that is tested by something outside the control of the couple."

But then, The Time Traveler's Wife is not only about love, it's also about the notion of time, about the endless waiting, which is one of the themes in the novel we discover in the prologue.

" I wanted people to think about the intimacy of time, how ineffable it is, how it shapes us. I wanted to write about waiting, but since waiting is essentially a negative (time spent in the absence of something) I wrote about all the things that happen around the waiting."

Clare is six years old when she meets Henry for the first time, while Henry has travelled back thirty-six years to meet Clare. But then, when they get married Clare is twenty-three and Henry thirty- one.
They both have to be patient in order to fulfil their destiny, and to prove that no matter how long it takes nothing alter their passion for each other.

Henry summarizes his love for Clare in the letter she is meant to read after his death: “ Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust.”

Clare on the other hand, carries on living patiently waiting for the right time when Henry will come to her, when she is in her eighties, and takes her with him. Henry had seen that day and told her about it.

Niffenegger likes to go into the minute details in order to bring some life and plenty of essence to her story. We learn about different places in Chicago, about the pop groups of the time, about the taste of various characters. Even the couple's sex life is described in details.

The author says in one of her interviews: "I am interested in mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time (the themes of my novel, The Time Traveler's Wife)

She has also written two other books. The Three Incestuous Sisters, a 176- page graphic novel or "novel in pictures" as she calls it. And The Adventuress published 1st September 2006.

The actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston bought the rights to the film, which is going to be released in 2008.

In an interview, Audrey Niffenegger was asked: "How much of Clare or Henry is you?
The answer was: "Contrary to popular belief, not much. I died my hair red as a way of saying goodbye to Clare, as I was finishing the book. She makes very different art from mine, and she's much quieter and more patient. Henry and I share a quirky sense of humour and a taste for punk, but not much else. First novels are often said to be thinly disguised autobiography. This one uses my places and things I know something about (libraries, paper making) but alas, this is not my life, and these characters are not me.

"The Palace Tiger" by Barbara Cleverly

Barbara Cleverly has been a teacher in Cambridge and today lives in a medieval house in an English Suffolk village. She has been a teacher of French, English and Latin, but stopped working in order to dedicate herself to writing full-time.

Barbara Cleverly is the inventor of the Scotland Yard detective, Joe Sandilands, and his adventurous investigations in India.

"The Palace Tiger" is Barbara Cleverly's fourth novel. The first was "The Last Kashmiri Rose" published in 2001. This was followed by "Ragtime In Simla" in 2002, and by "Damascene Blade" in 2003. Her fourth novel, "The Palace Tiger" was published in 2004, and her fifth was "The Bee's Kiss" which first appeared in 2005.

Her annually published novels are mysteries solved by the clever British detective, Sandilands, a First World War hero.

Barbara Cleverly explains how she had the idea of writing a series of books all taking place in India. "The battered old tin trunk I found in the attic didn't look inviting at first sight. Full of family bits and pieces, my husband said. You know, sepia postcards from the Pyrenees, funeral lists, old bank books..." "I opened it anyway. Out spilled more than two centuries of memories, the memories of a family whose exploits and achievements marched in time with the flowering of the British Empire, a family of soldiers, statesmen, architects, doctors and explorers, but my attention was caught by the photograph of a young boy.

Handsome even by today's standards, his resemblance to my stepson, even down to the haircut, was extraordinary. "Ah, that's Brigadier Harold Sandilands, my husband explained, when he was a schoolboy at Harrow. My great uncle spent a lot of time in India."

"The Palace Tiger", like Barbara Cleverly's other four novels, is a Whodunit à la Agatha Christie. Joe Sandilands, a Scotland Yarder, finds himself compelled to unravel the mysterious deaths of the dying Maharajah's three sons and heirs as well as to eliminate a man-eating tiger terrorizing the northern villages. The whole complicated plot takes place in Ranipur in India. The author doesn't miss an opportunity to describe in detail and in a colourful way, 1920's colonial India.

The Maharajah's luxurious palaces, the harem's quarter, their clothing, their day-to-day life, the death rituals. The beautiful gardens and lake, but most important the conspiracy between different people in the palace. Each character serves a purpose in the complicated plot.

This is an action thriller which keeps the reader in suspense until the end. A good, rich description also of Machiavellic ambitions and greedy characters. All together a very colourful, thrilling and entertaining book.

