#Malla Nunn

[slaughter-books]

Day 18: JOMPBPC: Friendship Goals

[just0nemorepage]

When the Ground is Hard || Malla Nunn || 257 pages Top 3 Genres: Young Adult / Historical Fiction / Mystery

Synopsis: Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders. 

But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.

Publication Date: June 2019. / Average Rating: 4.16. / Number of Ratings: ~1330.

[fiction-quotes]

“My mother told me that falling in love is the best thing in the world but it's also dangerous.” Lottie's voice is thick in the darkness. “My father loved her and she loved him, and when he died, he left her with a sadness that won't go away. When a new man comes around, she thinks that he will take away the sad feelings and give her back what she had with my father. It never works out.  She gets sadder, and they leave. That's why you have to take care of yourself, she says. Finish school. Be a nurse or a teacher or a secretary in an office, so that, no matter what happens, you'll have a job and a roof over your head. Don't...don't ever give your happiness to a man to take care of, because when he's gone, where will you be?”

  —  When the Ground is Hard (Malla Nunn)

[goodbooksandgoodwine]

Four Young Adult Books I've Recently Read

Four Young Adult Books I’ve Recently Read

Hello friends! With it being a little colder out, I have been bundling up and reading through my TBR like a fiend. Here are four young adult books which I have very recently read and mostly enjoyed! Finding Her Edge by Jennifer Iacopelli There’s something about sports themed young adult books. I love them even though I really do not have an athletic bone in my body. Finding Her Edge by Jennifer…

[iishmael]

Global Reading Challenge: 126/200

A personal reading project, where I endeavour to read a book from each of the 193 United Nations member states plus 7 extra* ones. My main goal is to have fun and to learn, but I do have rules for myself:

The book should be fiction, and preferably a novel. I allow plays and poetry, but non-fiction only as the very last resort

The author should have the nationality of their country. If they have lived a good portion of their life there and genuinely represent the local culture, then it's ok if they've been born somewhere else

I want to read books that represent the local literary tradition. Preferably a "classic", a book that illustrates the local culture, or a book that is famous within the country. I avoid popular and contemporary fiction, and books that play outside of the country.

*Extra states have been determined based on UNESCO membership and personal interest where I want to read more books from. This is not a political statement.

The List

Afghanistan: Atiq Rahimi - Earth and Ashes

Albania:

Algeria: Albert Camus - The Stranger (FR)

Andorra: Teresa Colom - Mlle Keaton et autres creatures (FR)

Angola: José Eduardo Agualusa - The Book of Chameleons

Antigua and Barbuda

Argentina: JL Borges - Fictions

Armenia: Raffi - The Fool

Australia: Doris Pilkington/Nugi Garimara - Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

Austria: Elfriede Jelinek - Die Klavierspielerin

Azerbaijan

Bahamas: Telcine Turner - Woman Take Two

Bahrain

Bangladesh

Barbados

Belarus: Uladzimir Karatkievich - King Stakh's Wild Hunt

Belgium

Belize: Zee Edgell - Beka Lamb

Benin

Bhutan: Karma Ura - The Hero with a Thousand Eyes

Bolivia

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Botswana: Bessie Head - Maru

Brazil: Paulo Coehlo - The Alchimist

Brunei Darussalam: K.H. Lim - Written in Black

Bulgaria: Elias Canetti - Komödie der Eitelkeit (GER)

Burkina Faso: Norbert Zongo - Le parachutage (FR)

Burundi: Samoya Kirura - La femme au regard triste (FR)

Cabo Verde: Germano Almeida - The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo

Cambodia

Cameroon: Francis Bebey - King Albert

Canada: S. Alice Callahan - Wynema: A Child of the Forest

Central African Republic: Étienne Goyémidé - Le dernier Survivant de la caravane

Chad: Told by Starlight in Chad - Joseph Brahmin Seid

Chile

China

Colombia

Comoros: Ali Zamir - A Girl Called Eel

Congo

Cook Islands*: Kauraka Kauraka- Oral tradition in Manihiki

Costa Rica: Carlos Luis Fallas - Mamita Yunai (Die Grüne Hölle, GER)

