Claudio Magris: Un altro mare (A Different Sea)

The latest addition to my website is Claudio Magris‘ Un altro mare (A Different Sea). This novel tells the story of the very real Enrico Mreule. He is friends with two other young men, including the philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter, in Gorizia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The three friends spend their time discussing philosophy … Read more

Jean Stafford: The Mountain Lion

The latest addition to my website is Jean Stafford‘s The Mountain Lion, a semi-autobiographical novel with the two main characters, brother and sister Roger and Molly Fawcett, being based on Stafford and her brother Dick, who were very close, as are Ralph and Molly. The Fawcetts live in California. Mr. Fawcett is dead but his … Read more

Cherchez la femme

Here is another interesting article on that perennial issue of (lack of) women in translation. I am as guilty as the next man on this. I note that, of the seventy-eight books I have read so far this year, twenty-one are by women, i.e. 27%. That figure is quite high by my normal standards. In … Read more

Joyce Cary: To Be a Pilgrim

The latest addition to my website is Joyce Cary‘s To Be a Pilgrim. This is the second in the trilogy, which started with Herself Surprised. This one tells the story of Tom Wilcher, last of his generation of Wilchers, an old man with heart problems. It is set just before World War II, as he … Read more