Rwanda's Medical Success & Parkin's Baking Cakes in Kigali

The other week I was thrilled to read some news about Rwanda that wasn't about the genocide. Apparently, the country is making great strides in medical treatment.

Here's the February New York Times article "Rwanda’s Health Care Success Story:"

In the less than two decades since the 1994 genocide that killed nearly a million Rwandans and displaced another two million, the country has become a spectacular public health success story and could provide a model for the rest of Africa, according to a new analysis by American health experts. 

In an article published last month by the British journal BMJ, Dr. Paul E. Farmer, a founder of Partners in Health, which delivers medical services in Rwanda and Haiti, totaled up the successes the tiny country has managed. In 1994, 78 percent of the population lived below the poverty line; now 45 percent do. The gross domestic product has more than trebled. Almost 99 percent of primary-school-age children go to school. With help from Western donors, the number of people getting treatment for AIDS rose to 108,000 from near zero a decade earlier.

There's also been good news regarding Rwandan women. Here's the March 15th Guardian article "Rwanda's first female pilot takes to the skies at 24:"

Esther Mbabazi was eight years old when her father was killed in a crash as the plane he was flying in overshot the runway landing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So when, a few years later she announced her intention to train as a pilot, the plan was not well received by some of her family. 

But at the age of 24, Mbabazi has made history as the first female Rwandan pilot – although as a woman she says she doesn't make flight announcements because it scares the passengers... 

Mbabazi, who is fluent in five languages, trained at the Soroti flight school in Uganda before being sponsored to continue her training in Florida by national carrier Rwandair. She now flies the company's CRJ-900 regional jets across Africa.

For a novel set in 21st century Rwanda, try Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin:

Set in an international apartment complex in Rwanda, Parkin's appealing but overstuffed debut throws together university professors, U.N. employees and CIA agents among a panoply of traditions and cultures. Heroine Angel Tungararza has moved from Tanzania with her husband, Pius, who's taken a job at the local university; before long, she develops a reputation as a masterful baker and a sagacious friend. Though haunted by the deaths of her grown daughter and son, Angel plunges back into motherhood, caring for her five grandchildren, tending to Pius, baking cakes and dispensing advice. Meanwhile, the sour undercurrents of AIDS and genocide play quiet but instrumental parts in shaping Angel's world.

Honor Killings & Shafak's Honor

From yesterday's BBC article "Kashmir couple arrested over gruesome 'honour killing:'"

Police in Pakistan-administered Kashmir say they have arrested a couple on charges of murdering their own daughter in the name of honour. The couple admitted to killing the unmarried 18-year-old when they found out she was pregnant, police said. Villagers found the girl's chopped-up body parts in a river, and were able to identify her by the disembodied head. 

Such killings were once rare in Kashmir, but police say they are now happening much more frequently. This is the third reported "honour killing" in the region in five months. 

In October last year in the same Kotli district, police arrested a mother and father on suspicion of murdering their 15-year-old daughter by dousing her with acid in the name of "honour". The couple later told the BBC, while in police custody, that they had killed their daughter for looking at a boy...  

Honour killings are also on the rise across Pakistan, says the country's Human Rights Commission. In 2011 - the last year for which statistics are available - 943 women were killed, an increase of more than 100 on 2010.

For a novel on honor killings, try Elif Shafak's Honor. Here's the review from the Independent:

The first chapter of this novel begins with a daughter in mourning, and develops into an intricate story of an honour killing. We follow three generations of Turkish-Kurds as Shafak weaves her narrative twists, and combines times, places and linguistic inflections with extraordinary dexterity, from 1950s working-class Istanbul to 1970s Hackney and then Shrewsbury prison, 20 years later. This is a powerful tale of cross-cultural lives, motherhood, male violence and cycles of rage and revenge.

Modeling & Porizkova's A Model Summer

There's a fierce debate afoot in the comments section of the Guardian article "Has the Esquire editor escaped from a Benny Hill sketch?:"

According to Bilmes, Esquire uses pictures of women in his magazine "in the same way we provide pictures of cool cars". "The women that we feature in the magazine are ornamental," he said while speaking on a panel about feminism in the media and advertising. "I could lie to you and say we are interested in their brains as well. We are not. They are objectified."...  Lovely as Bilmes sounds, I can't help wondering whether or not he may also be in possession of a time-travelling automobile, as he is clearly stumbling around the wrong century. Isn't there a Benny Hill sketch somewhere, missing a ruddy-faced pervert?

