Francesca Wade
Modern Magic
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
By Helen Oyeyemi
Picador 263pp £12.99
In the final story of Helen Oyeyemi’s dazzling collection, an acerbic depiction of office workers bullying a colleague – salad dressing spilled on her desk, corrupt file attachments crashing her computer – takes a turn for the uncanny when Eva, the enigmatic victim, loses her diary. The story’s narrator, another colleague who has taken pity on her, recovers the leather-bound tome and undoes its brass clasp. As she scans the pages, the book begins to unfold ‘like a hand’, enveloping the narrator in a dizzying whirl of voices from Eva’s head. This collection abounds with such disorientating surprises: locked rooms reveal hidden treasures; animals, ghosts and dolls display unprecedented empathy; and supernatural presences lurk everywhere, sometimes benevolent, sometimes menacing.
One of Granta’s 2013 Best of Young British Novelists, Oyeyemi is known for the fabular qualities of her work. Her five novels refract myth and fairy tale into hybrid meditations on storytelling and identity. The stories in this, her first collection, are linked by running threads of potent imagery: flowers,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm