Great Bay:--- Book of Sins by Israel’s Nidaa Khoury and Nativity by St. Martin’s Lasana M. Sekou were reviewed last weekend in India, according to Livemint.com & The Wall Street Journal.
Both new books are “collections worth reading, and prove why small presses are the life-blood of poetry,” wrote literary critic Tabish Khair in his Reading Room column in the print and online versions of India’s second-largest business newspaper.
Khair, himself an award-winning author, highlighted the books as trilingual editions, “published by the small but vibrant House of Nehesi Publishers [HNP] from the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean.” Livemint.com has an exclusive content agreement with New York’s Wall Street Journal. http://www.livemint.com/2011/03/18223525/Secrets-and-sins.html?h=B.
A few days after its introduction to readers in India, Book of Sins was set to launch on March 22 in Israel at Ben Gurion University, with a recital by Khoury. The poet is Palestinian and “One of the major exponents of modernist Arab women writing,” said Israeli professor Yair Huri.
As for other HNP titles making their way abroad, earlier this month the US mega-site ChickenBones: A Journal opened a Yaya Richards webpage. The page features poems from The Frock & Other Poems by the late folklorist and news about the book’s launch in Marigot in February. http://www.nathanielturner.com/frockyayarichards.htm.
Also in February, Tongues of the ocean published “Casualties” by Sekou in its Spoken Word video section, according to Nicolette Bethel, editor-in-chief of the Bahamian literary journal. http://tonguesoftheocean.org/2011/02/casualties/.
“We are very thankful to the various media and the readers in St. Martin and, slowly but surely, those from around the world that read and review books published on our island,” said Jacqueline Sample, president of HNP.
“Part of our work is to contribute to Caribbean Literature and to the region’s book publishing in meaningful and modern ways, as publishers of useable content and diverse book products,” said Sample.
Book of Sins, HNP’s first book published in 2011, and Nativity are available at Van Dorp and Arnia’s bookstores, www.Amazon.com, www.spdbooks.org, and www.houseofnehesipublish.com.
