The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Fragments d’un paradis (Fragments of a Paradise). Unusually for Giono, this novel is set not in the beautiful French countryside but at sea. We follow a maritime expedition that sets out in 1940, to escape the problems of civilisation as the captain will continue to remind … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean Portante‘s Projets pour un naufrage prémédité [Projects for a Premeditated Shipwreck]. This novel, from Luxembourg, is strange from the cryptic title to the convoluted plot. The hypersensitive Laure and unfaithful Frédéric, married for ten years, are seemingly splitting up. He thought he was sending her away but … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yōko Ogawa‘s ミーナの行進 (Mina’s Matchbox). Tomoko’s father has died and her mother has to study so Tomoko is sent off to her aunt, her mother’s sister, who is married to a man who runs a successful energy drinks company. She gets on well with all the family, particularly … Read more
The latest addition to my website consists of two novels published in one volume. The first is Daur Nachkebia‘s Берег ночи (The Shore of Night). It is set during the Abkazia-Georgia conflict as well as before and after that conflict. The narrator is Beslan who fought in the conflict and he haas been given the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ghazaleh Alizadeh‘s خانه ادریسیها (The House of The Edrisis (Volume 1). The novel is set in what we know as Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan, but it had been part of Persia and is now (1910s) part of Russia. The Edrisis are a decaying family living in a large … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mathieu Belezi‘s Attaquer la terre et le soleil [Attacking the Earth and the Sun]. This tells the story of a group of French people who are persuaded to go to Algeria and help colonise it, soon after the French had seized the country. Both from the point of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Scholastique Mukasonga‘s Sister Deborah. The novel is set in Rwanda when it was a Belgian colony. A ,mission consisting of black Americans comes to a village in Rwanda, with Sister Deborah seemingly the leader. She seems to have the gift of healing and helps many, including Ikirezi, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website isYuri Herrera‘s La estación del pantano (Season of the Swamp). Future Mexican president Benito Juárez was exiled by president Antonio López de Santa Anna. Juárez and his companions end up in New Orleans. It is 1853. We know tthey were there for eighteen months but we know nothing of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Paolo Giordano‘s Tasmania (Tasmania). Our narrator, called Paolo Giordano, is a science journalist. He is worried about private issues – particularly his marriage, not least because his wife cannot get pregnant but also worldwide issues, such as climate change and terrorism but others as well. He is unsure … Read more
The latest addition to my website isOlga Tokarczuk‘s Empuzjon (Empusium). The novel is set in 1913 in a Magic Mountain-like tuberculosis sanatorium. Our hero is Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a young Polish student of hydroengineering from Lwow now Lviv. We mainly follow Wojnicz and the other denizens of the boarding house where he is staying. Strange things … Read more