Rejoignez-nous pour un voyage dans le monde des livres!
Ajouter ce livre à l'électronique
Grey
Ecrivez un nouveau commentaire Default profile 50px
Grey
Abonnez-vous pour lire le livre complet ou lisez les premières pages gratuitement!
All characters reduced
Bush Meat - cover

Bush Meat

Mandy Sutter

Maison d'édition: Parthian Books

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Synopsis

For Sarah's family, memories of early Sixties Aba in south-eastern Nigeria are scorched onto their hearts. A days-old burial mound exposed as an 'exploded diagram' of bones picked clean by beasts. Adaku the Barbary duck with a 'melted face', who was conscripted into friendship by six-year-old Sarah in the first of a lifetime's unlikely alliances, forged by necessity and relocation. The narcotic puff let out from the freezer in the meat-man's shack off the Ikot Ekpene road, where Maureen, Sarah's lonely mother, gave up aspirations to be a 'proper oil company wife' to Jim, and risked buying 'bush meat'. The dry 'snakeskin' bark of the old iroko tree on the bend of the town's river, under whose shade Jim sought sanctuary from people, and whose 'two long white catkins the tree one day bestowed onto his head like confetti.'
Back home, Jim swaps adventure and agency for woodwork and more whisky. Maureen, denying her love of Igbo crafts and cloth, considers reinventing herself as an Oxfam shop assistant. In the days before her grandmother's funeral, Sarah finds the platitudes of her father evasive compared to the wisdom and ritual taught by servant Chidike while burying the household monkey. Sarah's hard-won Nigerian barter goods, a silver thumb-ring and a dare taken to eat fried-fat market 'snack', become devalued. At Aba's Sancta Maria, unaccustomed food was a cone of hot roast groundnuts paid for by a penny with a hole. In Britain, 'unaccustomed' means milk with a 'thickened band of yellow'. Now, the currency is a dare Sarah first honours, then refuses.
As people of that time and place are scattered like those bleached bones, Aba acts as centripetal force on their imagination. Today's city was a small town the like of which Tim Winton gnaws at from different angles in The Turning. Mandy Sutter's approach is similarly innovative. Her themes are substitution, racism, and whether the spirit can ever survive transaction.
Disponible depuis: 01/08/2024.
Longueur d'impression: 228 pages.

D'autres livres qui pourraient vous intéresser

  • Her Lover - From their pens to your ears genius in every story - cover

    Her Lover - From their pens to...

    Maxim Gorky

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Alexei Maximovich Peshkov was born on 28th March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. 
    Better known as Maxim Gorky he was orphaned at 11 and ran away from home at 12.  At 19 he had already attempted suicide and thereafter travelled, by foot, across the Russian Empire for 5 years. 
    His first book ‘Essays & Stories’ in 1898 was a sensation and so began a long career as an author of short stories, novels and plays.  Gorky saw writing as a moral and political act that would help to change the unjust world around him.  He was an ardent early advocate of the emerging Marxist movement and publicly opposed the Tsarist regime leading several times to his arrest.  
    In 1904 he began his own theatre but the censor banned every play and Gorky was forced to abandon the project. 
    But Gorky was a financially successful author, editor, and playwright and gave monies to political parties as well as for civil rights and social reform.  The brutal shooting of workers, which set in motion the Revolution of 1905, pushed Gorky more decisively toward radical solutions.  
    In 1906 he went to the United States to raise funds for the Bolsheviks. Those experiences including a scandal over travelling with his lover and not his wife deepened his contempt for the ‘bourgeois soul.’ 
    Gorky now moved to Capri in Italy, both for health reasons and to escape the increasingly repressive times in Russia.  
    An amnesty for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty saw him return to Russia in 1914. His politics remained close to the Bolshevik cause.  But soon, after the 1918 revolution, his essays referred to Lenin as a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression.  He was soon appealing to the outside world for food aid after the catastrophic crop failure. 
    In October 1921 Gorky returned to Italy, now in Fascist hands, and settled in Sorrento until 1932.  His health worsened with the onset of tuberculosis. 
    He wrote several successful books there but now decided to find an understanding with the communist regime. Stalin invited him home and his return was hailed as a major propaganda victory.  He was decorated with the Order of Lenin, and a province, a park, and various streets re-named in his honour. 
    But he had his faults too.  In 1933, Gorky co-edited a book on the White Sea-Baltic Canal and denied even a single prisoner died during its construction, but thousands had. As well, knowing that some Nazis were homosexual, a phrase was attributed to him that said ‘exterminate all homosexuals and fascism will vanish’.  Although he was himself was quoting another he was decidedly homophobic. 
    With the increase of Stalinist repression in 1935 Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest. 
    Maxim Gorky died on the 18th June 1936 from pneumonia.  He was 68. 
    Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's urn of ashes at his funeral.
    Voir livre
  • The Mystery of the Spanish Shawl - A Short Story - cover

    The Mystery of the Spanish Shawl...

