House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-torn Zimbabwe (Christina Lamb)

Although a lot of books written about Zimbabwe may end up repeating the same story, Christina Lamb tells her story differently. In the past books would be about the black man and how much pain the white community had inflicted on them, then the white community started being under attack and the same stories were told but with the black community being the enemy. Today all Zimbabweans, black and white are victims of the power hungry government. Christina Lamb tells the story of Aqui (a black Zimbabwean) and of Nigel (a white Zimbabwean). In House of Stone you are presented with two sides of the same story.

If you don’t know much about Zimbabwe, this is a great place to start.

                                      

Watch a film about it:

Of Love and Other Demons (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

On 26 October 1949 Gabriel Garcia Marquez is sent, by his newspaper to Santa Clara Convent, where several tombs were being emptied to try to get a story. Out of one of the tombs came this massive copper coloured hair measuring twenty two meters and belonging to a young girl. The tombstone simply read a name Sierva María de Todos los Angeles, no surname, no clue as to whom she may have been. This reminded the writer of a story he heard as a child, told by his grandmother, of a young Marquise aged twelve who had been bitten by a dog and performed miracles. And that is the story of this book.

Sierva María was the daughter of a decadent Marquis and his non-noble second wife. The girl is raised by the slaves much like one, with hardly any supervision from either of her parents. One day she is bitten by a dog and fear that she may have caught rabies arise, changing the attitude of her father towards her.

Seeing as no doctor can possibly help her, her father asks the Church for help. In their opinion she doesn’t have rabies, but is possessed… and from there starts an impossible love story.