- a spider weaves, weaves
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- #21 — a spider weaves, weaves
Hello again,
I don’t have many updates this month, just a recommended book and the reminder that you can request my novella CABARET IN FLAMES on NetGalley, and that you can also pre-order it here.
See you next month,
Hache 🕷️
La Bastarda 🇬🇶
(Trifonia Melibea Obono, 2016, trans. Lawrence Schimel)
This very short and fast-paced novella paints a vivid image of the life in a small village and its characters: Okomo, the titular bastard girl, is an orphan who was raised by her watchful and suffocating grandparents, who won’t tell her who her father is; her gay uncle Marcelo, who lives in the forest after he was blamed for the community’s bad luck; and a group of lesbian girls who call themselves the Indecency Club.
La Bastarda, the first novel written by an Equatorial Guinean woman to be translated into English (yes, this late), was described by many readers as having fairy tale qualities, but it doesn’t shy away of the brutality of its themes, finding a good balance between hope and realism.