The most popular comment arguing that it is okay to objectify women in a magazine is one by StVitusGerulaitis:

They [Esquire] are mainly using models as ornaments. That's what models are for. They know that when they take the job and are well paid. Same for male models. There's nothing wrong with appreciating the aesthetic value of other people. We are beautiful animals on the whole.

Regardless of where you stand on that debate, I have a novel for you about modeling, which might give us more perspective into the whole issue. Although the writing is so-so, the upside is that it was written by a former supermodel, so the author knows what she's talking about. The book is A Model Summer by Paulina Porizkova:

An incisive, beautifully written first novel by a former supermodel that explores the glamorous and gritty world she inhabitedOnly a handful of women in the world have experienced what Paulina Porizkova has -- being whisked away to model in Paris while still a teenager, reaching the pinnacle of the profession before her schoolmates had even graduated -- and fewer still have the insight to capture it on paper. In her first novel, Paulina tells the story of Jirina. A tall, scrawny fifteen-year-old girl from Sweden, she's much more accustomed to taunts and disdain than admiration and affection, whether from her classmates or her own family. That all changes when her only friend, Hatty, asks to practice her makeup and photography skills on Jirina. Almost before she knows it Jirina is on a plane to Paris, where she will spend the summer in a milieu entirely alien to her. Living at the home of her modeling agency's owner and constantly subjected to blunt physical assessments, catty and often cruel fellow models, and womanizing photographers...Jirina embarks on a journey beyond her wildest imaginings.

UPDATE:  for a longer review of the novel, please check out the I Read Too Much blog.

Bolshoi Ballet & McCann's Dancer

From yesterday's BBC article "Bolshoi ballet was 'giant brothel' claims former dancer:"

The Bolshoi Ballet has been mired in further controversy after a former soloist claimed female dancers were forced to sleep with wealthy patrons. Anastasia Volochkova accused the theatre's general director of turning the company "into a giant brothel". Outspoken Volochkova, who has dabbled in TV talent and talk shows, was fired from the Bolshoi in 2003 for being too heavy... "It mainly happened with the corps du ballet but also with the soloists," she said. "Ten years ago, when I was dancing at the theatre, I repeatedly received such propositions to share the beds of oligarchs. "The girls were forced to go along to grand dinners and given advance warning that afterwards they would be expected to go to bed and have sex," she alleged. "When the girls asked: 'What happens if we refuse?', they were told that they would not go on tour or even perform at the Bolshoi theatre. Can you imagine?" It is the latest in a series of controversial events surrounding the world famous Russian theatre, which has become notorious for infighting and rivalry. One of its top dancers, Pavel Dmitrichenko, is facing trial for allegedly ordering an acid attack on the ballet's artistic director Sergei Filin in January.

For a novel about the Russian ballet in relatively modern times (late 20th century), try Dancer by Colum McCann:

Dancer is the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev as told through the cast of those who knew him: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his provincial town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan street hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.

UPDATE:  there are well-written reviews of Dancer over at Bite the Book, The Book Chick, and Seeing the World Through Books.

Sexual Harassment at Work & Crichton's Disclosure

From yesterday's Washington Post article "Judge sets aside $3.5 million civil verdict in sexual harassment case:"

A federal judge has set aside a $3.5 million jury award to a former public pool lifeguard in the District who alleged she was sexually harassed by a supervisor and then fired in retaliation for complaining about the conduct. Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who presided over the trial last summer, wrote this week that the conduct alleged is “no doubt disgusting and extremely troubling, and the jury had good reason to be disturbed by the facts.” But he agreed with the District’s Attorney General that the jury’s award to the former Takoma Aquatic Center lifeguard was “so great as to shock the conscience” and “inordinately large.” Lamberth gave Carmen Jean-Baptiste 21 days to accept a smaller $350,000 award or chose a new trial on the issue of damages... At trial, Jean-Baptiste alleged that her supervisor, Rodney Weaver, spoke to her in sexually crude language, propositioned her and ogled her while she stood before him in her bathing suit, according to court documents. The District failed to respond to her complaints even after she spoke with six supervisors at various levels, she testified. Soon after filing a written complaint in October 2006, Jean-Baptiste was fired.