"Eve Green" by Susan Fletcher

Susan Fletcher was born in 1979 in Birmingham, England. She grew up in Solihull, in the English West Midlands, and attended St. Martin's school from the age of 7 until she was 16, and then joined the 6th form at Solihull School. She studied for a B.A. degree in English at the University of York and then went touring for a year to Australia and New Zealand. Back in England she attended the University of East Anglia and attained an M.A. in their Creative Writing Course. She now lives in Warwickshire.

"Eve Green" was first published in 2004 and it is Susan Fletcher's first novel. It won the Whitbread First Novel 2004 award.

"Eve Green" is the memoirs of 29 year old Evangeline, who is pregnant for the first time and travels back in time to her childhood when she was just eight years old. She reflects on her mother's sudden death, her move to her grandparents'farm in Wales, in a remote, small countryside village where people gossip as well as interfere in everybody's affairs. Especially with so many secrets, betrayal and lies abounding.

The eight year old child, overwhelmed with grief and loss, finds it hard to adapt from Birmingham city life to country life in Pencarreg, Wales.

The author gradually unfolds the story of Eve's first Welsh summer. Her infatuation with Daniel, the farm help 16 years her senior who represents the missing father figure.

Her friendship with Billy Macklin, a disfigured man excluded from the whole community for being insane, but who is in fact kind-hearted and sensitive. (Read page 260).

It is through Billy Macklin that Eve will discover the truth about her parents' romantic, mysterious love story which helps Eve resolve her identity problem by discovering the identity of her father and what he was guilty of. This was one of her quests for discovering her family's dark secret.

There is also the mystery of Rosemary Hughe's abduction, not forgetting Billy Macklin's disappearance after the barn fire. Nor Kieran, Eve's Irish father, who was never seen again after leaving the village, mysteries which will remain unravelled.

The novel does not have an orderly ending. Susan Fletcher says in her interview: "I didn't want a tidy ending. It would have felt false, to me... it is really up to the reader to decide what happened to Billy, for example, or where Rosie may now be. I feel too that the book becomes more personal that way." Indeed, unsolved mysteries can be a very up-to-date way of writing a plot. The complete opposite of an Agatha Christie or a Conan Doyle.

In "Eve Green" the Welsh countryside is described in all its breathtaking beauty, which illustrates how the author must love it: "I was keen to set the book in rural Wales. It is this wild, lonesome landscape that first led me to want to write."

Like an artist painting so Susan Fletcher paints with words. The book is written with a great deal of feeling. The pages are rich, almost too rich, with the description of the Welsh countryside and the small details of everyday country life with its goosip, animosity and mysteries.

In an interview Susan Fletcher reveals that she thrives on descriptive prose but has to be careful not to overdo it. She says the only similarity between her and Evangeline is the red hair and the love of the countryside. Otherwise the book is entirely fictional: "I knew very little when I began to write "Eve Green". I had no plot, no list of characters, I wasn't sure of my themes. But I knew I didn't want my debut novel to be autobiographical. Eve bears a slight resemblance to me, but otherwise this story is hers."

Susan Fletcher describes her characters in great detail, which makes them alive enough for us to want to piece the story together to have a full picture of the puzzle. As Eve will be doing throughout the novel, painting the souvenirs of lost loved-ones in a touchingly exquisite simplicity.

The style is lyrical, the scenes are evocative and captivating, which helps to create a novel close to poetry. The description of the characters, of the verdant Welsh valleysor even the reminiscence, reveals the author's evident love for poetry: "Whilst working on "Eve Green" perhaps the greatest inspiration came from poetry, not from prose." She adds: "I love a good, poetic novel, and I love description. That's my real passion."

A good book from a young, promising story teller.

"The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London in 1967 but moved to Rhode Island USA with her parents at the age of two. She received a B.A. in English literature from Barnard College, an M.A. in English from Boston University as well as an M.A. in Creative Writing, in comparative studies in literature and arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance studies. She taught creative writing at Boston university and the Rhode Island school of design.

Jhumpa Lahiri has written only two books to date: her short stories "Interpreter of Maladies" published in 1999. It became a best-seller in no time, was translated into 29 languages, and won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the first time to have been won by an Indian. She also won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Her second book "The Namesake", published in 2003, is her first novel. The New Yorker has published two of her stories: "Nobody's Business" in 2001 and "Hell and Heaven" in 2004. The New Yorker named her one of the 20 best writers under the age of 40.

