The latest addition to my website is Koen Peeters‘ Grote Europese roman [Great European Novel]. This is a tongue-in-cheek novel that may be many things but is not the Great European Novel. Our hero is Robin, working for a Belgian firm n Brussels which makes gadgets (we know no more about it). Robin is in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Colline (Hill of Destiny; later: Hill). This is Giono’s first novel and is rightly considered a classic of French literature. It tells the story of a remote and isolated hamlet in Provence, with only thirteen inhabitants. The oldest inhabitant, a cantankerous old man called Janet, is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juli Zeh‘s Schilf (UK: Dark Matter; US: In Free Fall). This is a novel where theoretical physics meets the detective story. Two theoretical physicists – Oskar and Sebastian – have been firm friends since meeting physics class at university, though the friendship is no longer as strong as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Santiago Gamboa‘s Necrópolis (Necropolis). This is one of the two of his novels that has been translated into English. The narrator, known only as EH, is a Colombian writer just recovering from a long, serious illness, who is invited to a conference held by the International Congress on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Norman Manea‘s Plicul negru (The Black Envelope), the last novel Manea published in Romania before emigrating to the United States. It tells the story of Anatol Dominic Vancea Voinov, better known as Tolea, during the bleak period of in Romanian history in the early 1980s. Tolea has been … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juli Zeh‘s Nullzeit (Decompression). This novel tells the story of a diving instructor, Sven. He has fled Germany, after realising he does not want to be a lawyer, accompanied by his girlfriend, Antje, ten years his junior. For fourteen years, they have now had a successful diving business. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sindiwe Magona‘s Chasing the Tails of My Father’s Cattle. This is a feminist novel, set in a traditional South African village and follows the life of Shumi, who grows up in the village. Her mother dies giving birth to her and, as her father works in the gold … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Austin Clarke‘s The Sun Dances at Easter. This is a story set around a thousand years ago, involving Irish myths and legends and the relationship between pagan Ireland and early Christianity in that country. Orla, the heroine, cannot get pregnant and is advised to visit the Well of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Michal Ajvaz‘s Druhé Město (The Other City). This is a full-blown fantasy tale, telling of the unnamed narrator who discovers that there is another city in Prague, one that lives underground or comes out at night, where the laws of science and everything else that we know have … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Wright Morris‘ The Works of Love. Morris is very much an underrated writer . This is a first-class novel, which does not get the recognition it deserves. It tells the story of Will Brady, from the time his father first sought a wife till Will’s death many years … Read more