Still on my #Doubs Challenge. Tagged book is a play imagining a conversation between Napoléon Bonaparte and Toussaint Louverture right before his death at the Fort de Joux where he was imprisoned following the Haiti Revolution. I wish it had been a bit better. This is the only fiction work I found about Toussaint Louverture in Joux, which is surprising but there you are. Beggars can't be choosers.

I came across this thanks to @swynn & remembered the author was featured in Libération & Gallica's list of female writers in history https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/fr/html/fieres-de-lettres-une-chronique-gallica-d... & that I meant to read them all, so I downloaded the pdf of a 1st edition, complete with long s, 17th-c spelling, etc. Very much of its time: the Enlightenment. Delightful, eye-roll-worthy & slow-going all at the same time.

I learned in the tagged book that First Nations people were enslaved before & alongside African & Malagasy people in Canada in the 17th & 18th centuries. I shouldn't have been surprised - after all, I already knew colons had done it in Central & South America - but because my mental picture of Canada re slavery is the 19th c. Underground Railroad, it passed me by. Another rabbit hole to explore...

#readingispolitical

I thought I'd finished my deep dive into the French Revolution for the foreseeable 😔future, but then my library got Race et Révolution française (Race and the French Revolution) which ticks so many boxes for me I had to borrow it 😍
Incidentally, I am pretty sure I saw those Equality between the races playing cards at an exhibition and took photos, but I absolutely cannot find them again

#readingispolitical

Not from the tagged cookbook but from a local Peruvian Nikkei (somewhat) upmarket fast food place: Donburi Crispy Chicken Nikkei with rice, chicken karaage, about 10 ( 🙄) individual choclo kernels (white corn), deep-fried Padrón peppers, fried eggplant & 3 sauces (ají mayo, ají panca, ají miso). Japanese cheesecake for dessert. Very nice. Could have been cheaper!

#Peru #FoodandLit
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European cooks (outside of Spain) will probably find this cookbook more useful because it is less likely to call for ingredients that are difficult to get here than The Fire of Peru, but it is less informative and probably - inevitably - less authentic. I read it in the French translation (from the original English) which adds a layer of obfuscation.
#Peru #FoodandLit
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I discovered this 1896 novella thanks to academic Matthieu Renault who mentioned it in an interview. This love story between an #Azeri Muslim student and an #Armenian Christian young woman who meet in Mengilis, #Georgia (Russian Empire) is a vehicle for discussing progressive ideas about religion, education, etc. Interesting but under-developped. Written in Azerbaijani by a famous Azeri author who - briefly - was a gvt official in the USSR. ⬇

September 1944 in a village in Eastern France: nazis are retreating & neverending columns of soldiers pass through Ferdinand's village. One soldier commands him to give him his bicycle. Only he needs it, worked hard for it. In the heat of the moment, he injures & ties up this almost child. The book describes the quandary & subsequent actions. An easy read (linguistically, not psychologically) that makes you think.
1 for the 2025 #Doubs challenge

I did it! I finished it! Granted, it's short (33 typewritten A4 pages) but it still took me 6 days. The language (syntax & vocab) was relatively simple, give or take a Quechua word or a peruanism. It's a tale of resistance to invasion, greed, love & deception set in the Cuzco area at the time of conquistadores - the villains of this 19th-c play by a trailblazing woman writer famous in #Peru but not elsewhere.
#FoodandLit
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A vegetarian version of ceviche with charred eggplant instead of fish? I'm definitely trying it as soon as I have access to a barbecue...
#Peru #FoodandLit
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In 2 minds about this cookbook: it's interesting, but I find the narrative voice irritating - waffling & feels phoney. And too many ingredients are unavailable where I live: I'd have to buy them online or travel to Paris or Barcelona to find them. Anyway, I'll plough on, even though I am not the book's ideal reader - it's clearly aimed at Californians...

