The latest addition to my website is Sebastijan Pregelj‘s V Elvisovi sobi (In Elvis’s Room). This is definitely a book of two halves. It starts as a Bildungsroman, telling the story of Jan, initially a young boy in Yugoslavia, living in Ljubljana in the 980s. We follow all the issues of his growing-up but, at … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Stella Gaitano‘s رواح إدو (Edo’s Souls).This is the story of South Sudan, with the background being the upheavals that led to South Sudan breaking away from Sudan, something that affects most of the protagonists. Edo had the misfortune to lose nine of her ten children before their first … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ventura Ametller‘s Summa kaòtica (Summa Kaotica). This is one of the great Catalan novels, which has finally made it into English. It is set in Poel, based on Amettler’s hometown of Pals. It starts both with the birth of the Second Spanish Republic, founded in 1931, as well … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antonio Soler‘s El nombre que ahora digo (Soldiers in the Fog). The novel is set in the Spanish Civil War and follows the story of Gustavo Sintora. He had fled, like many others, from his hometown of Malaga, as Franco approached and after a few adventures ends up … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Najwa Barakat‘s مستر نون (Mister N). Mister N is a failed Lebanese writer who currently lives in a hotel, rarely leaving it. We gradually learn his story – horrors of the Lebanese Civil War, a mother he hated as she much preferred his older brother, Sa’id, now a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Almudena Grandes‘ El corazón helado (The Frozen Heart). This is a long and complicated novel set mainly in the present but very much looking back to the Spanish Civil War. We follow the stories of two related families, one primarily Francoist and one primarily Republican, and their respective … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vladimir Sharov‘s Будьте как дети (Be As Children) . This is the third of Sharov’s novels to be translated into English and, in my view, the best. There are three main stories (and several sub-stories): the story of a noble woman who becomes a a Holy Fool, a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maryse Condé‘s En attendant la montée des eaux (Waiting for the Waters to Rise). We follow the story of Babakar, a doctor, son of a Malian father and Guadeloupean mother. He is born in Mali, educated in Montreal, returns to Africa (a fictitious country, a neighbour of Mali) … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rosa Maria Arquimbau‘s Quaranta anys perduts (Forty Lost Years). The novel tells the story of Laura Vidal, a Barcelona woman, from Francesc Macià declaring Catalan independence (14 April 1931) to 1971. She becomes a dressmaker and does reasonably well. However, the vicissitudes of life in Catalonia affect her, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Faysal Khartash‘s دوار الموت ما بين حلب والرقة (Roundabout of Death). The novel is set in the worst part of the Battle of Aleppo in 2012. Our hero, Jumaa, an Arabic teacher, his family and frirneds are trying to survive the horrors of thew war, which include regular … Read more