Côte D’Ivoire

Croatia

Cuba

Cyprus: Kyriakos Charalambides - Selected Poems

Czech Republic: Jan Neruda - Prague Tales

DPRK (North Korea): Bandi - The Accusation

DRC

Denmark

Djibouti

Dominica: Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

Egypt

El Salvador: Horacio Castellanos Moyà - Le bal des vipères (FR)

Equatorial Guinea: Trifonia Melibea Obono - La Bâtarde (FR)

Eritrea: Helen Berhane - Song of the Nightingale

Estonia: Jaan Kross - The Czar's Madman

Eswatini: Malla Nunn - A Beautiful Place to Die

Ethiopia

Fiji: Rajni Mala Khelawan - Kalyana

Finland

France: Pierre Louys - Aphrodite: Ancient Manners

Gabon: Daniel M Mengara - Mema

Gambia

Georgia

Germany: Thomas Mann - Buddenbrooks

Ghana: Ayi Kwei Armah - The beautiful ones are not yet born

Greece

Greenland*: Knud Rasmussen - Eskimo Folktales

Grenada: Merle Collins - The Colour of Forgetting

Guatemala: Miguel Angel Asturias - Strong Wind

Guinea: Camara Laye - The Radiance of the King

Guinea Bissau: Abdulai Sila - The ultimate tragedy

Guyana

Haiti: Jacques Roumain - Gouverneurs de La Rosée

Honduras: Froylan Turcios - El Vampiro (SPA)

Hungary: Arthur Koestler - Darkness at Noon

Iceland

India: Rabindranath Tangore - The Home and the World

Indonesia: Eka Kurniawan - Man Tiger

Iran: Sadegh Hedayat - The Blind Owl

Iraq: Andrew George - The epic of Gilgamesh

Ireland: James Joyce - Dubliners

Israel

Italy: Italo Calvino - If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

Jamaica: Andrew Salkey - Hurricane

Japan

Jordan: Amjad Nasser - L'ascension de l'amant (FR)

Kazakhstan

Kenya

Kiribati: Teresia Teaiwa & Vilsoni Hereniko - Last Virgin in paradise

Kosovo*: Flora Brovina - Call me by my name

Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan: Chingiz Aitmatov - Jamila

Laos: Outhine Bounyavong - Mother's Beloved

Latvia

Lebanon

Lesotho

Liberia: Bai T. Moore - Murder in the Cassava Patch

Libya

Liechtenstein

Lithuania: Vingas Kreve - The Herdsman and the Linden Tree

Luxembourg: Norbert Jacques - Dr Mabuse der Spieler (GER)

Madagascar: Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo - Traduit de La nuit (FR)

Malawi: William Kamkwamba - The Boy who harnessed the Wind

Malaysia

Maldives: Abdullah Sadiq - Dhon Hiyala and Ali Fulhu

Mali

Malta: Oliver Friggieri - Koranta and other short stories

Marshall Islands: Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner - Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter

Mauritania: Moussa Ould Ebnou - L'Amour Impossible (FR)

Mauritius

Mexico: Mario Bellatín - Beauty Salon

Micronesia: Emelihter Klieng - My Urohs

Monaco: Louis Notari - La légende de Sainte Dévote (FR)

Mongolia: Galsan Tschinag - Die Karawane (GER)

Montenegro: Petar II Petrovic Njegos - The Mountain Wreath

Morocco: Abdellatif Laâbi - Le bâpteme chacaliste (FR)

Mozambique

Myanmar

Namibia

Nauru: Nancy Viviani - Nauru, phosphate and political progress

Nepal: Prajwal Parajuly - Land where I flee

Netherlands

New Zealand: Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider

Nicaragua: Rubén Dario - Azul… (SPA/ENG)

Niger: Abdoulaye Mamani - Sarraounia: Le drame de la reine magicienne (FR)

Nigeria: Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

Niue*: John Puhiatau Pule - The Bond of Time: An Epic Love Poem

North Macedonia

Norway: Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House

Oman

Pakistan: Jamil Ahmad - The Wandering Falcon

Palau: Hermana Ramarui - The Palauan Perspective: a poetry book

Panama: Ricardo Miró - Las Noches de Babel (SPA)

