Blogs in July 2019

An Artist of the Floating World 5th July 2019

It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War Two, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, fills his days attending to his garden, his...

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The Blue Sky 5th July 2019

In the Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia, the nomadic Tuvan people s ancient way of life is colliding with the relentless influence of the modern world. For a young shepherd boy, the confrontation comes in stages. First, his older...

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The Good Earth 4th July 2019

When O-lan, a servant girl, marries the peasant Wang Lung, she toils tirelessly through four pregnancies for their family’s survival. Reward at first is meagre, but there is sustenance in the land – until the famine comes. Half-starved, the...

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The Grass is Singing 4th July 2019

Set in Rhodesia, ‘The Grass is Singing’ tells the story of Dick Turner, a failed white farmer and his wife, Mary, a town girl who hates the bush and viciously abuses the black South Africans who work on their...

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A Grain of Wheat 4th July 2019

A masterly story of myth, rebellion, love, friendship and betrayal from one of Africa’s great writers, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat includes an introduction by Abdulrazak Gurnah, author of By the Sea, in Penguin Modern Classics. It...

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