#Peru #FoodandLit
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Halfway through a 19th-c. play by Peruvian author Clorinda Matto de Turner about Inca Princess Hima-Sumac's love triangle with Tupac-Amaru (pictured) and Gonzalo, a Spanish youth. As I am interested in female writers from the past & this work is not available in translation, I bit the bullet & am reading it in Spanish. It's difficult but doable.
It probably can count for #classicschallenge2025 @Lunakay
#Peru #FoodandLit
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Today is the 233rd anniversary of the Baiser Lamourette (Lamourette Kissing), where priest and representative Lamourette enjoined his colleagues to make peace with each other after some stormy debates in Parliament. Hence the hugs and kisses portrayed in this ink drawing kept in the Louvre museum. I cannot picture the same thing happening today 😁
#readingispolitical

We had Peruvian-style coffee after lunch today.
You start by making a strong cold-brew coffee extract. It needs to steep for 24 hours. You can then strain it & keep it in the fridge. When you want coffee, you pour some of the extract in a cup, dilute it to taste with hot (or cold) water. It is typically served with condensed milk. Very nice, very smooth. Will make again.

#Peru #FoodandLit
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José María Arguedas was a Peruvian teacher, writer, musicologist and ethnologist. He wrote in Quechua and in Spanish. Deep Rivers is a semi-autobiographical novel mostly set in & around Abancay, & told through the eyes of Ernesto, a young boarder whose dad is an itinerant lawyer (didn't know that was a thing!) It shows how violently hierarchical #Peru was at the start of the 20th c. A classic for good reason.
#FoodandLit
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I finished the book, but I didn't like it much. I think I see what the author tried to do: denounce corruption, esp. the collusion between rich/business people, politicians, police & gutter press by writing a novel that uses some of the same tricks that the gutter press uses, but it was very “blokey“ IYYWIM & I didn't enjoy the dated, male-gazey aspect of it, nor the undeveloped characters.
#Peru #NobelPrize #FoodandLit
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Tagged book mentions Peruvian singer-songwriter Felipe Pinglo Alva so I had to look him up and now I'm on Deezer, listening to a scratchy 78 rpm disc recording 😂 instead of reading the book (probably because I am finding it underwhelming so far).
ETA: the translators translated real song titles! Who does that? It takes some retroengineering and knowledge of Spanish to find them online.

#Peru #FoodandLit
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Veeeery late, here is a version of faluda, a Bangladeshi / South-Asian dessert, perfect in hot weather. I used mango, pistachios, homemade pistachio-flavoured agar jelly, tapioca pearls, chia seeds (I was out of tukmaria), kewra water, condensed milk, and milk. Delicious!

Thermometer shows 27.7°C (81°F) inside and 37°C (98.6°F) outside. It's going to go up in the next days too. 😲 🔥 😎
#Bangladesh #FoodandLit
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Sounds painful! 😖

In preparation for reading The Cloud Messenger by Aamer Hussein, I am reading the lyrical poem of the same name by 5th-century author Kalidasa in which a yaksha (nature spirit) asks a cloud to travel to his beloved. It's been a surprisingly fluid & delightful read so far, with so many mentions of flora & fauna I have to look up.
https://www.flowersofindia.net/mythology.html https://www.wisdomlib.org & wikipedia are all helpful.
#poetry

This novella was recommended by Everand because I'd read Next World Novella. It describes the life and relationship of a mixed couple (British wife, Pakistani husband) who meet in London & make a life together in 1950s/60s Karachi. It starts with a folk tale that made me wonder whether there was a pb with the book's description, but it all made sense later on! I wish it had been a tad longer.
pic by Salil Kumar Mukherjee, CC BY-SA 4.0, wikimedia

This is our last day of (relative) cool weather before another heatwave. I am having breakfast before 7 AM with all the windows open to let the cool air in before temps creep up. I want to finish Le vote des femmes, published in 1908 to advocate for women's vote, then make inroads into Producteurs et parasites (non-fic ab. the far right) which I started months ago then put aside b/c of its tortuous prose.

