Tag: fiction

Book Review

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Gwangju News

Gabriel García Márquez was born in Colombia in 1927. He wrote sixteen novels during his lifetime and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. His novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, was published in 1985. It is not generally considered to be his best work, but it has been acclaimed as his most romantic novel.

The setting is a coastal city in Colombia, and the timeframe covers about sixty years from the later 19th century to the early 20th century. The premise involves the question, “What happens when a young man’s unrequited love is unable to break his spirit?”

Book Review

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Gwangju News

In the story, it becomes clear early that the narrator is “Death.” This distinctive form of storytelling creates a magical atmosphere which transcends what readers normally expect. The book is a war story, and Death is an appropriate entity to tell it. But the author does not paint Death as omniscient; rather, Death is an onlooker, puzzled and amazed by the extreme duality people exhibit. Death perceives human uniqueness in the thousands of colors that he sees in the sky, marking the places where he must go to gather the soul.

Book Review

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Gwangju News

Richard Powers’ first book was published in 1985. His twelfth novel, The Overstory, released in 2018, won the Pulitzer Prize and was a #1 New York Times best seller. Bewilderment is his thirteenth book.

Book Review

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Gwangju News

This book’s title is taken from a 1950s top-20 hit song. It has been re-recorded many times, and a 1963 version by Bobby Vinton reached number one. It is a love song of a jilted lover who sings, “But when she left, gone was the glow of blue velvet … I can still see blue velvet through my tears.”

Book Review

The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles

Gwangju News

Based upon the characters, this historical fiction might be seen as a coming-of-age story. But the many themes, including social pragmaticism, hopeful dreams, defending ourselves, getting a fresh start, betrayal, virtue, guilt, indignation, atonement, and forgiveness go well beyond the transition of youth into adulthood. Over almost 600 pages, all of the above come into play and are intermingled.

Gwangju Writes

A Can of Coke

Gwangju News

“You count your blessings when she asks what you are up to. You answer, throat hoarse from being out of use for so long.”

Gwangju Writes

Freckles

Gwangju News

“Each time you die another freckle is added to your skin. How faint the freckle indicates how much of a positive impact you had on the life you just expired from. “

Book Review

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

Gwangju News

The Bastard of Istanbul, by Elif Shafak, is a complicated novel which, through the lens of historical hostilities between Turks and Armenians, tells the story of people conflicted by the burden of reconciling the past with the present.