I imagine that there are probably a lot more instances of sexual harassment in the workplace, but we don't hear about it in the news because (a) it goes unreported or (b) if it is reported, it's handled in-house or quietly settled in order to avoid bad press.

For a novel about workplace sexual harassment, try Michael Crichton's Disclosure. My own disclosure to you is that it is becoming increasingly clear that Crichton, whose writing style I really admire (see last month's post on Airframe/airline glitches and Sunday's post on State of Fear/global warming), is a sexist.

When I first read Disclosure -- which, in addition to sexual harassment, also focuses on affirmative action policies -- it seemed like Crichton used the book as a means of exploring and debating affirmative action and that both sides get, more or less, a fair shake. But now that I'm re-reading the book, it's increasingly clear that while some characters do speak on behalf of the "women should hold more positions of power" perspective, those characters are usually despicable. Crichton's not as bad as Ayn Rand -- with her comic-book-worthy demi-god mouthpiece protagonists and her sniveling side characters that put forth straw-man arguments for all things Rand disagrees with -- but upon re-reading Disclosure seems sexist.  For example, the two main male characters which argue in favor of appointing a woman to the second-highest position in the company are the deranged boss and the two-faced lawyer.  Our near-flawless protagonist, the hard-working Tom Sanders, just wants positions to be decided by merit.  And of course, the woman in the novel who has been appointed to the company's second-highest position is not only less qualified than poor ol' Tom Sanders, but is also CRAZY.  Crichton writes well enough that you don't initially notice how contrived the whole scenario is.

Anyway: rant over! Here's the description of Disclosure (which, despite its flaws, is worth reading):

Beautiful, bright, and talented Meredith Johnson arrives at Digital Communications Technology company to become the head of a division, a position that Tom Sanders thought was going to be his. Meredith, his former lover, invites him to her office after hours and attempts to seduce him. When he rejects her, she accuses him of sexual harassment. Tom hires Louise Fernandez to defend him and reverses the accusation to name Meredith as the aggressor. To this plot, Crichton adds computer-industry sabotage, corporate mergers, video-linkups, stock options, CD-ROM jargon, and even a trip on a virtual-reality simulator to help Tom save his reputation and career.

As a final note, I find Demi Moore and Michael Douglas' exaggerated expressions on the book cover kind of hilarious.

UPDATE:  here's a longer review of Disclosure over at the Book in the Bag blog.

Women's Boxing & Toole's Million Dollar Baby

We've been a little light on sports news/books here at Newsworthy Novels:  we had our Iditarod post earlier this month and then our Rwandan track star post in February.  That's about it.  But thankfully, a couple of weeks ago the Guardian ran a story about female boxers in Afghanistan and the UK, giving us the perfect excuse for another sports read.

Here are some of the article highlights:

Sadaf Rahimi, Fahima Mohammad and Shabnam Rahman have overcome a host of cultural and financial barriers to pursue their sport in Kabul... Rahimi, Mohammad and Rahman are due to train and attend a charity auction in London to raise money for their gym in Kabul, then travel to Bristol to be coached by Britain's first officially licensed female boxer, Jane Couch MBE. Couch is no stranger to struggles with authorities – in 1998 she persuaded an industrial tribunal to overturn a British Boxing Board of Control ruling that had denied her a licence. The BBBC had argued that premenstrual syndrome made women too unstable to box. After years of lobbying from British women fighters, women's boxing was officially recognised as an Olympic sport on 14 August 2009. At London 2012 there were women boxers from Kazakhstan, North Korea and Turkey, while British boxer Nicola Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold.

What's a great book about boxers? Try the heartbreaking novella Million Dollar Baby by the late boxing manager F. X. Toole:

A boxing cut man uses swabs, pressure, ice, and home-mixed salve to stop his fighter's bleeding between rounds. Toole, 70, whose experience as a cut man inspired this hard-boiled debut...writes with blunt authority about this world. His strongest tales feature old trainers or cut men like himself, wisely noble holdovers from boxing's Hibernian age...  His coldly plotted novella "Million $$$ Baby" begins like the most familiar old pulp story of the grumpy veteran trainer and the eager would-be student; then Toole freshens the clich by making the boxer an innocent young woman from the Ozarks.

Nuns & Salzman's Lying Awake

The slew of Pope-posts continues!  (See papal election, Pope and Dirty War, Pope and environmentalism.)

