I was on a book tour in Italy recently. In an attempt to brush up my Italian beforehand, I watched, on youtube, interviews with Primo Levi, Italo Calvino, Stefano Benni, Orianna Fallaci, and Umberto Eco. Listening to Eco, I was reminded of his famous library, which contained 30,000 books. His home was described by Lila Azam Zanganeh in…
Category: books
The King and Queen of Comezón by Denise Chavez
What a carnal novel this is. Three hundred pages of bodily functions and dysfunctions. A book full of seepages and oozings and assorted excretions: the housemaid farting in the bath, characters urinating on themselves, an undocumented border crosser having her period at just the wrong moment, the untold joys of defecation, projectile vomiting in a…
“Damnificados” to be published, Sept 2015
Good news. My novel, Damnificados, will be published by PM Press in September 2015. The novel is based on the true story of the Tower of David in Caracas, Venezuela. This structure stood in the heart of the city, unfinished and empty. Its owner, David Brillembourg, a millionaire businessman, died before it was completed, and…
Low White Page: three poets
White page. Sounds like the writer’s biggest challenge. Low white page. Sounds like an abstract crossword clue. Or the beginning of a haiku. Denise Low, Orlando White, Jeremy Page. Three poets whose work I’ve just read. Bone Light by Orlando White I encountered Orlando White a year ago at the Southwest Festival of the Written…
Ten Favourite Modern Novels
It’s the season of lists, and if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I’ve confined myself to novels written, or made available in English, after 1950. 1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez The joyous masterpiece that broke open literature. Full of colour, riotous humour, vivid characters, and the sheer richness of…
JJ Amaworo Wilson, author 