Waterlily, by Ella Cara Deloria

Waterlily, by Ella Cara Deloria

Waterlily was originally written in the 1940’s but not published until 1988, after the author’s death. This novel about the life of a Dakota woman and her family in the mid-1800’s, just as European-Americans were beginning to encroach on the land where the Plains Indians lived, is based on the author’s ancestors. November is a great time to read this book, since we are celebrating Native American Heritage Month. Ella Cara Deloria was born on the Yankton Sioux reservation and…

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The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters

The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters

I’d never heard of Sarah Waters until very recently, and now I’m astonished that this enormously talented woman-centered author wasn’t already a favorite of mine! Now that I’ve read one book, I’m sure to read more by her. The Paying Guests almost feels like three novels in one. It takes place over the course of several months in 1922 near London, with the same characters, but the book’s feel shifts from a light domestic drama to something much more intense…

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Jubilee, by Margaret Walker

Jubilee, by Margaret Walker

If you are looking for a non-racist alternative to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, here it is: Jubilee. Written by an African-American woman and first published in 1966, Jubilee is a fictionalized account of the author’s great-grandmother’s experiences before, during, and after the Civil War. The photo above shows Walker’s great-grandmother, the “Vyry” of the novel. She took after her white slave-owner father in the color of her skin. I found this photo on the U Space Gallery web site….

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Great Maria Cecelia Holland
Great Maria, by Cecelia Holland

Great Maria, by Cecelia Holland

Cecelia Holland is a well-known writer of historical fiction, whose novels often features male protagonists. Great Maria is one of the few with a female lead character—and what a character she is. The novel takes place in a fictionalized Sicily (the island off the “toe” of present-day Italy) in the 1000’s, during the time the Normans (of French heritage) were fighting the Saracens (Muslims) for dominance. I believe the place names Holland includes are made up, since I could not…

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Wife Martin Guerre Janet Lewis
The Wife of Martin Guerre, by Janet Lewis

The Wife of Martin Guerre, by Janet Lewis

I first heard about The Wife of Martin Guerre when I was looking for novellas by women, and ran across a comment that Vikram Seth (one of my favorite novelists and the author of A Suitable Boy) re-reads The Wife of Martin Guerre every year.  In a recent article in the Washington Post, book reviewer Michael Dirda praised it as one of the most perfect examples of the novella form. The story concerns a young woman, Bertrande, living in the…

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Tituba Black Witch Salem Maryse Conde
I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé

Maryse Condé, a writer of African-Caribbean heritage, expands on the story of Tituba, the black slave from Barbados accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. In an interview printed at the back of the book, Condé reveals that she learned about Tituba by accident when she got lost in a library. She became curious, and sought more facts about her life. Finding very little, Condé says “I decided I was going to write her story out of my own…

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Purge Sofi Oksanen review
Purge, by Sofi Oksanen

Purge, by Sofi Oksanen

Purge was written by Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, and translated from Finnish into English. It has also been translated into 49 other languages, and is billed as an international bestseller. The picture above is from the Finnish paperback. The novel takes place in Estonia, and alternates between chapters in the 1990’s, and chapters from the 1930’s to 1950’s. The story begins with an elderly woman, Aliide, finding an injured young woman in her yard. Against her better judgment Aliide invites…

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august women translation month
August is Women in Translation Month!

August is Women in Translation Month!

August has been designated as a month to focus on translated literature by women. In honor of Women in Translation Month, I’ve written a guest post over at For Books’ Sake, a web site devoted to writing by women. Please check out my post, “Historical Fiction in Translation”! NOTE: Please click on the title of this blog post for clickable links.

Lost Daughter Happiness review Geling Yan
The Lost Daughter of Happiness, by Geling Yan

The Lost Daughter of Happiness, by Geling Yan

I’m not sure how to describe this beautiful novel. On one level, it is a mysterious love story between a Chinese prostitute, Fusang, in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1860’s and 1870’s and a white boy of German heritage, Chris. On another level it is an exploration of a Chinese immigrant woman at the beginning of the 21st century attempting to research Fusang as a way of understanding the history of Chinese people in San Francisco, as well as the…

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Burial Rites cover
Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent

Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent

Burial Rites is based on the almost mythic Icelandic true story of 34-year-old Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman beheaded in public in Iceland (in 1830). The author, Hannah Kent, was a teenaged Australian exchange student in Iceland when she first heard about the execution of Agnes, and became fascinated. She then spent many years visiting Iceland and researching the story of this woman through oral histories and government records. The jacket copy for this book is a little misleading: “Charged…

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