The latest addition to my website is Ali Smith‘s There But For The. This is another original novel from Ali Smith, telling the tale of Miles Garth, who is invited to a posh dinner party in Greenwich (London) and subsequently locks himself in the spare bedroom, refusing to come out or to talk to anyone … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sayaka Murata‘s ンビニ人間 (Convenience Store Woman). Murata did and, apparently, still does work in a convenience store. Keiko Furukura has never quite understand social norms since she was a child. When starting university she sees a new convenience store opening up and applies for the job. At the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yūko Tsushima‘s 光の領分 (Territory of Light). Tsushima was the daughter of the writer Osamu Dazai who killed himself when she was one. This novel tells the story of a woman, whom we know only by her married name, who, at the start of the novel has left her … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Scholastique Mukasonga‘s Notre-Dame du Nil (Our Lady of the Nile). The novel tells the story of an elite girls’ school in the highlands of Rwanda. We follow some of the individual girls and teachers, as well as the various events at the school. In particular, the school is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mieko Kawakami‘s ミス・アイスサンドイッチ (Ms Ice Sandwich). This is a charming novel about a ten year old boy, an only child whose father died when he was four, who is struggling with growing up. He takes a fancy to a woman he nicknames Ms Ice Sandwich, who works at … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ali Smith‘s Hotel World. This tells the stories of five women all associated in some way with the Global Hotel, located in an unspecified UK city. The story starts with the ghost of a chambermaid who was killed on the second day on the job when she got … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Triveni‘s ಶರಪಂಜರ (Sharapanjara; Cage of Arrows; The Mad Woman). Triveni was a feminist Indian writer, writing in Kannada. This was one of only two of her novels published in English and was written shortly before she died in childbirth. It tells the story of Kaveri, a good-looking and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nora Ikstena‘s Mātes piens (Soviet Milk). This is a superb novel about three generation of women in Latvia, struggling with the oppressive Soviet system. The narrator, who shares a birth date with the author, struggles with a mother who is a brilliant doctor but a depressive and less … Read more
This weekend we eventually got round to visiting St Ives to see Virginia Woolf An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings at the Tate. Before discussing the exhibition, a few words about Virginia Woolf and St Ives. The Stephen family (Virginia Woolf’s parents, her brother and sister and herself) spent their summer holidays there, in Talland … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mercè Rodoreda‘s La mort i la primavera (Death in Spring). Though Rodoreda wrote this book at around the same time as she wrote La plaça del Diamant (UK: The Pigeon Girl; US: The Time of the Doves), it was not published till after her death. It is now … Read more