Queen of Flowers and Pearls (ebook)

Argumento de Queen of Flowers and Pearls (ebook)

"Gabriella Ghermandi is part of an increasingly larger group of so-called Italian 'migrant writers' coming from Africa, Asia, and Latin America who, since the early 1990s, have contributed to Italian culture and language... though their input has not been without contention within Italian academia and its canons." ?Clarissa Cló

Gabriella Ghermandi was born in Addis Ababa and lives in Bologna, Italy. She writes and acts in narrative plays that she produces in Italy and Switzerland. She also conducts creative writing workshops for schools. This is her first novel.

Giovanna Bellesia-Contuzzi is Professor of Italian Language and Literature at Smith College. She is translator, with Victoria Offredi Poletto of Little Mother (IUP, 2011).

Victoria Offredi Poletto is Senior Lecturer in Italian Emerita at Smith College.

"[A] heart-wrenchingly beautiful novel." ?Perspectives on History

"Queen of Flowers and Pearls is a wonderful, absorbing new novel that is part of IU Press' Global African Voices... [R]eaders can be assured that Mahlet will finally discover herself and her place in the world in the course of some gratifyingly suspenseful chapters." ?

"Ghermandi's patient, rhapsodic compilation reflects Mahlet's own struggle with her identity as an Ethiopian and, when she relocates to Italy for her education, as a foreigner... This singular coming-of-age story defined by political upheaval and ancestral secrets introduces a sensitive, perceptive storyteller on the brink of womanhood." ?Kirkus Reviews

"Gabriella Ghermandi is one of the authors most invested in exploring the postcolonial dimension of contemporary Italian multiculturalism, and she is to my knowledge the only one who has taken on Italy's occupation of Ethiopia as the subject of fiction." ?Allison Van Deventer, Harvard University, Bloom Magazine0Foreword
Translators? Note
List of Amharic Words and Expressions

The Promise
Chapter One
Yacob?s Story
Chapter Two
The Passage
Adolescence
The Advice
The Flower of the Month
The Saturday Market!
The Consent
The First Day of Work
At Legesse?s Shop
The West
Announcement! Announcement!
Arada Sefer
The Move
The First Celebration of Timket in the Capital
The Chaos before the Calm
Return to Debre Zeit
The Departure

The Return
Chapter Three
The Story of the Stupid Lion and the Monkey
Chapter Four
The Story of Abbaba Igira Salo
Chapter Five
Farisa Alula, the Great
Chapter Six
The Turtle Lady?s Story
Kebedech Seyoum
Chapter Seven
The Story of Woizero Bekelech and Signor Antonio
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine

Notes