The latest addition to my website is Yan Ge‘s 异兽志 (Strange Beasts of China). The novel is narrated by a woman novelist and is set in Yong’an. The narrator is a writer and she writes about the strange and imaginary beasts that live in the city. These beasts generally look like humans and share many … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Zsuzsa Selyem‘s Moszkvában esik (It’s Raining in Moscow). This is a series of interrelated stories concerning the Beczásy family, who were driven out of Armenia and settled in what was then Hungary, but in the last century changed hands three times and is now in Romania. Aided by … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Anne Serre‘s Voyage avec Vila-Matas [Journey with Vila-Matas]. This is quirky novel about a woman author, clearly based on Serre herself, attending a literary festival and ruminating/fantasising about Spanish novelist Enrique Vila-Matas. She imagines he is there on her journey and at the festival and thinks about the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Katja Perat‘s Mazohistka (The Masochist). The novel is narrated by Nadezhda von Moser. She was found as a baby, abandoned, in a basket by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the man whom Richard von Krafft-Ebing named masochism after. Sacher-Masoch brought her up but he was neither a good father or … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sara Lidman‘s Regnspiran (The Rain Bird). The novel tells the story of a small Swedish farming community at the very end of the nineteenth century. Egnor, a former womaniser and drinker but now a very devout fifty-year old Christian is married to Hanna. They had been trying for … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marilynne Robinson‘s Jack. This is the fourth book in Robinson’s Gilead series. Unlike the others, none of it takes place in Gilead, Iowa, but is mainly set in St Louis. It goes back in time and tells the story of Jack Boughton and Della Miles, the outcome of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vigdis Hjorth‘s Leve posthornet! (Long Live the Post-Horn). Ellinor, our narrator, is a thirty-five year old woman, who owns a small PR company with Dag and Rolf. She is already going through a bad patch, when she learns that Dag has suddenly quit, without warning. Soon after, he … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Claudia Hernández‘s Roza, tumba, quema (Slash and Burn). This novel is set in El Salvador before, during and after the Salvadoran Civil War. We follow a young woman, who has seen violence as a child and, once the war starts, is threatened with sexual violence. She joins her … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ali Smith‘s Summer. This is the final novel in Ali Smith’s Four Seasons tetralogy and is bang up to date with not only references to Brexit but to the Boris Johnson administration, coronavirus, lockdown and the wearing of masks and also George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. We … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Filomena Embaló‘s Tiara. This is apparently the first novel published by a Guinea-Bissau woman. It tells the story of Tiara, originally from the fictitious country of Porto Belo (presumably based on Guinea-Bissau). Because of a civil war, her family has to flee to Terra Branca (presumably based on … Read more