tmn My current reading is novels from countries that have yet to appear on my website. Of the three I have read this past weekend, the Cambodian, Vaddey Ratner‘s In the Shadow of the Banyan, is by far the best. I came across it when doing some research for a family member who is going off … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Liam O’Flaherty‘s Famine, a harrowing account of the Great Irish Famine of the mid-1840s, which resulted in at least one million deaths and that number or more emigrating, primarily to the United States. There have been several excellent historical books on the subject and the complete failure of … Read more
In my previous post on this topic, I said that I would say more in a subsequent post about my own failings in this area. However, I first want to look at other literary blogs. There are loads of wonderful literary blogs out there but I have picked a few favourite ones – you will … Read more
I am continuing my reading of Spanish-language novels. The latest addition to my website is Andrés Neuman‘s El viajero del siglo (Traveller of the Century) though, unlike the previous two, it has been translated into English and well reviewed. Though I did enjoy it, I don’t think it quite lived up to the reputation it … Read more
Last week, The Guardian published an article about six British women writers who had a huge influence on British publishing. The print edition had the headline The game changers on the front page of its Review section, with the sub-heading How women dominated publishing this year and, inside, the headline Doing it for themselves (a … Read more
The two latest books to appear on my website are Salvador Benesdra‘s El traductor [The Translator] and Rafael Chirbes‘ La larga marcha [The Long March]. Sadly, neither is available in English. El traductor [The Translator] was only published after Benesdra killed himself in 1996 and then only by a small publisher, with a subsidy from … Read more
Having just done Sicilian literature, I thought that this might be a good time to turn to Italian literature as whole, not least because it is cold, wet and miserable and outside and this will remind me of sunny Italian skies. I learned Italian for one major reason – to read Dante in the original. … Read more
I have just come back from a week in Sicily, in the shadow of Mount Etna (see photo at left) so this seemed like a good time to have a look at Sicily’s contribution to Italian literature. There are various well-known Italian writers that you might have not been aware that were, in fact, Sicilian, … Read more
In my last post, I talked about the books I hadn’t read either because it was difficult to get hold of them or because they were not available in a language I can readily read. There used to be a dinner party game – it may well still exist – where you had to name … Read more
One of the many joys of the Internet is the ability to find out about all the many books that you have not read and, in many cases, will never be able to read. Yesterday, for example, I was looking at a post on contemporary Venezuelan literature (the post is fortunately in both English and … Read more