Jan Carson : The Fire Starters

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

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya: Нас украли. История преступлений (Kidnapped)

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

Belén Gopegui:Quédate este día y esta noche conmigo ( Stay This Day And Night With Me)

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

Maki Kashimada: 六〇〇〇度の愛 (Love at Six Thousand Degrees)

The latest addition to my website is Maki Kashimada‘s 六〇〇〇度の愛 (Love at Six Thousand Degrees). This is something of a Japanese response to the film Hiroshima mon amour, scripted by Marguerite Duras, about a French woman who has an affair in Hiroshima with a Japanese man whose relatives were killed by the atom bomb. In … Read more

Eugenia Kononenko: Російський сюжет (A Russian Story)

The latest addition to my website is Eugenia Kononenko‘s Російський сюжет (A Russian Story). This is the last in my Ukrainian marathon and, despite the title, certainly one that deals best with the issue of Ukrainianness (the word is used in the book). We follow the story of Eugene (Zhenia) Samarsky. He is named Eugene … Read more

Oksana Zabuzhko: Польові дослідження з українського сексу (Fieldwork In Ukrainian Sex)

The latest addition to my website is Oksana Zabuzhko‘s Польові дослідження з українського сексу (Fieldwork In Ukrainian Sex). Zabuzhko opens this novel all guns blazing and rarely lets up. She has been in a relationship with a fellow Ukrainian but has now broken up with him and she has no hesitation in telling us why. … Read more