Jhumpa Lahiri lives and works in Brooklyn with her Guatemalan American husband, Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, who works as a deputy editor for the Time Latin America and their son Octavio. She was married in 2001. Her parents live three hours away from her home. Her father is a librarian and her mother a professor of Bengali. She also has a younger sister.

Her real name is Nilanjana Svdeshna. Jhumpa is her nick-name. "The Namesake" is being filmed and is to be released in 2006.

"The Namesake", J.L.'s first novel, deals with more than one theme: the difficulty for immigrants to adapt to a new life far away from home, the clash between different cultures and the problem of integration. Ashoke and Ashima, newly married in Calcutta, move to Cambridge Massachusetts for Ashoke to continue his studies and obtain an MIT engineering degree. Ashoke is more supple and open-minded vis-à-vis the American way of life than his wife, Ashima who will never be able to accept this new culture thrust on her. During the 32 years from 1968 to 2000 we come across the struggle of the Bengali second generation immigrants and their search for identity.

Jhumpa Lahiri says in one of her interviews: "The question of identity is always a difficult one, but especially so for those who grow up in two worlds simultaneously, as is the case for their children. The older I get, the more I am aware that I have somehow inherited a sense of exile from my parents, even though in many ways I am so much more American than they are. In fact, it is still very hard to think of myself as an American. (This is of course complicated by the fact that I was born in London.) I think that for immigrants, the challenges of exile, the loneliness, the constant sense of alienantion, the knowledge of, and longing for a lost world, are more explicit and distressing than for their children. On the other hand, the problem for the children of immigrants - those with strong ties to their country of origin - is that they feel neither one thing nor the other. This has been my experience in any case."

When asked which country was her motherland, JL replied: "None", "No country is my motherland. I always find myself in exile in whichever country I travel to. That's why I was always tempted to write something about those living their lives in exile", she said.

Reading this would explain her deeply moving way of describing her characters and their various conflicts, especially the main character, Gogol, who had been given a nick-name - a Bengali tradition - which is neither Indian, nor American, and not even a first name but a Russian surname. He was named after the Russian writer, Nicolaï Gogol, his father's favourite author and also rescuer from the train accident in India. People saw the father in the train's wreckage thanks to the father holding Gogol's collection of short stories. Gogol hated his nickname, which became his official name, and felt relieved to go and have it changed to Nikhil.

Jhumpa Lahiri says: "The original spark for the book was the fact that a friend of my cousin's in India had the pet name, Gogol. I wanted to write about the pet name, good name distinction for a long time, and I know I needed the space of a novel to explore the idea." The idea has been very well explored in depth in addition to the immigration/assimilation problem.

The description of the characters is quite detailed and charming, like Ashima's examining her future husband's shoes in the lobby of her parents' house before walking into the sitting room.

Gogol grows up to be an intelligent, well educated man, but feels helplessly lost. He has a good, promising job and yet can't find his way in life. He was born and grew up in America from Benghali parents with an odd name that he didn't appreciate and which became his real name. He had a bad experience with an American young lady and a hurtful one from his Benghali wife, which led to divorce.

He is the main character in the book and the very touching one. Through Gogol we live the trials and tribulations of the Ganguli family. The style of the narration is elegant and so is the prose. All the events are described in great detail. Even the description of the different Indian dishes are mouth watering. It's all very endearing and very life like.

Full circle is reached when Nikhil discovers among the books his mother piled in a box to give away to the library, the long forgotten volume that his father once gave him as a birthday present and which he never even looked at. Suddenly Nikhil felt the urge to discover "The Collection of Short Stories" by Nikolaï Gogol. Like his grandfather and his father before him, Nikhil has embarked on a new discovery.

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

It's Khaled Hosseini's first novel published in 2003.

This is mainly a story of guilt and redemption:

► The guilt of a 12 year old boy, Amir, who fails out of fear to stand up for his devoted servant and best friend, Hassan, while getting beaten and raped by bullies.

► The relief of a redemption as an adult by going back to Kabul to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, whose parents had been shot by the Taliban, from the hands of the same bully who had become an important Taliban official.

Amir didn't mind risking his life in order to escape from damnation and from being haunted by his disloyalty and cowardly actions.

He wanted to gain peace within himself and free his soul.

In the 4th line of part one in the book, Hosseini writes: "... That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realise I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."

Hosseini manages to cover many themes in his first book with great success. He writes about love, honour, deceit, fear, redemption and about politics and its devious ways.

He also covers the life of Afghani immigrants in the United States of America.

The very close and vivid historical background takes us from the last days of the monarchy to the Russian invasion, then the rule of the Taliban and all the political turmoil up until nowadays.

