Paul Bruijn Ordre des livres (chronologique)

De familie Avoka probeert weer op te krabbelen na zeventien jaar onder het juk van een militaire dictator geleefd te hebben. Vader Theo schrijft – niet zonder gevaar – de memoires van de oud-dictator, die hij zowel veracht als bewondert. Moeder Zahra voelt zich geïsoleerd en begint een relatie met een oude liefde. Hun zoon Kojo komt erachter dat het leven op een internaat niet zo geweldig is als hij had verwacht. Iedereen probeert zich staande te houden, maar langzaam verliezen ze de grip op hun leven. Lukt het hun om zichzelf en elkaar niet kwijt te raken?

De ziekte en het overlijden van de moeder van de schrijfster op 55-jarige leeftijd leiden bij haar tot talrijke gedachten over de dood.

The must-read novel of the summer.' GuardianLonglisted for the Man Booker Prize, THE SLAP is the most talked-about novel of 2010, and looks set to be the most read book of 2011.'Honestly, one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium.' John Boyne

Winner of the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas. One of the Ten Best Books of the Year - The New York Times Book Review 'Vivid, graphic and poignant' Washington Post 'Powerful and moving . . . An impressive success' New York Times Book Review '[A] jazzy, sinewy debut . . . Thomas's urgent, quicksilver prose makes even the darkest moments of this novel shine' O' the Oprah Magazine On the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday, the unnamed black narrator of Man Gone Down finds himself broke, estranged from his white wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend's six-year-old child. He has four days to come up with the money to keep his kids in school and make a down payment on an apartment for them to live in. As we slip between his childhood in inner city Boston and present-day New York City, we discover a life marked by abuse, abandonment, raging alcoholism, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is a story of the American Dream gone awry, about what it's like to feel preprogrammed to fail in life and the urge to escape that sentence.

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends time. The narrator, a contemporary cynic, is physically beautiful and adept in a morally vacant modern world. After a crash caused by a distraction, he suffers severe burns and recovers in a burn ward, where he plans his suicide, feeling monstrous in both appearance and soul. A compelling yet unhinged sculptress, Marianne Engel, claims they were once lovers in medieval Germany. She recounts their past: he was a wounded mercenary, and she, a nun and scribe at Engelthal monastery, nursed him back to health. As she shares their tale and mesmerizing stories of eternal love from Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he begins to reconnect with life and ultimately falls in love. Released into Marianne's care, he moves into her grand stone house, but challenges arise. The weight of his past sins intensifies as his morphine addiction grows. Additionally, Marianne receives a divine message that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to create before her time on earth ends.