Hillary Brenhouse

Features

Yann Perreau [Montreal, Quebec]

By Hillary Brenhouse

Something in Yann Perreau has cracked open, and while the irritated, despairing musician of his past work was attractive, Perreau's sudden confidence seems like a better fit with his raucous stage persona. [20 May 2009]

Reviews

The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson

By Hillary Brenhouse

Alec Wilkinson paints a simple picture of a combatant for social justice, an anti-materialist, a woodsman, a patriot, an environmentalist, a near 90-year-old with a fierce regard for even-handedness. [22 September 2009]

Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem

By Hillary Brenhouse

This new 2009 translation from the Yiddish, has restored to the novel all of its misery. For this is a dark and hopeless book, its bleakness undercut only by Aleichem’s particular brand of quick wit. [20 September 2009]

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

By Hillary Brenhouse

The scope of Eng's work is cinematic: we see the men and women of Malaya searching for sea creatures in the mud, lighting firecrackers at village weddings, digging their own graves. [4 June 2009]

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

By Hillary Brenhouse

Disarming and fiercely persuasive, the author's portrait of India may not be sacred or exotic, but he continues to clothe the country in binaries -- if not stale ones, then divisions of his own. [6 April 2009]