The latest addition to my website is Nuruddin Farah‘s Sweet and Sour Milk, another grim tale from Somalia. Soyaan is feeling decidedly unwell and, by the end of the chapter, is dead. Has he been poisoned and, if so, by whom? The family, not wishing to make a fuss and also because Muslims bury their … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Bartleby y compañía (Bartleby & Co.). This is perhaps more literary criticism than a novel. It is narrated by a man called Marcelo who wrote a novel twenty-five years ago and has not written anything since. His new work is to be about writers he calls … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alain Mabanckou‘s Les Petits-fils nègres de Vercingétorix [The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix]. I found this novel somewhat disappointing, as it is a bit disjointed and seems to be telling one story but never manages to get on with it. It is about the civil war and its effect … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sophie Cooke‘s The Glass House. She did not make the Granta Best Young British Novelists list but I think that she should have done, as this novel is definitely better than some of the ones I read by those who did make the list. This novel tells the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lucia Etxebarría‘s Un milagro en equilibrio [A Miracle in the Balance]. This tells the story of Eva Agulló, a Spanish woman who, early in the novel, has given birth to a baby, Amanda, and recounts her life to that date. When young she had done lots of sex, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Leonid Girshovich‘s Прайс [Preis]. This novel is set in the fictitious town of Ijma, somewhere in Siberia, during the 1950s. It had originally been inhabited by a native population but Stalin had sent many Jews there, during the period when he considered all Jews automatically as dissidents. But … Read more
This is a lively account of the exploits of the Russian commander, Vasily Chapaev, a historical person who fought and was killed in the Russian Civil War, fighting against the Whites under Alexander Kolchak. The story is told by Furmanov, who appears in the book as Fyodor Klichkov, Chapaev’s political commissar during the campaign. Klichkov/Furmanov … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Benedict Erofeev‘s Москва — Петушки (UK: Moscow Circles; US: Moscow to the End of the Line). This is a hilarious satire about a man, called Benny Erofeev, who is trying to get to Petushki (about 70 kilometres from Moscow) to visit his girlfriend for their regular Friday visit. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Elena Chizhova‘s Время женщин (The Time of Women). This is story set in Soviet-era Leningrad, telling the story of Suzanna, a child who does not speak till she is seven but is yet intelligent and educated. Her mother, Antonina, who works in a factory, had had a very … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fyodor Sologub‘s Творимая легенда (The Created Legend), a trilogy of novels which is concerned with both the upheavals in Russia at the time of the 1905 Revolution as well as having several fantasy elements. The first book (Капли крови (Drops of Blood)) tells of Trirodov, a somewhat larger … Read more