Additionally, the touching story and the sympathetic characters and how real they seem to be, tend to bring to mind "The Kite Runner" as a memoir rather than as a novel.

After completing the last page one can't help but feel emotionally involved. As Isabel Allende puts it so succinctly: "This is one of those unforgettable stories that stay with you for years ... It is so powerful that for a long time everything I read after seemed bland."

The strange thing is that Hosseini went back to Kabul after he wrote "The Kite Runner" and saw Kabul through the same eyes and memories of Amir who went back after 20 years absence.

Hosseini writes about it in the San Francisco Chronicle of August 10th 2003. The title is: "Following Amir - A Trip To Afghanistan In Which Life Imitates Art".

After reading "The Kite Runner" I couldn't help but finding some analogies with "The Shadow Of The Wind" by Zafon. To mention a few:

* The corrupted, sadistic, vengeful inspector Fumero and the sadistic, corrupted vengeful Taliban official, Assef.

* In "The Shadow Of The Wind" the book ends the way it started by Daniel taking his son, Julian, to the cemetery of forgotten books, like how Daniel, a few years earlier, was taken by his own father to the same place to choose a book.
By comparison, in "The Kite Runner" the book ends by Amir taking Hassan's son, Sohrab, to a kite-flying competition, and finds himself repeating to Sohrab the same words that Hassan told him a few years previously while running after the kite "For you a thousand times over".

I'd like to end with these few words that Rahim Khan wrote to his friend Amir: "... I want you to understand that good, real good, was born out of your father's remorse. Sometimes I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir Jan, when guilt leads to good." Then referring to Amir, he said: "There is a way to be good again, he'd said. A way to end the cycle. With a little boy. An orphan. Hassan's son. Somewhere in Kabul."

"Fear & Trembling" by Amélie Nothomb

Amélie Nothomb is the daughter of the Belgian writer and former ambassador to Japan, Patrick Nothomb. She was born in Kobe in 1967. By the time she was five years old, she was perfectly bilingual.

After leaving Japan, Amélie spends her childhood in China, Burma and New York. Living as an expatriate combined with the feeling of loneliness, made her withdraw into her own shell. Especially after returning to Belgium at the age of seventeen and having the shock of finding herself a foreigner amongst her own people. The shock was brutal and this triggered in her the need to write as an escapade.

"Hygiéne de l'assassin", her first book was published in 1992 and was an immediate success, with a French literary prize. In 1993 she published "Le sabotage amoureux", then in 1994 "Les combustibles", in 1995 "Les catilinaires", in 1996 "Péplum", in 1997 "Attentat", in 1998 "Mercure", in 2000 "Métaphysique des tubes", in 2001 "Cosmétique de l'ennemi" etc...

Amélie Nothomb writes about three books per year, but decides each time to publish only one per year and every time it's a commercial success.

Her eighth book "Fear and Trembling" was published in 1999 and was a winner of the Grand Prix de l'Académie Française and Prix Internet du livre. The book was translated into 14 languages and sold half a million copies. A big success. Two of her books have been made into films: "Hygiéne de l'assassin" and "Fear and Trembling".

The main theme of "Fear and Trembling" is the clash of cultures between East and West. It was told in the ancient Japanese tradition that if anyone wanted to address the Japanese emperor, it had to be with "Fear and Trembling", the emperor being the highest figure of authority. This belief is followed on all levels in Japan, as the author reveals the very rigid hierarchy in the typical headquarters of a Japanese international conglomerate in Tokyo called Yumimoto.

Amélie-San is reprimanded for not taking the right steps by going through the correct channels, despite the fact that her deed was very useful to the company.

What the author wants the westerner to understand, is that in the oriental mentality, it's not the successful results that count, since achieving them the 'untraditional' way can cause more harm than good.

Consequently one has to follow the system blindly and not be an 'individualist', which is the worst betrayal to the traditional system: "Mister Tenshi didn't want to sabotage the company. I begged him to let me work on the report. I alone am responsible."... "Mister Omochi stood open-mouthed for a moment before coming up to me and bellowing right into my face." Do you dare defend yourself?" "No, I'm blaming myself. I'm claiming all the wrong for myself. I alone should be punished." "You dare to defend this snake!"

Then follows the arguments with Miss Mori Fubuki: "I'm twenty-nine years old. You are twenty-two. I've been in this position since last year. I fought for it for years. Did you think that you were going to get a comparable job within a matter of weeks?"

