Category Archives: World Issues

My Neighbour Osama Bin Laden – Yslar Tatuky

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned What happens when one puts Osama bin Laden and Salman Rushdie at the same dinner table? Yslar Tatuky is such a person as he has grand, though idealistic, hopes for humanity in his novel, My … Continue reading

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Torn from the World: A Guerrilla’s Escape from a Secret Prison in Mexico – John Gibler

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “This word: disappeared. They have so many ways of erasing you, “of trying to make you doubt the truth of your own life.” After five days, after every two hours, after only having felt a world … Continue reading

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House of Beauty- Melba Escobar (Author), Elizabeth Bryer (Translator)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “I also hate the ladies of Bogotá among whom I count myself, though I do all I can to stand apart. I hate their habit of using the term “Indians” to refer to people they consider … Continue reading

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A Rebel in Gaza: Behind the Lines of the Arab Spring, One Woman’s Story – Asmaa al-Ghoul (Author), Selim Nassib (Author), Mike Mitchell (Translator)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “I think the real occupying forces are the internal ones, Hamas, Fatah, the parties…then comes the major occupation: Israel. We can’t get rid of the latter without first of all getting rid of the former. To … Continue reading

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Poso Wells- Gabriela Alemán (Translated from the Spanish by Dick Cluster)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “Something crouches in the streets of Poso Wells, and it attaches the nerves like a persistent drumbeat. Whatever it is haunts the dreams of the residents, panting I their faces, slobbering them with noxious saliva and … Continue reading

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Absinthe: A Thriller – Guido Eekhaut

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “His methods are unconventional at best and border on illegal at times. And his opinion of women, well, I won’t go into that topic.” This is what AIVD Chief inspector Alexandra Dewaal has to deal with … Continue reading

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Verklempt – Peter Sichrovsky (Author), Ari Roth (Foreword), John Howard (Translator)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “Thomas remained a man without a past, without memories, without old photographs and without stories from earlier years.” He is just one of the many Jews who chose to live in a land where their parents … Continue reading

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Stone Baby: Stories – Michelle Sacks

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “… the rest of the continent kept pouring in, sure of nothing but the fact that this pitiful life, this half-life with no jobs, no home, no money, would still be better than before, better than … Continue reading

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Illegal: a true story of love, revolution and crossing borders – John Dennehy

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “For the first time in my life I know exactly where I want to be. I have found my home in the shadow of an Andean volcano in Ecuador. I’m about to move in with the … Continue reading

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A Short Border Handbook: A Journey Through the Immigrant’s Labyrinth – Gazmend Kapllani (Author), Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife (Translator)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “…I may have arrived without an invitation but I work just like the rest of you do, I pay the same taxes as the rest of you do, and most importantly my boss, or rather, my … Continue reading

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