The latest addition to my website is Fernando Contreras Castro‘s Cierto azul (Blue Note). This novel is narrated by a cat, but don’t let that put you off. Freddie Freeloader (named after a track on Miles Davis‘ Kind of Blue) has a jazz sextet in a San José-like. He finds a blind boy, lost and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ali Smith‘s Summer. This is the final novel in Ali Smith’s Four Seasons tetralogy and is bang up to date with not only references to Brexit but to the Boris Johnson administration, coronavirus, lockdown and the wearing of masks and also George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. We … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rafał Wojasiński‘s Olanda (Olanda). We follow the stories of a group of mainly elderly people in a fairly remote Polish village. Most of them are fairly lost souls, detached from God and religion and, indeed, often from other people, including their spouse and children, drifting along. If they … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Filomena Embaló‘s Tiara. This is apparently the first novel published by a Guinea-Bissau woman. It tells the story of Tiara, originally from the fictitious country of Porto Belo (presumably based on Guinea-Bissau). Because of a civil war, her family has to flee to Terra Branca (presumably based on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yun Ko-eun‘s 밤의 여행자들 (The Disaster Tourist). Yona works for Jungle, a Korean disaster tourism company. When she has problems at work with her boss, she is sent to evaluate a project in Mui, Vietnam, which seems disappointing. However, on the return journey, she gets separated from her … Read more