From Saturday's BBC article "Pope Francis wants 'poor Church for the poor':"

Pope Francis has said he wants "a poor Church, for the poor" following his election as head of the world's 1.2bn Catholics on Wednesday. He said he chose the name Francis after 12-13th Century St Francis of Assisi, who represented "poverty and peace". He urged journalists to get to know the Church with its "virtues and sins" and to share its focus on "truth, goodness and beauty". Pope Francis takes over from Benedict XVI, who abdicated last month.

What a change from Pope Benedict! In case you've forgotten, about a year ago Benedict slammed nuns for focusing too much on the poor. Here's the New York Times article on that incident, "Vatican Reprimands a Group of U.S. Nuns and Plans Changes:"

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”...“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

So what is a nun's life like?  Here are three novels on the subject:

Lying Awake by Mark Salzman:

Mark Salzman's Lying Awake is a finely wrought gem that plumbs the depths of one woman's soul, and in so doing raises salient questions about the power-and price-of faith. Sister John's cloistered life of peace and prayer has been electrified by ever more frequent visions of God's radiance, leading her toward a deep religious ecstasy. Her life and writings have become examples of devotion. Yet her visions are accompanied by shattering headaches that compel Sister John to seek medical help. When her doctor tells her an illness may be responsible for her gift, Sister John faces a wrenching choice: to risk her intimate glimpses of the divine in favor of a cure, or to continue her visions with the knowledge that they might be false-and might even cost her her life.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden:

This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community. In this gripping narrative of the crises surrounding the ancient Brede abbey, Rumer Godden penetrates to the mysterious, inner heart of a religious community—a place of complexity and conflict, as well as joy and love.

The Nun's Story by Kathryn Hulme (warning: the novel was written in the 1950s and contains racist depictions of the Congolese):

The lead character of the book, Sister Luke (pre-convent name Gabrielle Van Der Mal), finds her faith tested in Africa where she finds herself at odds with headstrong Dr. Fortunati, operator of a remote Congo hospital, with whom she gradually builds respect, and again during World War II, when she is ordered not to take sides. Ultimately, Sister Luke is forced to decide whether to remain in the convent or return to the outside world. Gabrielle/Sister Luke is stretched between her desire to be faithful to the rule of her congregation and her desire to be a nurse. As a nun she must remove all vestiges of "Gabrielle Van Der Mal" and sublimate herself into the devoted bride of Christ. As a nun there is no room for her personal desires and aspirations. Ultimately, the conflict between her devotion to the Church and the nursing profession, juxtaposed with her passionate Belgian patriotism and her love of her father (killed by Nazi fighter planes while treating wounded) bring her to an impasse...

I wanted novels about modern (20th/21st century) nuns. There are plenty more novels on nuns set in earlier times. The blog Book Group of One has a good list in its post about Nun-Fiction. Another interesting blog post about nun novels is Faith and lies: Two fascinating novels about nuns on Tor.com.

Sexual Assault in the Military & Benedict's Sand Queen

From today's NY Daily News article "Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ripped into top Pentagon lawyers during Senate subcommittee hearing, charging military has been too slow to stem tide of sex crimes in ranks:"

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was not shy in chairing her first subcommittee hearing as she laced into Pentagon officials Wednesday for failing to curb a rash of sexual assaults in the armed services. New York’s junior senator, elected to her first full term in November, took the reins of the Senate Armed Services Committee's Personnel Subcommittee this year and has made it a priority to go after the problem of rampant rapes, sexual assaults and sexual harassment in the military. Almost 2,500 cases of sexual violence were reported in 2011, but the Defense Department estimated that if all victims had actually come forward, that number would have been close to 19,000. In emotional and sometimes harrowing testimony Wednesday, three victims who were raped while they were enlisted said the system is broken and that victims are discouraged from reporting a crime or ostracized if they do so. It was the first Senate hearing on the topic in nearly a decade.

For a novel that delves into sexual assault in the military, try Sand Queen by Helen Benedict:

Nineteen-year-old Kate Brady joined the army to bring honor to her family and democracy to the Middle East. Instead, she finds herself in a forgotten corner of the Iraq desert in 2003, guarding a makeshift American prison. There, Kate meets Naema Jassim, an Iraqi medical student whose father and little brother have been detained in the camp. Kate and Naema promise to help each other, but the war soon strains their intentions. Like any soldier, Kate must face the daily threats of combat duty, but as a woman, she is in equal danger from the predatory men in her unit.

