A Year in Reading: Farah Ali

My reading used to be a lot of old favorites and some works by writers new to me. For the past couple of years that has shifted. Some of the “new” writers are long gone. Some have been around for a while.

I had bought a used copy of ’s from Powell’s in Portland and brought it back with me to Dubai. I opened it two years later, and found a world within of alienation, love, and madness. There is a feeling of claustrophobia and darkness in the story; the woman’s yearning is palpable. I loved the book. I didn’t know until later that Jean Rhys had written it as a prequel to . What was just as interesting to me was what she had said in an interview: “I guess I write about myself because that’s all I really know.”