Lize Spit: Melting
I read and reviewed Lize Spit/‘s The Melting four years ago (in German). It has since been translated into various languages but will be appearing in English – finally! – this week. I can highly recommend it.
tmn
Raül Garrigasait: Els estranys (The Others)
The latest addition to my website is Raül Garrigasait‘s Els estranys (The Others). The narrator is to translate the memoirs of Felix Lichnowsky, a Prussian army officer who fought in the Carlist wars in the mid nineteenth century. In his research, he come across the papers of Rudolf von Wielemann who was also there. Von … Read more
Brian Keogh: Le Fanu’s Angel
The latest addition to my website is Brian Keogh‘s Le Fanu’s Angel. Our hero is Kiran Sheridan Le Fanu, who may be related to the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu. At the beginning of he book, he has been involved in a serious car crash. His boss, the driver, has been killed and he is … Read more
Ashraf El-Ashmawi: اال>سيدة الزمالك، (The Lady of Zamalek)
The latest addition to my website is Ashraf El-Ashmawi‘s اال>سيدة الزمالك، (The Lady of Zamalek). This novel covers Egypt from the beginning of World War II to almost the end of the twentieth century, focussing on Abbas Mahalawi, a young Egyptian, who, initially, looks as though he is going be a young man made good … Read more
Wolfgang Hilbig: Alte Abdeckerei (Old Rendering Plant)
The latest addition to my website is Wolfgang Hilbig‘s Hilbig: Alte Abdeckerei. This is a short novel, set in what was East Germany, in a fairly remote area. Our unnamed narrator, first as a boy and then as an adult,explores the blighted landscape not far from his home. He discovers a foul-smelling stream but also … Read more
Maria Stepanova: Памяти памяти (In Memory of Memory)
The latest addition to my website is Maria Stepanova‘s Памяти памяти (In Memory of Memory). This is a superb documentary novel, narrated by the author but written, in some respects, like a novel. She deals with the many aspects of memory, the past and history as well as delving into her own past and the … Read more
Maceo Montoya: Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces
The latest addition to my website is Maceo Montoya‘s Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces. It tells the story of an unnamed Chicano narrator. However, it is a gentle spoof of the conventional Chicano story as not only do we read the autobiography of the (probably unreliable) narrator, we also read the comments of one of … Read more
Agustín Fernández Mallo: Trilogía de la guerra (The Things We’ve Seen)
The latest addition to my website is Agustín Fernández Mallo‘s Trilogía de la guerra (The Things We’ve Seen). As the Spanish title tells us this is a three-part novel, but published in a single volume in English. It is a novel in the style of W G Sebald. The first part is about a writer … Read more
Iliazd: Восхищение (Rapture)
The latest addition to my website is Iliazd‘s Восхищение (Rapture). Iliazd was a futurist and surrealist so, though this is seemingly a conventional adventure story, featuring a bandit, it has surrealist touches, as well as influences from Central Asia myth, legend and culture, it also somewhat subverts the conventional adventure story. The hero is Laurence, … Read more
Llorenç Villalonga: Andrea Víctrix (Andrea Víctrix)
The latest addition to my website is Llorenç Villalonga‘s Andrea Víctrix (Andrea Víctrix). This is a dystopian novel set in Palma de Mallorca but now called Turclub. Our unnamed narrator has himself frozen, aged sixty, in 1965 and wakes up in 2050, aged thirty. The first person he meets is the eponymous Andrea Victrix who, … Read more