Alta I

BookBrowse Reviewer

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BookBrowse Reviewer Alta is a BookBrowse Reviewer and has written reviews featured in The BookBrowse Review.

Alta Ifland grew up in Romania and currently lives in Northern California. A former French lecturer, she is now a writer and book reviewer. Her reviews have appeared in The Quarterly Conversation, Words without Borders, Three Percent, Rain Taxi, The Women’s Review of Books, The American Book Review and many other publications. She is the author of four books of short fiction, including Elegy for a Fabulous World (2010 finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Fiction) and Death-in-a-Box (2011 Subito Press Prize). More about her at www.altaifland.com.

BookBrowse Editorial Reviews (5)

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Discreet Hero: A Novel
by Mario Vargas Llosa, Edith Grossman (translator)

(2/18/2015)

The Discreet Hero is mostly perfectly constructed, and even though it doesn't stand next to Llosa's masterpieces—The War of the End of the World, Conversation in the Cathedral, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter—the gradation of the events, the dialog and the way the two stories come together prove that the author is a master storyteller. Translator Edith Grossman is a perfect match for his sober voice. The novel is proof that Nobel-prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa still

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Richard Flanagan

(11/5/2014)

Structure aside, the story itself may be overwhelming for certain readers among whom I count myself: a look at the horrendous hardship experienced by WWII prisoners of war during the construction of the so-called "Death Railway" (or "the Line") between Thailand and Burma. Flanagan refuses to idealize heroism, exploring, instead, the idea that society defines normal people forced by circumstances to act in a certain way as "heroes." He deliberately creates a flawed protagonist in The Narrow Ro

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BookBrowse Editorial Review

Some Luck
by Jane Smiley
(10/15/2014)

Smiley uses an unusual technique to bring their world close to the reader by depicting it through the eyes of baby Frank. The effect is one of immediacy, as his world is made mostly of sensations and wonder. The sensations around his Mama are soft and pleasant, while those around his Papa are more likely to be rough and noisy. Thus, the reader discovers the world along with the baby, and this gradual discovery that expands from the mother’s lap to what happens out of the window, leads to a ve

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BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Invention of Exile: A Novel
by Vanessa Manko
(10/1/2014)

It is hard to believe that Vanessa Manko hasn’t been an immigrant herself, given her ability to put herself in the shoes of one and imagine the humiliations and gradual descent into paranoia brought by years of living in a constant state of expectation.

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BookBrowse Editorial Review

A Replacement Life
by Boris Fishman
(7/23/2014)

A Replacement Life is full of big moral questions, but more than that, it is a novel about becoming a writer. Slava... wants to be a famous writer. It is this desire that leads him to agree to write restitution letters for his family and acquaintances...He invents episodes that he imagines were part of her life, but he transfers them to other people. Thus, he replaces the lost years of her life, and in doing so, he performs the very essence of a writer’s task: to create “replacement lives

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