Due to not following the 'correct' system, Amélie-san has to endure the most degrading retrogression. Starting as an interpreter and ending in the humiliating job of a toilet attendant.

Like most of Amélie Nothomb's books, "Fear and Trembling" includes some personal, real life experiences. A kind of an autobiography. The style of her writing is indicative of her own character; subtle, humouristic and extravagant. I recall her telling Bernard Pivot in the French TV programme "Apostrophe", that she takes delight in eating rotten fruit.

Amélie Nothomb's style is uncomplicated which makes the book easy to read despite the issue involved, being the relationships and methods of Japanese white-collars, and their entrapment in their uncompromising system.

Amélie Nothomb shows us very clearly her compassion for those people, but at the same time expresses her frustration at being unable to change anything, or even to reason with them:
"Le plus insupportable, c'était de voir mon bienfaiteur humilié par ma faute. Monsieur Tenshi était un homme intelligent et cosciencieux: il avait pris un gros risque pour moi, en pleine connaissance de cause. Aucun intérêt personnel n'avait guidé sa démarche: il avait agi par simple altruisme. En récompense de sa bonté, on le traînait dans la boue."
She makes us aware of her concern with human relationships throughout her book.

Amélie Nothomb's humouristic tone can be hilarious at times or even like a caricature, but nevertheless carries behind it more than what it suggests.

Unlike other books we read, in "Fear and Trembling", the author doesn't take us anywhere in Tokyo, apart from the restricted view from her office window. The year Amélie spends at the Yumimoto company is all devoted to a description of the Japanese headquarters, the people working for it, their devotion to their work and the hierarchical system. Not forgetting to describe at length, the uncompromising Japanese mentality.

At the end of her one year contract with Yumimoto, Amélie-San returns to Europe. And like a phoenix, after all the humiliation endured, emerges from the ashes, glorious and successful with her prize winning book "Hygiéne de l'assassin".

She then receives a congratulatory letter from her former superior, Mori Fubuki acknowledging her success. The letter was written in Japanese as a sign of friendship, which seems to have been accepted at last.

"Silk" by Alessandro Baricco and "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

I’m starting my book reviews with two books by two different authors. One is Italian, Alessandro Baricco, born in Turin in 1958 for his book “Silk”. The other book is “The Alchemist” by Brazilian, Paulo Coelho, born in Rio de Janeiro on 24th August 1947. Although they are very different books, they do have a common thread…

Alessandro Baricco wrote the best seller “Silk”, the story of a French silkworm merchant, Hervé Joncour, who travels to Japan on business around 1861. While there, he meets a woman “who does not have oriental eyes” in the residence of a strange Japanese nobleman.

He falls madly in love with this woman without communicating with her. He can not even read the note she sends him in Japanese. He continues travelling to Japan on business but only in the hope of seeing this mysterious woman again.

His own wife, who finds out the truth about his trips to Japan, keeps very quiet, goes to a Japanese lady living in France and seeks her help. Her letter in French gets translated into Japanese and sent to her husband who believes that it comes from his loved one in Japan.

After Mme. Joncour’s death, the husband goes to the same Japanese translator to have his letter translated into French. The letter is erotic, the way Joncour likes it. He seems to have been looking for a passionate, erotic relationship, the kind that he believed could be found in exotic countries like Japan, a country very far away from France. But the irony of life will show him after it’s too late, since his wife meantime died, that what he was looking for was not further than his own home: his wife.

The Japanese lady tells Joncour: “When she came to me she had already written it. She asked me to copy it out in Japanese. And I did so. That is the truth. You know Monsieur, I believe that she would have wanted, more than anything in the world, to have been that woman. You can’t understand. But I heard her read that letter. I know.”

In “The Alchemist” Paulo Coelho tells the story of Santiago, the young Andalusian shepherd, who dreams of a buried treasure in Egypt. From then on all the challenges start.

Santiago travels. He meets an old man who tells him: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” Follow your intuitions, he was told.

The message is simple, but not easy to see or hear in the hustle of everyday life. He persists and overcomes all the hardships he meets in order to reach his target.

He goes from country to country in order to find out in the end that the treasure he was looking for was buried under the sycamore tree in the garden of his own home: “He thought of the many roads he had travelled and of the strange way God had chosen to show him his treasure.”

Isn't it ironic that throughout all the ages, human nature seeks complicated ways to reach its target, before stopping to reflect that maybe the very thing needed is already within reach.