Mozzeenet

Just finished reading Eva Luna by Isabel Allende, another magnificent book. I’m looking forward to reading more of her work. I remember the ‘House of the Spirits’, another of her books, came out as a movie starring Meryl Streep quite a few years ago.

The setting of ‘Eva Luna’ (and Isabel Allende’s life and other works) is South America. The book centres on the obervations and experiences of a young girl struggling in difficult circumstances towards womanhood, her relationships with the colourful characters who come and go in her life starting with her mother and after her mother’s death, a variety of female carers, father figures, employers, friends and lovers as well as her encounters with the fascinating world of the backstreets and servant’s quarters of a South American city and as a surrogate daughter in the tormented household of an estranged Arabic couple in a South American village where traditional Indian culture is mixed with foreign and colonial elements. Read more »

I’m currently reading The Lover by Marguerite Duras, a book recommended by my creative writing teacher. I must say it is beautifully written, poignant and haunting.

An excerpt from Amazon’s description:

Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras’s childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France’s colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts. Read more »