The Candidates for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature are always an interesting collection and I was glad to note that I have four of them on my site: César Aira, Mia Couto, Duong Thu Huong and Haruki Murakami. I know nothing about the three poets nominated – Edouard Maunick, Ilya Kaminsky and Ghassan Zaqtan, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Xiaolu Guo‘s 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. Though nominally written in English, it was in fact her first novel published in Chinese. However, when it was translated into English, she decided to rewrite the English so it is a sort of newish novel. It tells the story … Read more
I have to confess that we read the Telegraph at the weekend, primarily for the crossword, a Saturday morning treat, Helen Yemm‘s gardening column and, of course, to get a perspective on what the old colonels are thinking this week. We even visited Helen Yemm’s garden when she had an open day a few weeks … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Iván Thays‘ La disciplina de la vanidad [The Discipline of Vanity], a superb Peruvian post-modern novel about writers and writing. The nominal plot is a conference organised by the Spanish Centre for Young Writers. They have invited young authors from all over the Spanish-speaking world to a conference … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jim Crace‘s The Pesthouse. I have long held the view that the United States, a country which has passed from barbarism to decadence without passing through the intervening stage of civilisation (the original quote is attributed to numerous people), will, eventually, when resources run out, collapse into a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Indriði G. Þorsteinsson/Indridii G Thorsteinsson‘s Norðan við stríð (North of War). This novel is based on a little-known episode of World War II, when British troops occupied Iceland in May 1940, to forestall a German invasion. The Icelandic government reluctantly accepted the invasion though maintained their neutrality. The … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Peter Elmore‘s Las pruebas del Fuego [The Trials of Fire]. Elmore has not been translated into English (nor, as far as I can see, any other language), despite the fact that he teaches in the United States. This novel, while certainly enjoyable, is not a great novel, telling … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alberto Chimal‘s La torre y el jardín [The Tower and the Garden]. It has become increasingly apparent to me that much that is interesting in the contemporary novel is being written in Spanish and that Mexico is a key part of this. This novel has been hailed by … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sarah Mkhonza‘s Weeding the Flowerbeds, the first novel from Swaziland on my website Actually, this is a memoir, slightly fictionalised but, frankly, there is very little literature from Swaziland in English. Sarah Mkhonza tells the story of herself and other girls at two boarding schools in Swaziland during … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Xiaolu Guo‘s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers. This is her first book written in English though it is (deliberately) written in bad English. It is a semi-autobiographical account of her own arrival in London and her struggles with the language and the culture. She writes as she … Read more