tmn The latest addition to my website is Herta Müller‘s Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt (The Passport). This short novel tells the story of a small German community left in Romania after World War II. The main character is Windisch, the miller. He is eager to get a passport to emigrate to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Herta Müller‘s Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (The Appointment). This is a grim tale of life in Communist Romania. The narrator is on her second marriage, married to Paul, an alcoholic, who works in an engineering factory. She works in a clothing factory, a job she … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gerald Murnane‘s A Lifetime on Clouds. This book, Murnane’s second novel, is, quite simply, about the masturbatory fantasies of an Australian teenager living in the poorer part of Melbourne in the 1950s. Adrian Sherd lives with his parents and two younger brothers. About four times a week, he … Read more
Kamila Shamsie has written what she calls a provocative article, about gender bias in publishing. I have dealt with this issue before – here, here and here. It has also, of course, been discussed in many other places. I do not know what prompted Shamsie to write her article now but it may well have … Read more
I spent last week in Budapest but was somewhat disappointed with the literary offerings. I asked around and found only only literary house/museum – the Petőfi Literary Museum, devoted to the poet Sándor Petőfi. Sándor Petőfi lived in the early nineteenth century, became a famous poet (actually making his living from poetry) and has since … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gerald Murnane‘s Barley Patch. This is a superb work from one of Australia’s foremost novelists about the art of fiction. The anonymous narrator insists that it is a work of fiction but much of the book is about writing fiction and, in particular, about how images affect both … Read more
The latest addition to my website is James Barke‘s Major Operation. Barke is a Scottish novelist who has sadly disappeared from view, though Canongate did reissue his Land of the Leal. This novel is set in Depression-era Glasgow and is overtly left-wing. We follow the tale of some ship workers who lose their jobs when … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Irenosen Okojie‘s Butterfly Fish. This is a very accomplished and colourful debut novel by a Nigerian-born English writer. It tells the story of Joy Lowon, an English woman of Nigerian origin, while, at the same time, the story of Adeusa, eighth wife of the ruler of Benin (nothing … Read more
There is a bit of a furore going on at the moment following Janet Maslin’s Cool Books for Hot Summer Days, her summer reading recommendations in the New York Times. (I have often wondered why there should be special beach reading lists. Why can’t you just read the same books you read the rest of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yuri Andrukhovych‘s Перверзія (Perverzion). This is a wonderful post-modern romp, telling the story of what may be the last week in the life of Stakh Perfetsky, poet, dandy, trickster, performer, traveller and, of course, lover. He is giving a speech at a conference in Venice called The Postcarnival … Read more