Vol. 1 / Issue 1
Une revue littéraire et culturelle bilingue
Vol. 2 / Issue 2
Award winning author Kathryn Brown Ramsperger is back with words as exquisite as they are wise.
With A Thousand Flying Things, Ramsperger brings back Qasim and Dianna, the two main characters introduced in the author’s previous book, The Shores Of Our Souls.
Here again, the romantic dance continues; a dance of love; circumstance, and the impact cultural idiosyncrasies have on humans and the perception they hold about themselves.
Dianna, a Christian working as a humanitarian teaching boys in war-torn Sudan, loves Qasim, a Lebanese of Muslim faith. It’s been ten years since they last saw one another, and with A Thousand Flying Things, the author unties their story, bringing forth a strong message: to risk and leap is essential to our capacity to believe—not the other way around. And so, to jump or not to jump, becomes the question, one that still plagues women’s contemporary existence. Leave a part of yourself, however small, for a man? Leave your country for his? And what of one’s professional purpose? Questions Ramsperger artfully unpacks.
The author tells a love story reminiscent of Bergman’s “Scenes From a Marriage” in that she successfully creates an atmosphere that easily transports the reader into the character’s thoughts. Through tone, soft and constant, she lulls the reader into many well-paced and crafted moments—all believable, relatable too. For the reader, not much is escapable; the dialogues ring true, making the couple's universe compelling, their intimacy palpable.
Ramsperger looks at the perils of working in war-zones, the danger of attaching excessively to those in need—the bleeding of the professional into the personal life. The reader will understand that humanitarian workers might never know if their presence; their words; their teachings, have amounted to more than a moment that will disappear in the dust of a country’s soil, whatever the country. We can hear them asking: Have I made a difference? Was it worth it? Was it a mistake? Will they remember me?
At the end of the book, Ramsperger shares her thoughts on how these stories—The Shores Of Our Souls, A Thousand Flying Things—came to be—about why they had to be written. It is poignant. Make sure to read this section as it will add a unique take on your understanding of the story.
A Thousand Flying Things is a beautiful love story. Something the world will always be in need of.
Kathryn’s second novel, A Thousand Flying Things, which was a Faulkner Wisdom Literary finalist, is represented by Diane Nine of Nine Speakers, in Washington, DC.
Writing from a global perspective, Kathryn Ramsperger’s themes are universal yet intensely personal and authentic, touching on multicultural relationships, social justice, immigration, and the humanitarian world. Her literary voice is rooted in the Southern tradition of storytelling and is informed by her South Carolina lineage.
She began her career writing for The Roanoke Times and The Gazette newspapers and later managed publications for the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva, Switzerland, around fifty books a year in four languages. She worked for The National Geographic Society as both researcher and writer and has contributed articles to many publications, including Kiplinger and several online magazines. She's written for non-profits and non-governmental organizations, everything from The Washington Ballet to The World Bank.