    Agatha Christie

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A classic Agatha Christie short story from the collection The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories. 
    Mystery writer Anthony Eastwood is lured to the crime scene of a faked murder, where two individuals masquerading as police officers arrest him and charge him for murder. As the phony police officers escort Mr. Eastwood home, the true goal of the masquerade becomes apparent.
    Voir livre
  • To Be Loved - humorous and heartwarming short stories - cover

    To Be Loved - humorous and...

    Stefania Hartley

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Amanda’s name means “to be loved” and she’s taken it as her duty to make herself lovable, but it’s hard work. 
    Has Tanino really abandoned Melina at home to freeze? 
    Mark hasn’t seen Nora for thirty years and, since then, he’s lost a leg and all his hair. If he wasn’t enough for her then, can he be now? 
    What happens if the dating app’s algorithms go haywire? 
    Ten humorous and heart-warming short stories about love—found, kept, reconquered—at all ages. The perfect winter warmer for your coffee break or as a bedtime listen.
    Voir livre
  • The Red Room - cover

    The Red Room

    H. G. Wells

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A lone man holding a candelabrum stands in the center of a cold, stone-walled chamber known as the Red Room. Flickering candlelight casts ominous shadows along the walls, and antique furniture looms in the corners. His eyes are wide with tension, and he looks over his shoulder at something unseen. The atmosphere is eerie, dark, and steeped in gothic suspense. 
    The Red Room by H.G. Wells is a masterfully written tale of psychological horror, suspense, and atmosphere. First published in 1896, this gothic short story explores the fine line between fear and imagination through the experience of a skeptic who agrees to spend the night alone in a room said to be haunted. 
    The protagonist enters the notorious Red Room with confidence, determined to debunk the legends surrounding it. But as the night wears on, flickering shadows, silence, and mounting dread take a toll on his mind. Is the room truly haunted, or is the most terrifying specter the fear that lives within us all? 
    This full audiobook brings Wells' vivid descriptions and rising tension to life, drawing listeners deep into a chilling exploration of the psychology of fear, where darkness is both literal and symbolic. 
    If you love classic horror, atmospheric fiction, and tales that challenge the boundary between reality and perception, The Red Room is a must-listen.
    Voir livre
  • Fallen Mangrove - A Jesse McDermitt Novel - cover

    Fallen Mangrove - A Jesse...

    Wayne Stinnett

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A Spanish treasure ship is driven by a hurricane onto the rocky shoreline of Elbow Cay in September of 1566. Few of the crew survive, but they manage to salvage most of the treasure and bury it on the island, leaving a clue to its location in a chest placed in the boughs of a young mangrove tree. Four hundred forty years later, Jesse McDermitt and his friends solve the riddle that was hidden inside a chest found encased in the now-ancient mangrove. 
    When the head of the Miami-based Croatian mob learns about the treasure he goes to great lengths and expense, in an attempt to relieve Jesse and his friends of the riches. A demented, hyper-sexed island woman also wants it for her own, as does a hot-shot Miami attorney and his son, who is married to Jesse's estranged daughter. 
    As the body count grows, will the crew of Gaspar's Revenge find the treasure or become one of the island's statistics?
    Voir livre
  • The Masque of the Red Death - cover

    The Masque of the Red Death

    Edgar Allan Poe

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Step into the haunting world of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, a gothic masterpiece that explores the illusion of safety, the inevitability of death, and the futility of escaping fate. Set against the backdrop of a deadly plague, this chilling allegory follows Prince Prospero as he retreats into a lavish abbey with his courtiers, hoping to avoid the Red Death. Poe’s vivid imagery, symbolic use of color, and masterful suspense create a powerful meditation on mortality that continues to captivate readers over a century later. Perfect for fans of dark fiction, philosophical horror, and classic American literature.
    Voir livre