[Book Review] Two Moons, Two Realities
1Q84, Haruki Murakami, Shinchosa, Japan, 2009 (book 1 & 2), 2010 (book 3) Over 900 pages in length and published in two volumes (the first containing Books 1 and 2, the second, Book 3), 1Q84 is a novel written by world-renowned author Haruki Murakami. Set in 1984 Tokyo, 1Q84 vacillates between two characters: Aomame, a […]
[Book Review] Agatha Christie, the Queen of the Crime
(Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie, Collins Crime Club, 1934) Set in the 1930s, Murder on the Orient Express is a detective novel written by Agatha Christie featuring Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, a clever and private detective. Poirot is on the Orient Express but the train is caught in the snow. When one of […]
Marguerite Duras’ Universe of Love
Title: The Lover Author: Marguerite Duras Publication information: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1984 (first edition) It won the Goncourt Prize in 1984 as the semi-autobiographical novel-turned-movie directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud in 1992. Set around the backdrop of French colonial Vietnam, The Lover reveals the intimacies of a clandestine romance between a fifteen-year-old girl from […]
Ximen Nao’s six reincarnations under the Chinese Communist Party
Life and death are wearing me out Mo Yan, Arcade Publishing (Eng. trans.), 2008, In 1948, Ximen Nao, a rich landowner, was executed by the sharecroppers who were working for him. He felt he had been unjustly murdered since he thought he had been an excellent landlord. After spending two years in the […]