The latest addition to my website is Goran Petrović‘s Код срећне руке (At the Lucky Hand). This is a clever story which is, on the face of it, a fairly conventional love story (or, rather, several love stories) but with two variants. Characters find that, when they are reading a book, they are not only … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alex Pheby‘s Mordew. This is a very original dark fantasy novel, part Dickens, part Peake, all Pheby. While it has some of the usual themes – good versus evil, rich versus poor, betrayal and dirty deeds – Pheby is a thoroughly original writer, telling his story well, both … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Les aérostats [Airships]. Ange, a nineteen-year old university student in Brussels gets a job teaching a sixteen-year old boy who is allegedly dyslexic (he isn’t) and who needs helps with his French studies. The pay is generous but the father is controlling. However, while the boy … Read more
Latest on my website: Sándor Márai‘s Sándor Márai. The story starts when Giacomo Casanova has just made his famous escape from prison in Venice. As the title tell us, he arrives in Bolzano. He is wearing rags. However, he manages to hustle money and credit, tries (not terribly successfully) to seduce the chambermaid and attracts … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tomás González‘s La luz difícil (Difficult Light). It is narrated by David, a Colombian painter. While he and his family, were living in New York, his son, Jacobo had a terrible car accident, leaving him in permanent and agonising pain. Jacobo decides that he cannot go on living … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Claudia Hernández‘s Roza, tumba, quema (Slash and Burn). This novel is set in El Salvador before, during and after the Salvadoran Civil War. We follow a young woman, who has seen violence as a child and, once the war starts, is threatened with sexual violence. She joins her … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Joseph Roth‘s Hotel Savoy (Hotel Savoy). It tells the story of Gabriel Dan who, in 1919, is returning from three years in a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia. The novel is set entirely in the now Polish town of Łódź which is facing something of an upheaval – loss … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bernard Prou‘s Alexis Vassilkov ou la vie tumultueuse du fils de Maupassant [Alexis Vassilkov or the Tumultuous Life of the Son of Maupassant]. This is a complicated story involving the (fictitious) son of French writer Guy de Maupassant and his mother, a Russian woman who models for Renoir … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antonio Moresco‘s Gli Esordi [The Beginnings]. One of my favourite blogs was The Untranslated which sadly retired (though the old posts are still accessible and Andrei continues to tweet as @TheUntranslated). Andrei reviewed a number of fascinating books which, as the title of his blog suggests, have not … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yuri Rytkheu‘s Сон в начале тумана (A Dream in Polar Fog). Rytkheu is from Chukotka, the far north-eastern part of Russia. The novel opens in 1910. A ship is trapped in the ice and they try to use explosives to free themselves. John MacLennan, a Canadian, is injured … Read more