Elisa Banfi Boeken

"A powerful, emotional debut novel told in the unforgettable voice of a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to get an education so that she can escape and choose her own future. Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a "louding voice"-the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir. When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it. And when she realizes that she must stand up not only for herself, but for other girls, for the ones who came before her and were lost, and for the next girls, who will inevitably follow; she finds the resolve to speak, however she can-in a whisper, in song, in broken English-until she is heard"--

A magical historical novel about an astonishing eight-year-old girl in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. It is 1877, on the shores of the Black Sea, and the omens for the newborn Eleonora Cohen are hardly promising. Not only does her mother die in childbirth, but her village is being attacked by the Tsar's Royal Cavalry. However, despite this bad beginning, a sour stepmother and a traumatic journey in the hold of a ship, young Eleonora grows into a remarkably clever but very engaging child. And when a heartbreaking tragedy leaves her marooned in Istanbul, where spies and boarded-up harems and sudden death are as much a part of life as delicious spices, Paris fashions and rosewater, it is Eleonora's extraordinary courage and character which lead her straight to the Sultan's court, and to her salvation.

Paul Janson is een voormalig geheim agent die niets meer van 'het werk' wil weten. Totdat de steenrijke Peter Novak, die ooit Pauls leven redde, wordt ontvoerd door terroristen die hem dreigen te executeren. Janson stelt haastig een team samen om Novak te redden, maar als dat misloopt is hij de enige overlevende. De geheime diensten menen dat hij bewust Novaks dood heeft veroorzaakt en zetten hem op een dodenlijst. Jansons enige kans ligt in het achterhalen van de waarheid over Peter Novak. Een waarheid die oorlogen kan veroorzaken, regeringen ten val kan brengen en de loop van de geschiedenis kan veranderen...

When twenty-year-old Pat rents a room from handsome and cocky Bruce, she inherits some delightfully colourful neighbours: Domenica, an insightful and eccentric widow; Bertie, a five-year-old whos̕ mastered both saxophone and Italian; and Irene, his overbearing mother. Pats̕ new job at a gallery seems easy enough. Her boss spends most of his time drinking coffee in a local café and discussing matters great and small, and Pats̕ duties are light. That is until she realizes that one of their paintings may be an undiscovered work of a renowned Scottish artist and she discovers that one of their customers may be in on the secret. Add to this a fancy ball, love triangles and an encounter with a famous crime writer, and you have Alexander McCall Smiths̕ entertaining and witty portrait of Edinburgh society.

Being immortal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Life's hard for a Greek god in the 21st century: nobody believes in you any more, even your own family doesn't respect you, and you're stuck in a delapidated hovel in north London with too many siblings and not enough hot water. But for Artemis (goddess of hunting, professional dog walker), Aphrodite (goddess of beauty, telephone sex operator) and Apollo (god of the sun, TV psychic) there's no way out... Until a meek cleaner and her would-be boyfriend come into their lives, and turn the world literally upside down. Gods Behaving Badly is that rare thing: a charming, funny, utterly original first novel that satisfies the head and the heart.

Dieses Buch bietet eine vergleichende Untersuchung islamischer Wohlfahrtsaktivitäten in städtischen Gebieten der Schweiz und Italiens, um zentrale Fragen zum Engagement islamischer Organisationen in Europa zu beleuchten. Es beschreibt die Struktur und Koordination islamischer Organisationen in Genf, Mailand, Rom und Zürich, vier Städten, die bislang in der Literatur über islamische Wohlfahrt nicht analysiert wurden. Zudem werden die institutionellen Möglichkeiten und Beschränkungen untersucht, die die Formen sozialer religiöser Aktivitäten auf lokaler und internationaler Ebene beeinflussen können. Dabei werden zwei selten miteinander verbundene Forschungsbereiche zusammengeführt: die Analyse sozialer Netzwerke und die Theorie politischer Möglichkeiten. Das Buch richtet sich an Soziologen, Anthropologen und Religionswissenschaftler, die sich mit der sozialen und politischen Integration von Muslimen in Europa sowie den sozialen Aktivitäten islamischer Organisationen in westlichen Ländern befassen. Die Kapitel umfassen eine Einführung, die Analyse des islamischen Wohlfahrtsaktivismus in Westeuropa, spezifische Untersuchungen zum soziokulturellen Aktivismus in Zürich, Rom, Genf und Mailand sowie eine intranationale und länderübergreifende Datenanalyse, gefolgt von einer Schlussfolgerung.