Книги, похожие на «Hayden Bradford, Travesty»

A big, intensely involving and evocative Indian novel, with its story of a woman’s fight for her place in the world, reminiscent of Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’.The dew hasn't formally evaporated off the mustard leaves outside. Except for the sleeping baby, she is alone at home. Her mother gave her this much. As an excuse Lata Bai left Shanti behind for Mamta to look after. She has an hour before her mother will return from the well.Mamta runs her hand over her wedding sari. For a minute she considers why it is already lying unwrapped, in precise folds gleaming like a treasure in her mother's tin trunk, then she remembers her mother had used the wrapping to deliver Shanti. She picks up a corner and looks through the sheerness of the fabric. Everything turns red, the red of love. Mamta smiles. It is as it should be. «Keep my world red, oh Devi,» she prays. «Jai ho Devi, Devi Jai ho,» she recites her mother's words. Almost a married woman, she feels she has an equal right to them.’Mamta is one of seven children and learns early on in her childhood what it means to be born female in rural India. Married to a savagely unkind and brutal husband, she flees to the city to try and make a new life for herself. Sharing her story are her mother, Lata Bai, the saintly Lokend, her ever-loving brother Prem, a soul-searching bandit and a brutal landlord. This is a redemptive story, despite the often unforgiving setting, and one that is difficult to put down.

Following the success of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ and ‘The Post-Birthday World’, ‘Game Control’ is coming back into print after being unavailable for years.Eleanor Merritt, a do-gooding American family-planning worker, was drawn to Kenya to improve the lot of the poor. Unnervingly, she finds herself falling in love with the beguiling Calvin Piper despite, or perhaps because of, his misanthropic theories about population control and the future of the human race. Surely, Calvin whispers seductively in Eleanor's ear, if the poor are a responsibility they are also an imposition.Set against the vivid backdrop of shambolic modern-day Africa – a continent now primarily populated with wildlife of the two-legged sort – Lionel Shriver's ‘Game Control’ is a wry, grimly comic tale of bad ideas and good intentions. With a deft, droll touch, Shriver highlights the hypocrisy of lofty intellectuals who would ‘save’ humanity but who don't like people.