The latest addition to my website is Minae Mizumura‘s 本格小説 新潮社 (A True Novel). This book has been very well received both in Japan and elsewhere and, perhaps not surprisingly, had appeared in other European languages before appearing in English earlier this year. It was worth the wait. It is a superb Japanese take on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Michael Ondaatje‘s Anil’s Ghost. This is another superb novel by Ondaatje on war, truth and perspective, this time focussing on the conflict in Sri Lanka, the country of his birth. It tells the story of Anil Tessera, a forensic pathologist and Sri Lankan by birth but who has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Benjamin Markovits‘ Childish Loves, his third novel about Lord Byron. Unlike his previous two, this one mixes in (semi-)autobiographical details with Byron’s story, as we follow the story of an author/teacher called Benjamin Markovits, who receives the manuscripts of two novels about Byron, written by a former friend … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Steven Hall‘s The Raw Shark Texts. I found it a rather contrived novel that did not really work for me. It tells the story of a young Englishman, Eric Sanderson, who has had something of a breakdown – eleven times – since the accidental death in Greece of … Read more
We have just returned from a holiday in Laos and Cambodia, finally seeing Angkor Wat. I have two novels from Cambodia on my site and two from Laos and, though I was given another Cambodian novel in English, it seems unlikely that many more will be added. Though the Khmer Empire was undoubtedly very literate … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Tunc. This is the first of a two-part series and tells of a young inventor, Felix Charlock, who invents something that seems like a spy bug but also involves storing data in a computer and analysing it, all with a slight science fiction touch. He is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juan Francisco Ferré‘s Karnaval, a superb novel about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair. Ferré takes the story of Strauss-Kahn and his alleged rape of an African chambermaid in a luxury New York hotel and makes a wonderful novel about a character called DK (the D standing for dios i.e. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Arnon Grunberg‘s Tirza, finally published in English this year. This is Grunberg’s masterpiece and a first-class piece of writing it is. It tells the story of Jörgen Hofmeester, a publisher’s editor, married and the father of two daughters, Ibi and Tirza. Jörgen drifts through life, as he drifted … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juan Francisco Ferré‘s Providence. Though the book is in Spanish and has not been translated into English, the title is in English as it refers, in part, to the city in Rhode Island, where much of the novel is set. I say in part, as Providence also refers … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Svava Jakobsdóttir‘s Leigjandinn (The Lodger). This is a short but superb satire on the US bases in Iceland, which Jakobsdóttir and the left-wing political party to which she belonged and for which she was a member of parliament was bitterly opposed. It tells the tale of a couple, … Read more