Hinrich finds his wife Doro dead at her desk, with an annotated manuscript of his in front of her. She had things to say about his embryonic novel, about him and about their life together, and it's not pleasant. It's also at odds with his view of himself and his own memories (although those are unreliable too). This definitely wasn't a feel-good novella, but it made me think.
#Germany

The Princess and the Pea, featuring a fantastic glasshouse bed, but no pea plants as far as I can tell 😁

And not directly literary, but as I accidentally stuck my hand in poo when taking this photo of a frog in one of the gardens, I feel I paid too high a price not to share it with as many people as possible...

The Lady of the Lake in the Jardin Korriganezed (korrigans are Breton leprechauns)
https://domaine-chaumont.fr/en/internationalgarden-festival/2025-edition-once-up...

Pinocchio in the Fantastico Pinocchio garden
https://domaine-chaumont.fr/en/internationalgarden-festival/2025-edition-once-up...

Contemporary art in the Chaumont park. This one is inspired by Calvino's Baron in the Trees.

I went to The Chaumont Garden Festival on Sunday & had a fantastic time walking through all the gardens inspired by works of fiction (and all the others too!) This is the Alice in Wonderland one: not the greatest photo, unfortunately...
https://domaine-chaumont.fr/en/international-garden-festival

Catching up on #Bangladesh reading for #FoodandLit which I almost completely missed. Lajja (also titled Shame) is a recount of the 1992 anti-Hindu riots that took place in Bangladesh after the destruction of Babri Masjid & anti-Muslim riots in India, through the eyes of a culturally-Hindu atheist family. I am on page 112 & it is relentless.
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Pic of Burigonda River by Jubair Bin Iqbal, via wikimedia ⬇

I'll be honest, I took this book out of the little free library because I thought it was set in Tripoli, Libya, and I could do with a couple more books from this country. Turns out there is another Tripoli in #Lebanon and this is where this novel is set (and also in Paris & Iraq). The story is heartbreaking.

I made a version of suaasat - originally a seal meat stew/soup - using beef, onion, carrots, potatoes and a handful of pearl barley (also a bay leaf, some thyme & stock cubes). It feels odd having a winter stew in the middle of a heatwave, but it was nice, although prob. quite different from the authentic dish 😊 I guess I'll just have to visit #Greenland for that!

#FoodandLit
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In may, #Greenland's ice melted 17 (17!) times faster than average, with temperatures up to 13°C higher than usual, which poses all sorts of challenges for the environment, sanitation, health, people's livelihoods, etc.
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-drives-record-breaking-he...
#FoodandLit
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I made Kalaallit Kaagiat, a raisin and cardamom bread, using the automatic translation of this page: https://mamarisavut.gl/da/opskrifter/groenlandsk-kage-med-aeggepulver/ The English recipes I found online were a lot sweeter, which didn't appeal as much. It was like a slightly cardamom-scented pannetone & perfect with coffee.
#Greenland
#FoodandLit
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Literary memoirs are my favourite: I am halfway through Laure Murat's essay on Proust's In Search of Lost Time, which she realised when she read it aged 20, described her milieu (the French aristocracy), was partly based on members of her family, & is as relevant now as it was then. She walks us through the parallels & is pitiless about their flaws. She was rejected when she came out as lesbian & feels a kinship with Proust, who was gay.
#LGBTQ

This is a huge coffee-table book about Malaurie's stays in various places in the Arctic, from #Greenland to Canada to Alaska and finally, to Chukotka, from the late 40s to the 90s. His outlook can be a bit dated sometimes, but his love for the people and the friends he made there over the years is obvious.
#FoodandLit
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Researching food has been rather frustrating so far: I found info about ingredients, cheffy Greenland-inspired recipes, and world food bloggers' identikit recipes for suaasat, a traditional soup originally made with seal meat, which they typically sub with another read meat. In the meantime, I made myself some tea with juniper berries, which I know are used in #Greenland, but no info on how they are used there.
#FoodandLit
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Found at the library: the life story of an East Greenlander shaman at the end of the 19th century & 1st half of the 20th - hence the use of a now-deprecated word - as told to a local Danish cleric in the 60s.
It starts with violence & descriptions of v. harsh conditions, but things get better for Georg later in life, thankfully.
#Greenland #FoodandLit
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Pic Helheim Fjord eastern Greenland by NASA/Jim Yungel, PD, Wikimedia C