UPDATE:  you can find a longer review of Benedict's book over at the Literary Treats blog.

Steubenville Rape Trial & Anderson's Speak

From today's NPR article "Steubenville Rape Trial Begins:"

The case has already been "tried" in the social media, as The New York Times writes. But Wednesday in Steubenville, Ohio, a real court will be the setting as two high school football players in a town that's obsessed with high school football go on trial for the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl last summer. It's a case...that has caused turmoil in Steubenville — where "accusations, recriminations and threats" have been flying in recent months as critics of the town's football culture charged that players have been allowed to get out of control and supporters of the team have tried to blame the accuser.

Whether or not the accused are guilty, I think it's important to consider what a rape survivor goes through. To get one take, try Laurie Halse Anderson's young adult novel Speak:

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. 

UPDATE:  there's a good review of Speak over at Katie's Book Blog.

Sex Trafficking & Addison's A Walk Across the Sun

From yesterday's New York Times article "Global Slavery, by the Numbers:"

Here are some chilling statistics: The lifetime profit on a brickmaking slave in Brazil is $8,700, and $2,000 in India. Sexual slavery brings the slave’s owner $18,000 over the slave’s working life in Thailand, and $49,000 in Los Angeles. These are some of the numbers recently published by a foundation financed by a New York company that analyzes data for business intelligence, which deployed the same techniques to look at the worldwide trade in human trafficking. While slavery is illegal across the globe, the SumAll Foundation noted, there are 27 million slaves worldwide, more than in 1860, when there were 25 million. Most are held in bonded servitude, particularly after taking loans they could not repay. Slaves cost slightly more now, with a median price of $140, compared with $134 per human then. Debt slaves cost on average $60; trafficked sex slaves cost $1,910...

For a novel on sex trafficking, try Corban Addison's A Walk Across the Sun:

When a tsunami rages through their coastal town in India, 17-year-old Ahalya Ghai and her 15-year-old sister Sita are left orphaned and homeless. With almost everyone they know suddenly erased from the face of the earth, the girls set out for the convent where they attend school. They are abducted almost immediately and sold to a Mumbai brothel owner, beginning a hellish descent into the bowels of the sex trade. Halfway across the world, Washington, D.C., attorney Thomas Clarke faces his own personal and professional crisis-and makes the fateful decision to pursue a pro bono sabbatical working in India for an NGO that prosecutes the subcontinent's human traffickers. There, his conscience awakens as he sees firsthand the horrors of the trade in human flesh, and the corrupt judicial system that fosters it. Learning of the fate of Ahalya and Sita, Clarke makes it his personal mission to rescue them, setting the stage for a riveting showdown with an international network of ruthless criminals.

UPDATE:  a well-written review of  Addison's novel is available at The Year in Books.

Afghan Women's Rights & Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns

Sad news out of Afghanistan this week:

Taliban targeting Afghan women and government workers, UN report finds. The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has decreased for the first time in six years, said the UN, but targeted killings by insurgents – particularly of women, girls and government employees – increased dramatically.... the report showed a 20% increase in the number of women and girls killed or injured. Deliberate targeting by the Taliban and other insurgents also tripled in 2012, said the UN. Most were hit while in their homes or working in fields. Of the 854 female casualties, 504 were a result of insurgent attacks, while foreign and Afghan troops were responsible for 155 deaths and injuries. The Guardian, 19 February 2013

And it looks like a law banning violence against women is facing serious opposition in the parliament:

The Afghan Battle Over A Law To Protect Women. Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree in 2009 banning violence against women. But the parliament, which is currently on its winter recess, has been unable to pass it and give it permanence as a law. There's major disagreement on key provisions where Islamic and secular law come into conflict. And activists say the gains made in women's rights since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 are slipping away. Masooda Karokhi, a female member of parliament, has been pushing to get the proposal through the male-dominated legislature. NPR, 20 February 2013

A relevant book I just finished is Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which follows the lives of two women in 1990s and 2000s Afghanistan as they experience the Soviet invasion and withdrawal, the ensuing battle between warlords, the Taliban takeover, and life following the defeat of the Taliban.  Here's the book jacket description:

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years, from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding, that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives, the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness, are inextricable from the history playing out around them.