"What [Nylon Road] really reveals is how little the two cultures really know about each other, let alone being able to understand and sympathize with each other.  It’s an eye-opening book, particularly in the treatment of women in Iran . . . But while portraying these events from her past, Bashi also speaks up about ways in which Europeans or Americans are insensitive or unfair . . . The book is worth reading, if for no other reason than that there’s very little like this, and it takes guts to describe a difficult life with such honesty and candor. If everyone had access to more books like Nylon Road, then perhaps we would have an easier time taking somebody else’s perspective into account."—Jonathan Liu, Wired

"Former journalist Busfield first traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 to cover the fall of the Taliban. Her first novel presents the aftermath of that event through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy . . . Readers who like to explore other cultures and current events through fiction will find here an intriguing picture of contemporary Afghanistan. Extras for book clubs are appended."—Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community College, Library Journal

"Some memories are like the rubble in a city strafed and scarred by war. Reconnoitering into the past, we pick through the debris, eager to know old truths but fearful of what we may find. Some people choose psychoanalysis to make this treacherous journey . . . Ari Folman did it with Waltz with Bashir . . . The message of the futility of war has rarely been painted with such bold strokes."—Mary Corliss, Time magazine

"Petina Gappah's stories range from scathing satire of Zimbabwe's ruling elite to earthy comedy to sensitive accounts of the sufferings of humble victims of the regime. Gappah is a fine writer and a rising star of Zimbabwean literature."—J. M. Coetzee

"[This] newest collection of stories, Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black, finds Gordimer poking at embers of the fire that has fueled her work since the very beginning, more than half a century ago: politics, both racial and sexual; our responsibilities to unknown (and perhaps unknowable) others; and, especially, the dangers of delving into history without adequate preparation . . . Nadine Gordimer is more interesting, and provocative, than most."—The Washington Post

"[A] sterling collection of short stories, 38 in all, by the South African novelist. Gordimer has been writing for more than 60 years now, but her concerns have been constant: race, justice, the South African land. In a typical story, the landscape is austere, tough and unforgiving, just the sort of thing to bring out the best in a few hardy people, but calculated to wear down the spirits of most others . . . Some of the stories clearly date to the early days of resistance to apartheid, politically charged and with passing references to the first stirrings of the African National Congress; others take place in the thick of the battle for justice, amid 'beer-serious conversations about the possibility of the end of the world.' Four of the stories are new, an added pleasure for admirers of Gordimer's work. A welcome collection by a master of English prose—lucid and precisely written, if often bringing news only of disappointment, fear and loss."—Kirkus Reviews