FEAST OR FAMINE

Sabrina & Corina (2019) is set near Denver, Colorado, in the United States in a little town called Saguarita. It is a collection of eleven stories of Latinas in the American West. It begins with a female narrator in school and a boy named Roberto Martinez, the bone boy. The second story, Sabrina & Corina, is tragic and violent, narrated by Corina, as she remembers the days when they were inseparable in high school, and in their 20s when they were working and saw each other less and less. In another story, there is Doty and Tina, who don’t talk about the regular everyday violence. In one story, Tomi leaves prison and returns to her childhood home. Alana and Avel and Pearla have their own stories. In ‘Any Further West’ the narrator is twelve years old as her mother is in her bedroom searching for her gold bikini. She’s making plans to leave ‘this real dump’ of a town. Two months later, her mother drives to their new home, ‘Eula Court curved like a shark’s fin from one green gull

MARTINA NICOLLS Website Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES    MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of:  The Paris Residences of James Joyce   (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

  Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (2003, this edition 2016) is a collection of Italian author Elena Ferrante’s letters, essays, and interviews over almost thirty years, compiled by the author.    The author has written pseudo-anonymously since 1992. The letters explain why she was a recluse, and why she wanted to hide her identity. Now she opens herself up – and invites readers into her workshop.    The letters are about the 2006 interpretation of her novel Troubling Love onto the movie screen. She also writes about her inspirations, which usually involve books, places, cities, and her homeland Italy and its politics.   The best parts are her inspirations (Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina) – and the impressions of her childhood that remain with her: cities ‘dangerous and exciting’, and car horns honking, holding her sister by the hand, running in the rain …’   I also like the sections when she is unpacking a scene, an episode, in a story. Sometimes I read the story the way she had depic

MARTINA NICOLLS Website Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES    MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of:  The Paris Residences of James Joyce   (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

MARTINA NICOLLS Website Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES    MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of:  The Paris Residences of James Joyce   (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).