The Sufferings of the Kurds

I have just posted to my website the first Kurdish novel I have read. Its title, which translates as Sufferings of the People explains the title of this post. Sadly, it is not available in English but only French. I own three other Kurdish novels but, again, they are not available in English, only in … Read more

End of the year lists

I frankly find end of the year lists of best books a little tiresome. Firstly, all too often, authors plug the books of their friends, other authors with the same publisher/agent or authors who plug their books. UK satirical mag Private Eye is good at poking fun at these. Secondly, many of them seem to … Read more

Christa Wolf

Christa Wolf died yesterday.  You can find links to obituaries in both English and German on the Christa Wolf page on my website. She came in for a lot of criticism, firstly because it was discovered that she had worked as a Stasi informer and secondly because she had opposed German reunification. However, it is … Read more