Mircea Cărtărescu: Levantul [The Levant]
The latest addition to my website is Mircea Cărtărescu's Levantul [The Levant]. This is a mock epic, which, in the original Romanian was written primarily in verse form, but, for…
Mario Vargas Llosa: Tiempos recios [Hard Times]
The latest addition to my website is Mario Vargas Llosa's Tiempos recios [Hard Times]. The novel deals with the overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954,…
Rodrigo Fresán: La parte inventada (The Invented Part)
The latest addition to my website is Rodrigo Fresán's La parte inventada (The Invented Part). This is a long, rambling novel, the first of the trilogy, about Fresán's favourite subject…
Miloš Crnjanski: Roman o Londonu [London Novel]
The latest addition to my website is Miloš Crnjanski's Roman o Londonu [London Novel]. This is a long and sad tale, based on Crnjanski's own life, about a Russian prince,…
Nicolás Giacobone: El cuaderno tachado (The Crossed-Out Notebook)
The latest addition to my website is Nicolás Giacobone's El cuaderno tachado (The Crossed-Out Notebook). Giacabone is a scriptwriter so it is not surprising that his first novel tells the…
Eduardo Mendoza: La ciudad de los prodigios (The City of Marvels)
The latest addition to my website is Eduardo Mendoza's La ciudad de los prodigios (The City of Marvels). This is something of an epic novel, following both the story of…
Ian McEwan: The Cockroach
The latest addition to my website is Ian McEwan's The Cockroach, a satire on Brexit. He uses two clever twists in the book. The first is from Kafka's Die Verwandlung…
Patrick Modiano: Rue des Boutiques obscures (Missing Person)
The latest addition to my website is Patrick Modiano's Rue des Boutiques obscures (Missing Person). It tells the story of Guy Roland, a man living in the 1960s who has…
Talasbek Asemkulov: Талтус (Полдень) (A Life at Noon)
The latest addition to my website is Talasbek Asemkulov's Талтус (Полдень) (A Life at Noon). Talasbek Asemkulov is a Kazakh dombra player and has helped to revive the tradition, which…
Romania and Ukraine
I have just returned from a cruise down the Danube, into the Black Sea and up the Dnieper. Though this was not the purpose, there was a lot to see…