Elisa Banfi Knihy

"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"--

Retired operative Paul Janson is called back to the spy game to settle a personal debt he owes. Peter Novak, the legendary Hungarian immigrant and head of the Liberty Foundation, has been kidnapped and faces execution at the hands of terrorist extremists. It is up to Janson to rescue Novak before he is murdered. Janson immediately puts together a top team and manages the nearly impossible task of extricating Novak, but something goes horribly wrong - something that indicates the operation had been compromised from the start - and only Janson himself survives. Now the major intelligence services think that Janson was responsible for Novak's death and are sending their finest operatives after him...

"44 Scotland Street" introduces the vibrant residents of a charming Edinburgh neighborhood through a series of witty and satirical tales. Key characters include precocious six-year-old Bertie, his ambitious mother Irene, and their eccentric neighbor Domenica. The novel explores love, friendships, and quirky adventures in this lively community.

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.