Aaron is one of our brand-new booksellers in Oakland, and he has a thing or two -- many more than that, even -- about international literature. When he's not at the store, you might find him in conversation with the likes of Jennifer Makumbi or Carmen Boullosa, or writing insightful commentary and reviews for OkayAfrica on books like Hisham Matar's The Return.
"Indeed, his novels are so close to his own life that at one point in The Return—as the two are boarding a plane to Libya—his mother asks a “mischievous question,” as he calls it: “Who’s returning? Suleiman el-Dewani or Nuri el-Alfi?” These are the names of the protagonists of his two novels, fictional versions of Matar himself that—in his mother’s very serious joke—were suddenly brought to life. After a life spent dreaming about return, and in his fiction, trying to imagine the truth of his lost father, The Return is Hisham Matar coming face to face with reality—or trying to—but finding it to be as ambiguous and depthless as any novel, an ocean without a floor."
Mondays are one of Brad's days off, but that won't stop him from bookselling! Today's installment of "A Bookseller at Home" features Joy Williams' short story collection, Ninety-Nine Stories of God.
An added bonus this week: Joy Williams herself will be reading at the store in Oakland on Tuesday, July 19th at 7pm! Suffice it to say, I think, we're pretty excited!
Brad's a "Bookseller At Home" again! In this installment he's talking about Claire-Louise Bennett's debut novel, Pond. He's been dying to talk to people about this one!
These entries in Claudia Rankine's National Book Award-winning collection, Citizen: An American Lyric, used to be blank. But now we know the names, along with so many others, and we must say them.
We must figure out ways (because there will be many) not simply to say -- but demand -- that black lives matter.
