The latest addition to my website is Vera Mutafchieva‘s Случаят Джем (The Case of Cem). After the sudden death of Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conqueror, his two sons vie for the throne. The elder son, Bayezid wins and his younger half-brother Cem Sultan is driven into exile. The story, narrated by a series … Read more
The latest addition to my website is German Sadulaev‘s Я — чеченец! (I am a Chechen!). As the title tells us, this book is written by a Chechen. A lot of the book focusses on the Chechen wars with Russia, though our hero did not participate too much in them, not least because he was … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mia Couto‘s Mulheres de Cinzas (Woman of the Ashes). This is the first book in a trilogy about Portugal’s colonisation of the part of Africa that came to be Mozambique, at the end of the nineteenth century. We follow a village, Nkokolani, inhabited by the Chopi people. They … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Miquel de Palol‘s El jardí dels set crepuscles (The Garden of Seven Twilights). This is the first novel by the major Catalan writer to appear in English and it was well worth the wait. It is set in the near future, when nuclear war is taking place globally. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vasyl Shevchuk‘s Побратими, або Пригоди двох запорожців на суходолі, в морі та під водою (Blood Brothers). This novel is set in the seventeenth century and tells of the Zaporozhian Cossacks attempt to free themselves from the Poles as well as from the Tatars and Turks. Our hero is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Oleg Shynkarenko‘s Кагарлик (Kaharlyk). the book was originally on Facebook before being published as a book. It tells of the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (written before the recent illegal invasion) and is set sometime (possibly seventy years) in the future. Ukraine is now substantially depopulated … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bakhtiyar Ali‘s Henarî Dunya (The Last Pomegranate Tree In The World). This is another superb novel from Bakhtiyar Ali telling the story of Muzafar-i Subhdam who had been captured while fighting Saddam Hussein and kept imprisoned in a remote desert prison for 21 years, unaware that Saddam has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sonallah Ibrahim‘s العمامة والقبعة (The Turban and the Hat). The novel takes place during the French occupation of Egypt from 1798 to 1801. The historical figure Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti wrote the only surviving account of the occupation from the Egyptian point of view. In this novel, the unnamed … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Daša Drndić‘s Canzone di guerra. Our narrator is Tea Radan, a Croatian single mother who has emigrated to Çanada. In a series of sketches, she describes her life, bringing up a daughter as an émigré in Canada (of which she is very critical) but also a whole range … Read more
Latest on my website: Jens Bjørneboe‘s Frihetens øyeblikk (Moment of Freedom) This is a thoroughly grim account by a forty-six year old Norwegian, living in a remote Alpine part of Germany called Heiligenberg, who cannot remember his own name. He works in a menial position for a court and is writing a History of Bestiality … Read more