The latest addition to my website is Vasily Grossman‘s Народ бессмертен (The People Immortal; No Beautiful Nights) . The book had been translated into English in 1945 but this version uses the original manuscript, some of which was censored, often by Grossman himself. It is an account of the relatively early period of the Nazi … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Orhan Pamuk‘s Veba Geceleri (Nights of Plague). This tells the long and complex story of the fictitious Mediterranean island of Mingheria. The story opens in 1901 when Mingheria is part of the failing Ottoman Empire. There has been an outbreak of plague (though denied by the Governor) so … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jorge Enrique Lage‘s La Autopista: The Movie Freeway- La Movie. Set in mid-twenty-first century Havana, this surrealist/absurdist novel recounts the adventures of the unnamed narrator and his friend El Autista (meaning the Autistic Person) around the massive Freeway linking Havana to the USA. The two men have a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Perhat Tursun‘s Chong shähär (The Backstreets). Perhat Turson is probably the foremost Uighur author but sadly has been imprisoned by the Chinese for sixteen years. This is his first book in English and a very fine one it is. It tells of one night in the life of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ian McEwan‘s Lessons. This is McEwan’s longest novel and tells the story of Roland Baines, his friends and family from World War II to the present day, Baines is clearly based in part on Mc Ewan himself but only in part. The basic theme is that we are … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘Montevideo. Our unnamed narrator has written one novel while living in Melilla, turned to drug dealing in Paris and goes back to his writing career in Barcelona before setting off on his travels, particularly to Montevideo, where he explores a hotel, which was the subject of stories … Read more
The latest addition to my website is A. M. Homes‘ The Unfolding. Homes tells two linked stories relating to the Hitchens family. The family is the Big Guy (we never learn his real first name), a very successful and rich businessman, his wife Charlotte, an alcoholic who feels her whole life has just been as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is László Krasznahorkai‘s Aprómunka egy palotaért (Spadework for a Palace) This is a short novel about a New York librarian called herman melvill (sic). He has various obsessions, including the idea that only librarians should be able to visit libraries. He gradually becomes obsessed with his namesake Herman Melville … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb: Le livre des soeurs [The Book of the Sisters]. The book tells of Tristane, born to parents who are more interested in one another than they are in their daughter so she is often left to her own devices. She teaches herself to speak, to read … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ibrahim Al-Koni‘s ـلـيـل فـي حـق الـنـهـار، روايـ (The Night Will Have Its Say). The book is set in the late seventh/early eighth centuries in North Africa during the Umayyad Caliphate. The Ummayyads are aiming to conquer the Berbers to convert them to Islam but the Berbers, under al-Kahina, … Read more