Palestine*: Ibrahim Nasrallah - Prairies of Fever

Papua New Guinea: Vincent Eri - The Crocodile

Paraguay

Peru: Mario Vargas Llosa - In Praise of the Stepmother

Philippines

Poland: Isaac Singer - The Magician of Lublin

Portugal

Qatar

Republic of Korea

Republic of Moldova

Romania: Ioan Slavici - The lucky mill

Russian Federation: Leo Tolstoi - The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Rwanda

Saint Kitts and Nevis: Caryl Philips - Cambridge

Saint Lucia: Derek Walcott - Omeros

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Samoa: Albert Wendt - Leaves of the Banyan Tree

San Marino: J. Theodore Bent - A freak of Freedom: or, the Republic of San Marino

Sao Tome and Principe:

Saudi Arabia

Senegal

Serbia

Seychelles: Antoine Abel - Coco Sec (FR)

Sierra Leone

Singapore: Cyril Wong - Tilting our Plates to catch the Light

Slovakia: Milan Rúfus - Strenges Brot

Slovenia: France Prešeren - Poems

Solomon Islands: John Saunana - Cruising Through the Reverie

Somalia: Hadraawi - The Poet and the Man

South Africa: JM Coetzee - Disgrace

South Sudan: Nyuol Lueth Tong - There is a country

Spain: Miguel de Unamuno - Abel Sanchez and Other Stories

Sri Lanka

Sudan

Suriname

Sweden: August Strindberg - The Red Room

Switzerland: Gottfried Keller - Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe

Syrian Arab Republic: Ibn al-Nafis - Theologus Autodidactus

Taiwan*

Tajikistan: Shavkat Niyazi - At the Foot of Blue Mountains: Stories by Tajik Authors

Thailand

Timor-Leste: Xanana Gusmão - Mar Meu

Togo

Tonga: Epeli Hau'ofa - Tales of the Tikongs

Trinidad and Tobago: VS Naipaul - A House for Mr Biswas

Tunisia: Albert Memmi - The Pillar of Salt

Turkey

Turkmenistan: Magtymguly - Poems from Turkmenistan

Tuvalu: Neil Lifuka - Logs in the current of the sea

Uganda: Okot p'Bitek - Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol

Ukraine: Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin

United Arab Emirates

UK: Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway

United Republic of Tanzania

USA: John Steinbeck - Grapes of Wrath

Uruguay

Uzbekistan: Abdullah Qoqiriy - Bygone Days

Vanuatu: Grace Molisa - Black Stone

Vatican City*: Andrew Graham-Dixon - Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel

Venezuela

Viet Nam

Yemen: Abdul-wali - They die strangers

Zambia

Zimbabwe

[swede1952]

Good morning. 🍁🍁🍁

29 November 2023

Death is a good business, but there are far too many people in the United States who cannot afford to pay for a loved one's funeral when the time comes, and the time always comes. I know this from personal experience because we've paid for or helped pay for a few over the years. Once, while in Georgia for Thanksgiving, a young man knocked on the door, he was seeking donations to pay for his mother's funeral. It was heartbreaking to think of him having to go door to door, hat in hand asking for help. The next day, my wife and I went to see the funeral director and paid the balance of the funeral cost. We asked for his discretion, of course.

“A dark wind lifts dirt into the air. The land absorbs the sobs of the women and the flinty silence of the gravediggers. The long fields and tall hills swallow us all.” - Malla Nunn, When the Ground Is Hard

[ebookdynasty]

Book Review: "Sugar Town Queens" by Malla Nunn (@MallaNunn @AllenAndUnwin @EasternRegional)

Book Review: “Sugar Town Queens” by Malla Nunn (@MallaNunn @AllenAndUnwin @EasternRegional)

Sugar Town Queens (Allen & Unwin Children’s Books, 2021) by Malla Nunn This is the third in a series of six reviews featuring the 2022 Readings Young Adult Book Prize. Sugar Town Queens is the second young adult novel by award-winning Swaziland-born screenwriter and author Malla Nunn. It is set in the shanty towns of Durban, South Africa, a highly ethnically diverse city with large Zulu, White…

[yaworldchallenge]

🇸🇿 Eswatini

Region: Southern Africa

When the Ground is Hard

Author: Malla Nunn

272 pages, published 2019

Original language: English

Native author? Yes

Age: Teen

Blurb:

Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders. But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.      

