Only two out of five books recommended here were published in 2023 (including a one translation of a book from the 50s). This very subjective selection assumes that some socio-political problems tackled by the proposed books do not have an expiration date and they can evoke awe, disbelief or anger even decades after the first publication.
- Alba de Céspedes, Forbidden Notebook, transl. by Ann Goldstein, Pushkin Press 2023
Originally published in 1952 and converted into English only now by Elena Ferrante’s translator, the book talks about the development of women’s self-awareness, difficulties in articulating their own needs and emotions, as well as the horror caused by the discovery of these emotions. These threads of female emancipation are a recurring theme in Céspedes’ works, and no wonder Ferrante admits to take inspiration form her predecessor. De Céspedes was an Italo-Cuban intellectual novelist engaged in an anti-fascist movement: her political convictions were a solid basis for her novels. This book’s protagonist is a 43 years old Roman secretary and housewife, who secretly starts a diary: and suddenly the words help her to name the intricate inequalities she was used to bear during all her life, and which she imposed on her own daughter.
- Norman Lewis, Naples ’44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy, Eland Publishing 2011
Shelved for three decades before the publication, the diary of the British sergeant turned travel writer bears witness to the shocking conditions of the civilian population tormented by Nazi air raids. Lewis was a talented observer and an eloquent interlocutor what allowed him to penetrate the everyday life of all social classes in Naples: impoverished old aristocracy, peasants, workers, all dramatically trying to cope with starvation and pain. Lewis accounted how the attempts by British officers to introduce substitutes for social order collided with superstitions awakened by the uncertainty of war and simple human immorality. He himself was appalled by what had seen: he does not shy away from writing down his emotions, what enhances the impression of diary’s authenticity.
- Adania Shibli, Minor Detail, transl. By Elisabeth Jaquette, Fitzcarraldo 2020
This book is a political and moral meditation over the repetitions of history. In 1949, a year after the 700,000 Palestinians were displaces (the Nakba), a young Bedouin-Palestinian woman is raped and killed by an Israeli army — this historical fact is recounted in the first part of the novel. The second part happens decades after, when a woman from Ramallah (the occupied West Bank) becomes fixated on this event because of the titled minor detail: the murder of the young woman happened exactly 25 years before her birthday. The unnamed female protagonist then starts her own crime investigation on the Israeli territory. The book has a captivating Camus-like language: seemingly unemotional and distanced, which increases the novel’s unbearable tension. The current Israeli war on Gaza gives this book even more urgency.
- Amia Srinivasan,The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, Bloomsbury Publishing 2021
This collection of essays by an Oxford-based philosopher has already been widely acclaimed, even beyond academic circles. And don’t be deceived by the title — this book tackles problems of inequality of social classes, racism, pornography, legal preconceptions, and academic hierarchical relations. Although she does not offer solutions to these problems, Srinivassan’s elaboration of diverse prongs of each of them is truly captivating and eloquent. For most part, she merely poses the questions and invites the readers to weigh opposing values for themselves, what culminates in the titled problem: is there really such thing as the right to sex?
- J.M. Coetzee, The Pole, Penguin 2023
Already reviewed in RevDem, Coetzee’s novella recounts a history of an impossible understanding between the two people. Though it is a love story, the prominent place in the novella is occupied by the expectations arising from ascribed nationality and the unbearable confusion created when one does not conform with these expectations. The main protagonist, Witold Walczykiewicz (Coetzee’s alter-ego), is a Polish pianist who plays no one else than Chopin — but he does that with a modern twist, which turns foreign listeners away from him. This is not what is expected from a Pole, born during the war and raised behind the Wall. A read for all those not feeling abroad (yet) at home.
