The latest addition to my website is Scholastique Mukasonga‘s Sister Deborah. The novel is set in Rwanda when it was a Belgian colony. A ,mission consisting of black Americans comes to a village in Rwanda, with Sister Deborah seemingly the leader. She seems to have the gift of healing and helps many, including Ikirezi, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website isOlga Tokarczuk‘s Empuzjon (Empusium). The novel is set in 1913 in a Magic Mountain-like tuberculosis sanatorium. Our hero is Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a young Polish student of hydroengineering from Lwow now Lviv. We mainly follow Wojnicz and the other denizens of the boarding house where he is staying. Strange things … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vigdis Hjörth‘s Om bare (If Only). Ida Heier is married with two children and a successful playwright. One day at a conference she meets Arnold Bush (short, balding). He is a professor of German. They end up in bed. The rest of the book describes her obsession with … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Olena Stiazhkina‘s Смерть Лева Сесіла (Cecil the Lion Had to Die). In 1986 a group of Ukrainians of German origin in Donetsk decide to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Thälmann by naming a new-born child after him. Two babies are selected, to be called … Read more
The latest addition to my website isAmélie Nothomb‘s L’impossible retour [The Impossible Return]. In this book, Amélie Nothomb returns to Japan, where she had lived earlier in her life, with a female photographer friend, who had won a photography competition with free travel for two as the prize. The friend, Pep, turns out to be … Read more
The latest addition to my website isLydie Salvayre‘s La Vie commune (Everyday Life). This novel tells the story of Suzanne Barette,a widow of thirty-two years who works as a secretary in the office of M. Meyer, a successful marketing manager. A new secretary has been appointed and Suzanne really does not like her – cheap … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Noémi Kiss-Deáki‘s Mary and the Rabbit Dream. Noémi Kiss-Deáki is Finnish but writes in English. This book is set in early eighteenth-century England. It tells the story of the historical Mary Toft. After her fourth miscarriage, while her cervix was still open, enabling rabbit parts to be inserted … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Agnieszka Taborska‘s gnieszka Taborska: Niedokończone życie Phoebe Hicks (The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks). Taborska tells the story of the fictitious Phoebe Hicks, who, is made ill by eating clam fritters in mid-19th century Providence, RI, and turns to spiritualism. While we see the traditional features of spiritualism … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Philippe Sollers‘ Femmes (Women). In this novel, Sollers moved away from his short experimental novel to a long everything novel. It is narrated by an American journalist, Will, who is partially based on Sollers, not least because he is writing a novel called Femmes (Women). Will is happily … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Agustina Bessa-Luís‘ Fanny Owen [Fanny Owen]. The book is set in the mid-nineteenth century. A fairly rich landowner José Augusto de Magalhães becomes friend with an impoverished writer, the very real Camilo Castelo Branco. Camilo has problems – financial, health, political. attempted suicide but José Augusto helps him … Read more