Other reps:

Genres: #school #friendship #historical, 20th century

My thoughts:

Two girls on either side of apartheid find friendship at a boarding school. Possibly a cute and warmhearted read.

Review to come.

Bookshop.org link | Kindle link

[2021ya]

SUGAR TOWN QUEENS

by Malla Nunn

(Putnam, 8/3/21)

9780525515609

Add to Goodreads

Purchase from Bookshop

From LA Times Book Prize Award Winner and Edgar Award Nominee Malla Nunn comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and the bonds that knit our communities. When Amandla wakes up on her fifteenth birthday she knows it's going to be one of her mother's difficult days. Her mother has had another vision. If Amandla wears a blue sheet her mother has loosely stitched as a dress and styles her normally braided hair in a halo around her head, Amandla's father will come home. Amandla's mother, Annalisa, always speaks of her father as if he was the prince of a fairytale, but in truth he's been gone since before Amandla was born and even Annalisa's memory of him is hazy. In fact many of Annalisa's memories from before Amandla was born are hazy. It's just one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give Annalisa and Amandla strange looks--that and the fact her mother is white and Amandla is brown. But when Amandla finds a mysterious address in the bottom of her mother's handbag along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. But what she discovers will change the shape and size of her family forever.

[mobilepubliclibraryteens]

In this stunning and heartrending tale set in a Swaziland boarding school, two girls of different castes bond over a shared copy of Jane Eyre. Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders. But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.

[slaughter-books]

Day 25: JOMPBPC: Confession

I didn't know what to do for this prompt, so I decided to spell the prompt using the names of authors! 📚🩷

[bookishfreedom]

it’s been my kind of week: a lazy one

[fiction-quotes]

Emmanuel heard pride in the Englishman's voice; he was filled with the joy that comes from being supreme ruler of your own piece of Africa.

  —  A Beautiful Place to Die (Malla Nunn)

[first--lines]

Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper switched off the engine and looked out through the dirty windscreen. He was in deep country. To get deeper he'd have to travel back in time to the Zulu wars. Two Ford pick-up trucks, a white Mercedes and a police van parked to his right placed him in the twentieth century. Ahead of him a group of black farmworkers stood along a rise with their backs towards him. The hard line of their shoulders obscured what lay ahead.

  —  A Beautiful Place to Die (Malla Nunn)

[auslgbtqya]

Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn

(2021)

From the Publisher:

From the award-winning author of the CBCA shortlisted When the Ground Is Hard, comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and an uplifting story of how friendship saves and heals.

NOTABLE BOOK: 2022 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers

Fifteen-year-old Amandla's mother has always been strange. For starters, she's a white woman living in Sugar Town, one of South Africa's infamous shanty towns. She won't tell anyone, not even Amandla, about her past. And she has visions, including ones that promise the return of Amandla's father as if he were a prince in a fairytale, but their hardscrabble life is no fairytale.

Amandla knows her father is long gone - since before Amandla was born - and she's pretty sure he's not a prince. He's just another mystery and missing piece of her mother's past, and one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give them strange looks - that and the fact that Amandla is black and her mother is not.

Lately, her mother has been acting even more strangely, so when Amandla finds a mysterious address at the bottom of her mother's purse along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. With her best friends by her side, Amandla is ready to take on the devil himself, and as she confronts devastating family secrets and pain that has lasted a generation, taking on the devil is exactly what she must do.

Goodreads

[bookdivareads]

Best Fiction Reads of 2021: Part 2

Pt 2 of #BestFictionReads of 2021: DEEP INTO THE DARK #PJTracy, REMOTE CONTROL @Nnedi, PROJECT HAIL MARY @andyweirauthor, A MASTER OF DJINN @pdjeliclark, WHILE JUSTICE SLEEPS @staceyabrams, SUGAR TOWN QUEENS @MallaNunn, and more. #fiction #YA #scifi

We’re getting close to the end of 2021. At times, this year has seemed to drag by, second-by-second, and at other times it flew. Okay, it seemed to drag whenever I was looking forward to the release of a new book or an in-person book event. (Time always seems to drag when you’re anticipating something or at least it does for me.) Although this was a moderately bad year for me migraine-wise, it…