Tagore was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was Bengali, with roots in what are now #India and #Bangladesh. Gitanjali is a collection of spiritual poems written in Bengali, and translated by the author himself into a style of English that takes some getting used to, but it is worth it.
#FoodandLit
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Fantasy novel set in Dhaka, #Bangladesh. I started it nearly 3 weeks ago but stopped. Reading about the father of 1 of the MC falling into a supernatural coma just when my father was being operated on spooked me a bit. Then RL took a turn for the worse & I stopped reading altogether. I picked it up again as I was enjoying it but I've reached the “saggy“ middle. We'll see how I fare.
#FoodandLit
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Halfway through this serious overview of nazism & terrified by the parallels that can be drawn between today & the 30s. On AH's bday, let's remember that he was a good public speaker, but a lazy, incompetent statesman w/ a short attention span who relied on a handful of high-ups + everyday Germans as part of an organic whole. They figured out what needed doing to reach the goals he had set out, then carried it out independently & zealously.

This is a graphic non-fiction book about a couple who hunt down criminals responsible for the Rwandan genocide and bring them to justice. A number of them have been living normal lives in France and it's only in the last few years that tribunals picked up pace. Proving beyond reasonable doubt that they're guilty is difficult however, because witnesses and evidence has disappeared.
#Rwanda #FoodandLit
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Today, I made igitoki, a delicious green plantain, vegetable and peanut stew. Will definitely make again! It's easy, vegetarian and perfect when it's cold outside.
Recipes in French: https://www.instagram.com/roger_dushime/p/CRYSh-HjUpO/
https://djolo.net/igitoki-mijote-de-bananes-et-legumes-a-la-rwandaise/

#Rwanda #FoodandLit
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The title means “Not everybody is lucky enough to like stuffed carp“
The 1st 50 pages describe Ashkenazi food as terribly unappetising & unhealthy & the sort of food that only people born into it like, but the author *was* born into it, and despite the awful descriptions, her love for her grandparent's cuisine shines through. That makes for a very unsettling reading experience!

Pic of gefilte fish by Olaf.herfurth, via Wikimedia Commons

Having read the Majnun/Qais version earlier this year, I have now moved on to the Nizami version of Layla and Majnun. I am not 100% sold on the fake twee style of the French translation I am reading, but am making good progress nonetheless.
#poetry #Azerbaijan
painting of Majnun in the wilderness found on Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

I was rather lukewarm about Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger's #poetry collection at first, but then one of the poems punched me in the gut and now I'm happy I bought it.
#Slovenia

Kids‘ non-fiction about Rwanda. I‘ve only just started but it looks quite thorough, if dated.
#Rwanda #FoodandLit
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Found on Everand: life stories & recipes from refugees who settled in Kentucky from all over the world, including Nicolas Kiza from #Rwanda, who opened a bar & grill selling Rwandan food. The 2 recipes given (peas & potatoes, potato omelette, which - this is a quote that might speak to some US residents right now - “Some Africans consider a luxury due to the cost of eggs“) are simple & use everyday ingredients.
#FoodandLit
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Another fantastic book by Scholastique Mukasonga. It's a good “in“ to Rwandan culture pre-genocide, as each story comes with “notes for the curious reader“. She's also one of the few writers to acknowledge - and even center a story on - twas (or pygmies as they used to be known although it is considered a slur).
#Rwanda #FoodandLit
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pic of mutwa boy by Julien Harneis, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

31 years ago on this day (April, 7), the genocide against the Tutsi started in #Rwanda.
#FoodandLit
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Pic of the memorial in Geneva by MHM55, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons