What role do curses play in literature?

Julian Lucas joins us to talk about curses and blessings in four recent books by African

women.

How does a hard-nosed journalist almost marry a congenital liar and conman?

Abby Allen will join us to talk about her book, Duped, Double Lives, False Identities,

and the conman I almost married.

Alexander Alter will be here to talk about the latest in publishing news.

Plus, we'll talk about what we and the water world are reading.

This is the Book Review Podcast.

I'm Pamela Paul.

Julian Lucas joins us now.

He is a contributing writer for the Book Review and this week he looks at the role of curses

in literature and specifically in contemporary African literature.

And we're going to talk about four books specifically, Kintu by Jennifer Non-Subuga

Mccombi.

She would be King by way of two more.

Season of the Shadow by Lanoaro Miano.

And a memoir by Skolastik Mukosanga called The Barefoot Woman.

Julian, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me, Pamela.

So let's just start with a very basic idea of curses.

I think most of us probably think of curses as biblical or going back to the ancient.

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