Henrietta Rose-Innes's Blog, page 9

Nineveh’s “shrewd narrative tease”

The Irish Independent has published a thoughtful review of Nineveh, calling it “a kind of haunted-house novel that doubles as a state-of-the-nation narrative but without losing the laser-like focus of an intimate psychological thriller”.

Nineveh packs a punch beyond its immediate context of post-apartheid South Africa … a shrewd narrative tease that invites you above all to think. Try pinning it down; it scuttles away.

 

“A garden haunted by matter-out-of-place”

Aaron Bady has written a very thoughtful, unsettled and unsettling analysis of Nineveh on the New Inquiry blog:

The prose seethes and shimmers with the uncanny and unsettled, a garden haunted by matter-out-of-place … Even though it isn’t, this novel feels like science fiction; it itches like the dystopian, the speculative, and the post-apocalyptic, even as it’s realistically set in the present.

Read the full review here.

Alienation & satire converge in Nineveh

“Urban alienation and contemporary satire converge in this haunting novel.”

Very happy to see Nineveh included in this round-up of good reads for December from Vol. 1 Brooklyn, a website that “engages and connects the literary-minded from Brooklyn and beyond”!

 

 

Nineveh is “urban fantasy classic”

Jared Shurin – of Pornokitsch, and until recently publisher at Jurassic London – has long been an enthusiastic supporter of Nineveh. Read his new review, written to mark the UK and US editions :

A contemporary urban fantasy classic … creepy, crawly and a little bit chilling …Nineveh works excellently as a metaphor for gentrification and class structure, but, for me, the real strength was in Katya’s own journey – an exploration of empathy and the tenuous impossibility of finding balance. Katya tries to travel between two worlds; she’s a good soldier and a loyal daughter, but also attempting to adhere to a greater moral code. The resulting novel is a haunting mystery and a perceptive character study; an unsettling and gorgeous tale of what lies beneath.

 

“Full of wit, thoughtfulness & lush descriptions”

Emerald Street has published a lovely short review of Nineveh:

“In a part of the forest she doesn’t often visit…”- Nineveh extract

Literary Hub (lithub.com) has published an extract from Nineveh  on their website. Read for free!

It’s strange, what disgusts people. Who would scorn the friendship of gecko, for example: golden-eyed, translucent-skinned, toes splayed on a farmhouse wall? Who could resent a long-legged spider, knitting its silver in the corner of a room? But they do: people will pay to have them killed, poisoned, destroyed.

“One of the coolest novels I’ve read in years”

In the wake of the US launch of Nineveh, Electric Literature has run a interview with me, with this lovely intro:

Nineveh is one of the coolest novels I’ve read in years. I don’t know how else to say it. The ancient ruin of the title is a luxury housing project outside Cape Town that’s never been lived in because it’s plagued by mysterious and beautiful beetles — tell me that’s not cool. Tell me you don’t think it’s cool that the protagonist of this novel is a young female exterminator, or that every scene in the book is as simultaneously clear and confused as a dream. Tell me you aren’t excited that this book is available in the U.S. now. I dare you.

Read the whole interview here.

DC: reading with Fabienne Josaphat

I’m very happy to be be appearing at Kramerbooks in Washington DC tomorrow night, 16th Nov, alongside my fellow author Fabienne Josaphat. We’ll be reading from our novels, Nineveh and The Baron’s Shadow, and chatting about our work. Join us if you’re in the neighbourhood. Facebook invitation here.

Fabienne Josaphat’s electric prose in The Baron’s Shadow brings to life a horrifying and not so distant time in Haiti’s past while exploring the best and worst of humanity …

In Nineveh Katya Grubbs is Cape Town’s only ethical pest removal specialist. She expertly wrangles every manner of wild critter, creature or beast with the help of her unwitting nephew, Toby…

Nineveh in the Guardian: “surprisingly gripping”

In a short review for The Guardian, Emily Rhodes calls Nineveh “surprisingly griping”:

Its strength lies in Rose-Innes’s preoccupation with the “shifting, restless … discontented city” of Cape Town, “convulsing in a frenzy of urban ants-in-the-pants” … as the wealthy emphatically assert boundaries the author shows to be futile. Her pests are persistent and ultimately powerful – an effective metaphor to argue for a more permeable, equal city.

Nineveh is out this week from Gallic Books / Aardvark Bureau.

Nineveh: a “best new book to read in November”

The Chicago Review of Books has named Nineveh, out now in the States from Unnamed Press, one of their “ten best new books to read this November”. Read the whole list here: exciting titles, including new books by Anne Rice and Zadie Smith.