Queen of Flowers and Pearls by Gabriella Ghermandi - Book Review

In 2015, Gabriella Ghermandi came to Ireland for a "narrative performance" of her work at Trinity College on Thursday, 29th October at 5.00 pm in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, in Clonskeagh on the 30th and for the Irish launch of her novel Queen of Flowers and Pearls at Hodges Figgis, 56-58 Dawson St, Dublin 2 on Halloween afternoon (Saturday 31st) at 2pm.

The debut novel from an Italian-Ethiopian performance artist, singer and writer ticks an awful lot of boxes. Drawing on the intercultural aspects of her own heritage, Gabriella Ghermandi ought to be any literary agent's dream signing.

Ghermandi during her last visit to Dublin in 2013.
The writing is qualitatively superb, the novel rich in story, description and detail. The framing narrative is provided by Mahlet, who - at the novel's outset - retrospectively details her childhood. Like Hosseini's Amir in The Kite Runner - a novel similarly dualistic in cultural terms - the young protagonist is a burgeoning storyteller, living near Addis Ababa (rather than Hosseini's Kabul).

Unlike Hosseini's novel, this work is not burdened by the self-absorption or outraged moralising of its central character. Introspection and self-awareness are encouraged here - through the advice of a religious leader - only so that the heroine can allow others - indeed, her 'Other', to subvert its conventional meaning - to better understand her. Such an attitude is contrasted, through this same mouthpiece, with the
selfishness of the colonialists of Ethiopia's recent past. It's a cogent criticism the reader doesn't have to confine to Italy, applicable to the self-interest prevalent in Western culture at large.

The novel, while never preachy, has many such didactic elements rendered abstract while retaining their educational impact, through fables or biographical detail of some of those elderly characters who insist to Mahlet that she will be the teller of their tales. Echoing the thinking of many a philosopher of recent times, as Mahlet tells us at the novel's end, they are our stories now too.

Many thanks to Rob O'Connor at Rocshot Photography for the above pic!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: JIHADI A Love Story by Yusuf Toropov

Image
With a fantastic opening purportedly penned by a recently deceased narrator and edited via running commentary by a secondary narrator, JIHADI: A Love Story is written by Yusuf Toropov. The emotional intelligence of the main protagonist and the story itself are high on the list of pluses at the outset. Although many expectations are confounded throughout the story, the expectation of more confusion, while reading the opening pages, does not bear out. So if you find yourself asking: “What’s this about?”, just power on through the opening five pages. The quality of the writing will draw you in at the outset. But the plot is riveting, and it all starts to become fairly clear fairly quickly. It’s one of those novels that merits a second read not because of its difficulty, but because of the prose's beauty. In terms of plot, there is so much to it that there are things you may miss the first time out. Among much else, readers may find they are reading the novel for its story, and then
Read more

Dead Men Naked by Dario Cannizzaro

Image
Dario Cannizzaro’s narrator Louis, the protagonist of Dead Men Naked (available at Amazon ), loses his best friend Neil in a bizarre, seemingly hallucinogenic near-remote attack from an attic window as they stand in the same room, by Lou’s neighbour and a giant crow. Given the tequila and other substances taken, it is difficult to determine what exactly occurred through the narrator’s eyes. But Louis comes round the following morning worse-for-wear; he finds his friend’s body, realises that what happened was no dream, and summons the authorities to the scene. Strange beginnings complement a funeral where Neil’s parents end up consoling him as much as vice versa. On the trip, while Lou drowns his sorrows, he meets Mallory at a nearby, not-so-nearby dive, and begins an exploration of the spirit world. The journey is a theme in this novel, the roadside scenery described with a vivid and subtle poetry throughout. Also beautifully captured are aspects relationships – for instance,
Read more

The Survival Girls Book Review

Image
The Survival Girls book: http://thesurvivalgirls.com/ Among her other achievements, Ming Holden gained the top prize in a Glimmer Train fiction contest in 2013. The email announcing her win came into my busy inbox one morning last year, and I almost deleted it. I clicked on it, more to get it marked as read than anything else, and I glanced at some words of acceptance from the prizewinner of the latest story competition, with a quote from Madeleine Albright and something about the power of intentionality. “Politics and philosophy,” I thought. When I clicked through beyond the teaser (which DID NOT do her writing-advice piece justice, although quoting a Democrat-appointed cabinet secretary, and a bit of philosophy will - surprisingly - get me clicking at anything), there was a wonderful Obamaesque idealism in Holden’s jesuitical plea to write for others, once you have an intended readership in your head. That readership can be the EMO kids, the dispossessed, the refugees, the voice
Read more