The latest addition to my website is Ali Smith‘s Gliff. This is on Ali Smith’s favourite theme – broken Britain. It is set sometime in the future where UVs (Unverifiables), i.e. undesirables are driven out of their home – a red band is painted round a condemned home – and often sent to labour camps. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Margarita Karapanou‘s Ο υπνοβάτης (The Sleepwalker). The novel starts with God clearly unhappy with his creation so he vomits on Maniolis to create a handsome God, since all they worshipped was beauty. We now move to a Greek island, clearly based on Hydra which is full of dissolute … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yōko Ogawa‘s 密やかな結晶 (The Memory Police). The novel is set on a remote island in an unnamed country. The narrator is an unnamed female novelist. The basic theme is that gradually things are disappearing. The Memory Police declare that a thing no longer exists – stamps, jewels, rose … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Patrick Langley‘s Arkady. This is a dystopian novel in a country that is much like Britain. Indeed, it was published five years ago and is looking more prescient today. Two young boys – Jackson and Frank – are on holiday in Spain with their parents. Their mother disappears … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Knut Faldbakken‘s Aftenlandet (Twilight Country). This is a low-key dystopian novel set in Sweetwater (the English name is used in the original Norwegian), in an unnamed industrial country. Things are not going well (but not too badly either). Allan Ung, his young wife Lisa and their four-year old … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Petra Hůlová‘s Stručné dějiny Hnutí (The Movement). This is a feminist dystopian novel. In this New World, men are sent to a institute – in some cases voluntarily but often at the instigation of their spouses or even simply snatched from the streets, where they are retrained – … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sheng Keyi‘s 死亡賦格 (Death Fugue). The novel is set in two fictitious countries – Dayang, clearly based on modern China, and Swan Valley, a seemingly idyllic country that becomes a sort of Brave New World. Our hero Mengliu was a successful poet and got involved in demonstrations against … Read more
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
The latest addition to my website is Juan Cárdenas‘ Ornamento (Ornamental). This is another dystopian novel from Latin America, this one from Colombia. Our unnamed narrator is testing a new drug on four women (it only works on women) and while three sleep through the test but later report a pleasurable sensation, one, known only … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sara Mesa‘s Cuatro por cuatro (Four by Four). This is a somewhat chilling novel. Most of the action takes place in Wybrany College, a mixed-sex boarding school, presumably in Spain. Most of the students come from rich families, though there are some poorer students on scholarships or children … Read more