Title: Mom, I and Mom
The title in the original: Mom & me & mom
Authors: Maya Angelou
Translated by: Jerina Dushku
Genre: Autobiographical Roman
Release date: June, 2019
Number of Pages: 178
Price: 800 Lek
Lotus Collection
Book with one sentence
That kind of cure and healing that gives you the strength and the courage to be raised from the depths of impenitent to impossible heights.
General information about the book
In this autobiographical book, the author recounts the most meaningful relationship of her life: that of her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the hardships and joys of Vivian Baxter's daughter, an implacable soul in a small body. The body of Imcak, which masks the mother's inclusive, but absent presence during the childhood of the writer. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian Baxter sent two children (the big boy and three-year-old Maya) to her mother-in-law, Arkansas. The feeling of abandonment, the consequence of this painful separation, would accompany him during Angelou. Ten years later, their union would mark the starting point of a previously unannounced story.
If it was not enough for that first trauma, her life would be characterized by such an oscillation, as few would have been able to survive, and even rarer those who would find success and fame international.
In this latest confession, published just one year before his death, Angelou presents us one of the most vivid, rewarding, and complicated relationships of her life. "Mom, I and Mom" reveals complete healing, based on love, time and energy, but ultimately gave the author the strength and the courage to rise from unimaginable depths to the impossible heights.
Critics
Mom, I and Mom appear with the peculiar humor and the proud optimism of author Maya Angelou. If you notice any anger among the rows, all the bitter details remain, it is because Angelou knows how to forgive. This appealing book best describes the story of a human reconciliation.
The Washington Post
Recalling this intricate relationship, the author sets out for the first time the mother-daughter journey towards reconciliation, strong attachment and help ... Angelou portrays vividly a strong-hearted woman. A wonderful and profoundly chronicle of compassion and renewal.
Booklist
The love and teachings presented in this novel will tell those who are trying to find their way into the world.
Publishers Weekly
Mom, I and Mom are the touching story of a division and a union, as well as the optimistic portrait of motherhood. Despite the traumas reported here, the mother's love for the daughter could be summed up in a row: "Soul, I've been thinking long and now I'm sure. You are the most wonderful woman I've ever known in my life. "
The Independent
Touching ... an extraordinary portrait of two courageous souls. - People
The last, and most powerful, work of its autobiography series ... a stubborn and meek work that adds to Angelou's impressive creativity.
Elle
Hypnotizing ... Angelou still has the ability to astonish me with her approach to words, and when she finds her mother as a subject, she has found it almost perfect, a mysterious woman.
Essence
As always, [Angelou's] writing touches directly where it hurts, compressed and simple, and in the background there is a fake, screeching, and lyrical burst between moments of wickedness ... A memoir of life with his mother, well-dressed, with a melody of his own.
Kirkus Reviews
With a direct style, "Mom, I and Mom" deepens in the intricate author's relationship with her mother ... At 84, Angelou does not seem to slow down the pace.
BookPage
Title: I have a lot to say
The title in the original: Op de hoogte
Authors: Christophe Van Gerreëey
Translated by: Irena Rama
Genres: Roman
Number of Pages: 140
Date of publication: May, 2019
Price: 600 Lek
Book with one sentence
The infinite but desperate monologue of a man who has lost love, but still wants to talk to his ex-girlfriend, so chooses to write a letter that I know from the beginning that it will end in the novel , to read all the people.
General information
A young boy, immersed in the inability of unavoidable circumstances, begins writing a former girlfriend's letter. His initial goal is to tell her how many things have changed since their separation. As he writes, he begins to realize that that letter will never send it, and even begins to fancy he might have to publish it. On the other hand, the sender and recipient of the letter get the life and break away from the author.
The recipient turns into a second narrator, breathing another story, a second variant, a new interpretation of their history. This act initially "revengeful" turns into a dialogue that sketches the difficulties of modern love stories.
The novel seems to explore our worldview on love through a seemingly simple love story, unfolding it slowly and highlighting the fundamental contradictions of the loving ideal.
This novel departs from the usual norms of style or formal structure and presents a depth of thought that drives the reader to identify with the confessor as being a coauthor.
"I have a lot to say" won the Debutant Award in 2014, in Belgium, as well as among the finals of some Belgian literary prizes. In 2016, he won the European Literature Prize.
Critics
Love does not lack a topic in literary works, but few who have managed to write about it in a way as smart as the Flemish youngster, Christophe Van Gerreey ... He seems capable of bringing stones to life.
Volkskrant
This master of style exchanges, unnoticed, lyrical statements of love and hatred with social and literary criticism.
NRC Handelsblad
An attractive and compelling debut work.
But Standaard
author
Christophe Van Gerrewey (1982) studied architecture at the University of Ghent and literature science at the Catholic University of Leuven. It is considered one of the most promising Belgian writers. In 2012, his first novel "I have a lot to say" was published, a novel in the form of a letter for lost love. In 2013, but for this novel, he received the 2014 Debut Debuts Award, the literary prize for the East Flanders. In the following years, he has also published other novels such as Train with delay (2015) and "Werk Werk Werk" (2017). He has published various articles on architecture and literature in important Belgian and European magazines.
In 2016, he won the European Literature Prize for the novel "I have a lot to say". Since 2015, he is a professor of architecture theory at EPEL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Fragments from the book
1) It is difficult to imagine how boring the marriage may be and how futile the attempts to keep a hopeless marriage. It is hard to imagine how pathetic people become when it comes to love, how they complain and evade some truths, how they stumble across the globe and, overwhelmed by pity for themselves, catch up with the emotions they have experienced in the past .
2) I have to keep you in this first sentence as a handkerchief assembled and then, as the clown does, I'll pull you out like a bouquet. This should start with a letter: with the most specific qualities, expressed in a single surname (preferably preceded by an adverb), followed by the name of the addressee, not necessarily known by everyone but which is often a variant , which shows the relationship between the sender and the recipient. In this case, such an introduction is impossible, for many reasons. However, this is not a letter, so I'm not obliged to address you and confess to you - to confess to us and what happened between us. This is a kind of text, in which other rules apply.
3) I've only done wrong choices, and it's too late to do something different, as old as I am, I find it unimaginable that I have only two choices; or I do volunteer work, which I like to some extent, but definitely not forever, and in addition I get social assistance, or do a job that does not need to put the brain in motion and fall into depression. I know I should not bust you, sorry, I do not even know if I have to tell you these things, it does not do well to our connection, not even to the impression you may have created for me, but you know me, it's late, I know, I see from the way you look at me, for sure you think: what will happen to you, what a lover I have - do not see me that way!
