Souls Forgotten

" ""One day, Mama Ngonsu told her son: """"Normally, a child grew up and stayed around to help his parents. The world has changed, and things are no longer as they used to be. Things must not be normal all the time, otherwise life would not be life."""" When Emmanuel Kwanga gets a University scholarship, he travels from the lake and hills of Abehema to the Great City. Everyone in the village has invested in him their hopes for the good life. When the life they've imagined is cut short by the University guillotine, Emmanuel Kwanga must struggle to make sense of what the good life means - for himself and for Abehema - in a world where things are no longer as they used to be. This novel is about coming of age and coming to terms in Mimboland. It is also about the fragility of life and the strength of the human spirit. The filth and screaming splendor of the city and the perplexed tranquility of the village are juxtaposed, as the tension and conviviality between tradition and modernity are lived and explored. Roads and drivers, dreams and public transport link different geographies. Faltering along or speeding away, these spaces of risk, frustration and solidarity are filled with popular songs as vehicles for understanding events and relationships. With every crossing of the Pont de Maturit? the story flows, and its mysteries surge. In this novel, the worlds of the living and the dead intermingle, as do the natural and the supernatural, the visible and the invisible."""

Burial processions are depressing, tearful events. Sadder still, when people make their last visits to a cemetery on the same day they bury acquaintances, friends, and even loved ones. With a simple toss of dirt, a final goodbye muttered into the wind, and moral obligations complete, most will never return. The dead are left to their solitude, their misery … neglected and forgotten. Beneath sacred grounds, cemeteries fight to keep these forgotten souls within their crumbling gates, to protect them against the sinister forces that consistently pull from the molten pits of another world. But their hold is weakening.

Andrea has long conversed with the dead, and has waited for the one who would help her on a most important quest to release these forgotten souls. She finds her partner in Darren, a recently graduated young man who is desperately searching for his calling. Together, the two set out on a journey to accomplish a seemingly insurmountable task, unaware of the horrible danger they are both in. If they should fail, humanity will pay the ultimate price on account of its negligence.

Winner of the 2019 Minnesota Book Award for Minnesota Nonfiction The stirring story of the reform movement that laid the groundwork for a modern mental health system in Minnesota In 1940 Engla Schey, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, took a job as a low-paid attendant at Anoka State Hospital, one of Minnesota’s seven asylums. She would work among people who were locked away under the shameful label “insane,” called inmates—and numbered more than 12,000 throughout the state. She acquired the knowledge and passion that would lead to “The Crusade for Forgotten Souls,” a campaign to reform the deplorable condition of mental institutions in Minnesota. This book chronicles that remarkable undertaking inspired and carried forward by ordinary people under the political leadership of Luther Youngdahl, a Swedish Republican who was the state’s governor from 1946 to 1951. Susan Bartlett Foote tells the story of those who made the crusade a success: Engla Schey, the catalyst; Reverend Arthur Foote, a modest visionary who guided Unitarians to constructive advocacy; Genevieve Steefel, an inveterate patient activist; and Geri Hoffner, an intrepid reporter whose twelve-part series for the Minneapolis Tribune galvanized the public. These reformers overcame barriers of class, ethnicity, and gender to stand behind the governor, who, at a turbulent moment in Minnesota politics, challenged his own party’s resistance to reform. The Crusade for Forgotten Souls recounts how these efforts broke the stigma of shame and silence surrounding mental illness, publicized the painful truth about the state’s asylums, built support among citizens, and resulted in the first legislative steps toward a modern mental health system that catapulted Minnesota to national leadership and empowered families of the mentally ill and disabled. Though their vision met resistance, the accomplishments of these early advocates for compassionate care of the mentally ill hold many lessons that resonate to this day, as this book makes compellingly clear.

A beautifully illustrated meditation on the fullness of life for readers of all ages by by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk. "Olga Tokarczuk’s The Lost Soul, an experimental fable illustrated by Joanna Concejo and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, resonates with our current moment. . . . What a striking, and lovely, material object it is." —New York Times "The Lost Soul, by Olga Tokarczuk and illustrator Joanna Concejo, is a quiet meditation on happiness, following a busy man who loses his soul. . . It pours a childlike sense of wonder into a once-upon-a-time tale that is already resonating with adults around the world." —The Guardian The Lost Soul is a deeply moving reflection on our capacity to live in peace with ourselves, to remain patient, attentive to the world. It is a story that beautifully weaves together the voice of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk and the finely detailed pen-and-ink drawings of illustrator Joanna Concejo, who together create a parallel narrative universe full of secrets, evocative of another time. Here a man has forgotten what makes his heart feel full. He moves to a house away from all that is familiar to him to wait for his soul to return. "Once upon a time there was a man who worked very hard and very quickly, and who had left his soul far behind him long ago. In fact his life was all right without his soul—he slept, ate, worked, drove a car and even played tennis. But sometimes he felt as if the world around him were flat, as if he were moving across a smooth page in a math book that was covered in evenly spaced squares... " —from The Lost Soul The Lost Soul is a sublime album, a rare delicacy that will delight readers young and old. "You must find a place of your own, sit there quietly and wait for your soul." Winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Award, Special Mention 2018, Prix de l'Union Internationale pour les Livres de Jeunesse (IBBY), The White Raven (IJB Munich), and the Łódź Design Festival Award.

Literary style in the mix of Poe, Crowley, and Lovecraft. Truly for those who wonder about life and limb.

On a lonely hill in rural Ireland, overlooking the gray sea, sits the solid, unforgiving Moriarty home, Solas. After the departure of her grown son, Sive, the Storyteller, is alone in the house for the first time in years. She bathes, dresses in long flowing robes, and sweeps from room to room, calling together the souls of her family's past. As they all gather around the fire, Sive lays out her tarot cards and prepares to tell their stories. From the magical landscapes of coastal Ireland to the grotesque bustle of sixties London, Sive gives the history of her grandmother, her mother, and herself. She traces the path of her grandmother's cruel and unbearable marriage to her mother's wild escape to London, and, finally, to her own return to the family home. Each woman endures the hardship of being poor and uneducated, and of becoming involved with the wrong men. Their lives are difficult and harsh; and yet, in their own ways, they are able to draw on their inner strength to help each other have a better life. Beautifully written with the Irish flare of weaving in a touch of magic, Suzanne Power's The Lost Souls' Reunion is the story of a mother's love for her child, a woman's love for her man, and a family's love for their land.