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Reading Circle by Andrew and Sandra Milne-Skinner, Freirad (3 October 2023)

This is the last of our three summer programmes when we are revisiting some of the books we read last year, while the Reading Circle has its summer break. Today we are going to look at the three most recent books we read.

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, published in 2013.

When the government bulldozes their modern homes Darling and her friends are free to run wild in a shanty town with no schools. She dreams of going to join her aunt in America, but the reality, when she gets there, is a disappointment. A sad book about the negative effects of bad government and about the whole migrant experience.

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, published in 2004.

The author revisits her Mennonite background in this novel about Nomi, who finds life in a restrictive religious community hard to take, particularly after her mother and sister leave. She stays to look after her father, but resorts to drugs, smoking and under-age sex to express her frustrations. The author recreates the stultifying world of an exasperated teenager in a small town where nothing happens with lots of black humour.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia, published in 2019.

A book about  female immigrants to the United States. The stories of families from Cuba and El Salvador become linked in Miami, and the fates of authorised and illegal immigrants are compared. The novel deals with some important themes: addiction, violence against women, the violence of colonial rule, the breakdown of the rule of law and the plight of illegal immigrants.