The two hardest challenges a fiction writer faces are moving a character from Point A to Point B and sustaining a narrative point of view, particularly the first person PoV of a child. Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha succeeds at the latter; Laurence Sterne with the former in Tristram Shandy. Emma Donoghue, an Irish writer living in Canada, accomplishes both in imagining the life of a five-year-old boy born in captivity and living with his mother in an 11-foot-square room. Told entirely from young Jack's perspective, Room moves from tenderness tinged with uneasiness (we discover relatively early on why the pair are caged in), then to outright horror before arcing back to tenderness. It would be too easy to hold up Room as an extended metaphor for all of life's restraints or confinements. The simple truth, one much harder to swallow, is that Donoghue was inspired to write the novel after reading about children born in captivity. Room, in a way, is their story, their challenge, and Donoghue is our sure-footed guide to understanding what their life is probably like.
Room
Emma Donoghue
Little Brown & Co
Dh69
A State of Passion
Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Rating: 4/5
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
Mia Man’s tips for fermentation
- Start with a simple recipe such as yogurt or sauerkraut
- Keep your hands and kitchen tools clean. Sanitize knives, cutting boards, tongs and storage jars with boiling water before you start.
- Mold is bad: the colour pink is a sign of mold. If yogurt turns pink as it ferments, you need to discard it and start again. For kraut, if you remove the top leaves and see any sign of mold, you should discard the batch.
- Always use clean, closed, airtight lids and containers such as mason jars when fermenting yogurt and kraut. Keep the lid closed to prevent insects and contaminants from getting in.