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A dictator’s wife, overthrown and awaiting trial, pleads her case to a young female lawyer, while also drawing her into a tangled web of lies and dark, dangerous secrets. This dazzling and devastating debut is a Lead Launch for Headline Review for Spring 2021.
Elena Ceausescu: Greatest Scientist Ever — except she was a Elena Ceausescu: Greatest Scientist Ever — except she was a
She seemed destined for a life among London’s monied elite. As a teenager Asma went to one of Britain’s oldest private girls’ schools, Queen’s College, a few doors down from her father’s private medical practice in Harley Street. She did a degree in computer science at King’s College London, where both friends and detractors recall her as clever and hard-working. Asma’s mergers and acquisitions continue apace. Syria’s second-biggest mobile-phone firm has also gone into receivership; last month Asma’s cronies were appointed to its board. Emmatel – the phone company with her name – now has branches countrywide (even in areas her husband doesn’t control). It’s hard to compute the scale of destruction in Syria over the years that followed. In 2014 Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group, took advantage of the chaos to establish a so-called caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq. Its sectarian ferocity presented a serious threat to Bashar’s forces but also weakened support for his opposition and justified Iran and Russia in propping him up.
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Ooh lovely review, you’ve definitely persuaded me to add this one to my list! The two different perspectives sound fascinating and I love unreliable narrators too 📚❤️ X x x Naturally, Elena sought what was probably the most prestigious scientific honor in Europe: membership in Britain's Royal Society. The ability to add FRS after her name certainly appealed to her, considering her already lengthy list of titles. Prior to attending an official visit to the UK, the Ceausescus solicited the Royal Society, as well as Oxford and Cambridge, for honors. The regime’s forces have killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians, and tortured more than 14,000 people to death. Half the population have fled their homes, precipitating the greatest refugee crisis since the second world war. Iran and Turkey, as well as America and Russia, have fought proxy battles for influence on Syrian soil. Throughout the Arab world the hopeful dreams of a decade ago have been crushed, but nowhere more bloodily than in Syria. She wanted to be called Professor Doctor Engineer, and she found no opposition at the Romanian Academy, since resistance was both futile and dangerous. Those few people who dared to resist her demands were removed from their positions. Forced international "recognition"
The Dictator’s Wife by Freya Berry | Theresa Book Review: The Dictator’s Wife by Freya Berry | Theresa
Ultimately, when an offer from a Washington-based organization did not appear, she was forced to accept the honorary membership from the IAS. She showed her disgust and vehement anti-semitism by claiming that she had to accept a "low-ranked" degree from the hands of a "dirty Jew," Dr. Emanuel Merdinger, then head of the IAS (Pacepa 181).Almost every inch of the country was fought over. Though Bashar recaptured Aleppo, the last of the big cities, in 2016, he kept on dropping bombs: nearly half of Syria’s towns and cities have been reduced to rubble. The UN gave up trying to count the war’s death toll in 2016, when it had already reached nearly half a million. More than 10m Syrians are refugees. Asma’s parents arrived in London in the 1970s in search of better opportunities. The family remained religious in exile: her father attended Friday prayers and her mother discarded her hijab only after Asma married. Friends describe the family as culturally conservative but eager for their children to assimilate. At her local Church of England primary school Asma was known as Emma. “You’d be hard-pressed to recognise her as a Syrian,” a neighbour recalled.
Velvet gloves to iron fists: how complicit are the wives of
Her interest in chemistry arose when she was briefly employed in a laboratory. In her free time, she attended meetings of the Youth Communists' League, where she met her soon-to-be husband Nicolae. She failed nearly every subject that was taught in Romanian schools. Imelda’s quite hard not to like, no matter what you think of her pretty dubious politics. So I did feel an unnerving amount of sympathy, which you have to as a novelist: you can’t just go in with that hardheaded, judgmental approach. I wanted my character, Marija, to be ambiguous, this enchanting spider at the novel’s heart. I wanted you to be a bit seduced by Marija at the same time as being probably a bit repelled or afraid of her.” Dominance in the scientific establishment within Romania was only one step on Elena's path to prestige. She routinely sought international recognition from other scientists. When the Ceausescus traveled abroad for state visits, ceremonies had to be negotiated prior to the trip in which Elena would receive honorary degrees and other rewards for her scientific work. Not a single scientist in either the West or the East ever wondered why she never participated in scientific debates. It was really fascinating. I liked how she used a fictional country but based historical events within it. Very clever! Imelda Marcos talks to the press at the Manila international airport on 10 December 1997. Photograph: Bullit Marquez/APShe cites the recent news of Melania Trump launching a non-fungible token (NFT) – a watercolour depicting her eyes. “She called it ‘an amulet to inspire’ and I thought that was actually a perfect representation of Melania’s time in power because it’s a thing, but it’s not a thing. It’s not something you can touch. It’s a representation, an empty emblem, a hollow image, and that felt like a microcosm of her time as first lady,” explains Berry. Her colleagues saw a different side. On a good day she was “enormously curious” and “amazingly accommodating”, according to a former employee. But another consultant remembered her “princess-like temper. She would shout and vent”. (He resigned after eight months.) “She’s a control freak, a scary person,” said the consultant.
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