Fabulous Fiction Firsts #640

Winner of the prestigious Prix Renaudot in 1988 and available for the first time in English (translated from the French by Kaiama L. Glover), Hadriana in All My Dreams * * * by Rene Depestre, combines magic, fantasy, eroticism, and delirious humor to explore universal questions of race and sexuality.

Set in the coastal town of Jacmel (the author's hometown) during the carnival season of 1938, when Hadriana Siloé, a sensuous pale-skinned Creole woman, collapses at her wedding altar. Two days later, when her corpse goes missing from her grave, zombification is suspected and it is feared that she had earlier taken a mysterious potion. Before we could hear directly from Hadriana herself, this traumatic event is observed from different angles - the locals are convinced a local villain, Balthazar Granchire is to blame, having been turned into an ugly butterfly by his sorcerer father, for his relentless lechery. Patrick, one of Hadriana’s many young admirers, narrates much of the novel, acting as a surrogate for the now-90-year-old Depestre, showing himself throughout to be a true savant on all things zombie.

"The truth of Hadriana’s fate proves more poignant than horrifying, but in Depestre’s hands, this incident is a touchstone of a culture in which distinctions between the empirical and spiritual are obscured, and whose traditional celebrations and beliefs introduce an element of the mythic into the everyday. Eroticism and humor course through his narrative." (Publishers Weekly)

Season of Crimson Blossoms * by writer and journalist Abubaker Adam Ibrahim, won the 2016 NLNG Prize for Literature, one of the world's richest ($100,000) literary prizes. Set in Northern Nigeria, it is the story of an illicit affair between a devout widow and a young gang leader.

55 year-old Binta Zubairu, a devout Muslim, a widow and grandmother met the 25-year-old Hassan Reza, a street gang leader when he scaled her fence and robbed her at knifepoint. Mysteriously, most of the stolen goods were returned, and when Reza appeared to apologize, the two were overcome by their inexplicable desire and began an illicit romance that brought on disastrous consequences.

"A powerful and compelling debut. The taboo subject of an older woman's sexuality, portrayed with courage, skill and delicacy, is explored in the context of the criminal underworld and the corrupt politics that exploits it. This is a novel to be savoured. " ~ Zoe Wicomb

* * * = 3 starred reviews
* = starred review

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #641

Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly called Chemistry * "that thing that is so precise in science and so mysterious and mutable in love -- becomes the rich slippery subject of one of the year's most winningly original debuts."

First-time novelist Weike Wang's (Harvard, BS Chemistry; PhD Public Health) unnamed narrator, a third-year doctorate student in Chemistry at a prestigious Boston university, is tormented by her failed research while watching her peers (and her kind and generous boyfriend Eric) move on to real jobs. The only child of extremely demanding Chinese immigrant parents, who expect nothing short of excellence from her throughout her life, she had always depended on the quiet, focused and precise nature of science, shutting out emotions.

After a dramatic meltdown at the lab, she was asked to take a sabbatical. Over the next two years, she, living alone and supporting herself through tutoring, begins to learn the formulas and equations for a different kind of chemistry -- one in which the reactions can’t be quantified, measured, and analyzed; one that can be studied only in the mysterious language of the heart.

"Though essentially unhinged, the narrator is thoughtful and funny, her scramble understandable. It is her voice -- distinctive and appealing -- that makes this novel at once moving and amusing, never predictable." (Kirkus Reviews)

“A novel about an intelligent woman trying to find her place in the world. ... The moody but endearing narrative voice is reminiscent of Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and Catherine Lacey’s Nobody is Ever Missing." (Read the complete The New York Times Book Review)

* = starred review

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