Page 27 - IFV Issue 5 July 2025

Book Reviews

The Warrior
BY CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

An intimate, original biography of
tennis legend Rafael Nadal, and
the first to cover his entire career.
After his award-winning look at
Roger Federer, Christopher Clarey,
one of the world’s pre-eminent
tennis writers, focuses his lens on
Nadal, the Spanish force of nature.
When he arrived on the scene in
2005, the record for men’s singles
titles at the French Open stood at
six. Nadal more than doubled that
total to a mind-blowing fourteen
titles: one of the greatest sporting
achievements in history.
Nadal won big and won often
on all of tennis’s surfaces: securing
The Girl with the Suitcase
two Wimbledon titles on grass and interviews over twenty years with Nadal,
BY LESLEY PEARSE
six on the US Open and Australian his team and rivals like Roger Federer and
Open hard courts. But clay, the Novak Djokovic. Brimming with behind-
When Mary meets a glamorous grittiest of the game’s playgrounds, the-scenes insight, The Warrior tells the
stranger named Elizabeth, she is where it all came together best story of a global sporting icon, interlacing
realises their lives couldn’t be more for his whipping forehand and man and place in a unique, must-read
different. Elizabeth is beautiful warrior mindset. account of the evolution of excellence.
and charming, about to set off on Clarey, who has covered Nadal
a dazzling adventure to Ireland, since he was seventeen, draws on Price: R485.00
where she’s inherited a grand house.
Mary, shy and meek, has nothing to
look forward to but the dreary life of By Any Other Name
a maid in Hampstead.
But when an air raid forces them BY JODI PICOULT
to take shelter underground, Mary’s Emilia Bassano is allowed no voice of
life is suddenly changed forever. her own but finds a way to secretly
After waking up in the hospital, bring her work to the stage. Yet by
injured but alive, the nurse mistakes paying a man for the use of his name,
her for Elizabeth and hands over her she will write her own out of history.
suitcase with Elizabeth’s money and His name? William Shakespeare.
tickets to Ireland inside. Present-day Manhattan. Young
This is Mary’s chance to escape playwright Melina Green is
the hardship of her life and start determined to see one of her shows
afresh.
make the stage, but it appears a
woman’s voice is still worth less than
Price: R380.00
a man’s. So inspired by the life of her
ancestor Emilia Bassano, she takes
a lesson from history and submits a
play under a male pseudonym . . .
Women have long been written
out of history, but have they held the
pen all along? Price: R275.00

The Villager • July 2025 • 25