The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Psychopompe [ Psychopomp]. Yes, psychopomp is a word ( literally the guide of souls. They are creatures, spirits, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. This is a (semi-)autobiographical novel and tells of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yōko Ogawa‘s 余白の愛 [Love at the Margin]. Our unnamed heroine/narrator has suddenly had serious hearing problems . We learn later that her husband had left her the day before. From her room in the F clinic, she can see an old hotel and, two later, she will be … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eva Švankmajerová‘s Jeskyně Baradla (Baradla Cave). This novel was first published in samizdat in 1981 and was only published in book form in 1995, after the fall of communism. It is a surrealist novel by a woman known more as poet and artist than novelist but it works … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fausta Cialente‘s Ballata Levantina (The Levantines). This novel tells the story of well-to-do European expatriates (primarily but certainly not exclusively Italian) living in Egypt (primarily Alexandria) from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Our heroine is Daniela. Her grandmother, Francesca, had been a successful dancer … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Oksana Lutsyshyna‘s Іван і Феба (Ivan and Phoebe). This novel primarily tells the story of Ivan but, to a lesser degree, of Phoebe, who will become Ivan’s wife during the course of the book. We follow Ivan from the early days of the break-up of the Soviet Union … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jan Carson ‘s The Fire Starters. This novel is set in Belfast sixteen years after The Troubles. The local authorities have restricted the heights of the traditional Eleventh Night tall bonfires to below thirty feet. However an arsonist has been starting fires above thirty feet on public buildings, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Caroline Lamarche‘s La Chienne de Naha [The Bitch of Naha] . The book opens with a tale from the Triqui people (in Mexico) about a bitch (i.e. a female dog) who changes into a woman and is exploited by a man. The book tells of an unnamed narrator … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kai Aareleid‘s Linnade põletamine (Burning Cities). The book goes from 19141 to 2013 and essentially follows Tiina and those she is in contact with. We meet her mother, Liise, in her wedding dress in the rain, as her husband has hurried off to join up. She is rescued … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lyudmila Petrushevskaya‘s Нас украли. История преступлений (Kidnapped). Petrushevskaya is best-known for her weird/dark tales and though this is a novel it takes the form of several tales within tales within tales… We start with a man, Sergei Sertsov, who made his fortune (illegally) after the fall of his … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Belén Gopegui‘s Quédate este día y esta noche conmigo ( Stay This Day And Night With Me). This is a novel about Google. We start with a Google intern receiving a non-standard job application. It is 50, 000 words, on paper, not submitted digitally and submitted by two … Read more