The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s El congreso de literatura (The Literary Conference). This is another totally original story from Aira, using Hollywood B movie tropes (mad scientist, unworldly creatures, advanced technology). The hero/narrator César, a literary translator who has not had much work recently because of the financial crisis, manages to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean-Luc Seigle‘s En vieillissant les hommes pleurent [Men Cry As They Get Older]. It is set primarily in July 1961 and concerns the Chassaing family – Albert, a working class man who works for Michelin but who still feels the shame of the surrender of the French army … Read more
John Dugdale, in the Guardian, has produced an interesting list of writers born in Ukraine but not usually associated with that country . It includes the likes of Gogol, Conrad, Lem, Lispector, Bulgakov and Isaac Babel, who is not on my site as he did not write any novels but who was a brilliant writer. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vladimir Lorchenkov‘s Все там будем (The Good Life Elsewhere). This Moldovan novel is a wickedly funny satire on all things Moldovan. The basic plot concerns a small village of 523 people where all the inhabitants want to emigrate to Italy, as life in their village is very grim, … Read more
We have just returned from a long weekend in Iceland, where we went to see the Northern Lights (yes, we did – twice). It was perfect timing, as the snow was still around enough to make the scenery bleak but beautiful and not too much to prevent us from driving, though it snowed heavily the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rafael Chirbes‘ En la orilla [On the Shore]. This book was generally agreed by Spanish critics to be the best Spanish novel of 2013 and also the best novel on the Spanish economic crisis. As is usual with Chirbes, plot is not key to this book; indeed, there … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eduard Vilde‘s Mäeküla piimamees (Milkman of the Manor). This novel, which has been called Estonia’s first psychological novel, tells the story of an estate owned by a German, Ulrich von Kremer, and one of his tenant farmers, Tōnu Prillup. Prillup’s wife, Leenu, has died, and he has almost … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eric Gamalinda‘s Confessions of a Volcano. It tells the story of Daniel, a thirty-year old Filipino who wins a contest to go to Japan for a month, to do research on an article about Osamu Dazai (see picture at left, taken from the book). However, he also intends … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 痴人の愛 (Naomi). This was Tanizaki’s first full-length novel, written when he had moved away from Yokohama after the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. It tells the story of Joji Kawai, a serious young man with a good job in Tokyo who falls for a young woman … Read more