The latest addition to my website is Boualem Sansal‘s Harraga (Harraga). Surprisingly enough for an Algerian novel novel this has been published in English and by a fairly mainstream publisher at that. It tells the story of Lamia, an unmarried thirty-five year old Algerian doctor, who lives on her own in the family house. One … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Clemens J. Setz‘s Indigo (Indigo). The book is about a mysterious syndrome called Indigo, whereby children who have the syndrome cause those near them to suffer various, often serious ailments, while they themselves remain unaffected. We follow the story of a writer called Clemens J Setz who taught … Read more
Every year at around this time, publishers in France and francophone Belgium issue a large of numbers of books in all genres, including those originally written in French and those translated from other languages into French. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, to get them into place and into the shops for the Christmas … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kate Roberts‘ Traed Mewn Cyffion (Feet in Chains). Kate Roberts was one of the foremost Welsh-language novelists and this is her first full-length novel. Like Roberts’ father, Ifan Gruffydd works in a slate quarry. At the beginning of the novel, in 1880, he has just married Jane. They … Read more
The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s La villa (Shantytown). This is another highly original work from Aira, with a very complicated plot involving a boy from a wealthy family, who is not very bright but is very strong, helping scavengers from a nearby shantytown collect rubbish, with a view to selling anything … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jaan Kross‘ Kolme katku vahel; Balthasar Russowi 2 (Between Three Plagues: A People Without a Past). This is the second volume of a four-volume historical novel set in sixteenth century Estonia and recounting the life of Balthasar Russow, the Estonian chronicler of the era. We left him in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jaan Kross‘ Kolme katku vahel; Balthasar Russowi 1 (Betweeen Three Plagues: The Ropewalker). This is the first in a series of four novels Kross wrote between 1970 and 1980, telling the tale of Balthasar Russow, an Estonian man who wrote a celebrated chronicle of Estonian history. This book … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Magda Szabó‘s Katalin utca (Katalin Street). This is a new translation (September 2017) replacing the one from 2005. It tells the story of three families who had lived in nice houses on Katalin Street, before World War II but, at the start of the book, are living in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vasil Bykaŭ‘s Альпийская баллада (Alpine Ballad). This is a new translation, from the original Belarusian, a distinct improvement on the previous translation from the (censored) Russian. It tells the story of two people – the Belarusian Ivan and the Italian communist, Giulia – who escape from a prisoner-of-war … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lars Mytting‘s Svøm med dem som drukner (The Sixteen Trees of the Somme). This is a very well-told tale by the author of the definitive guide to wood-chopping, Norwegian Wood. Edvard Hirifjell lives with his grandfather on a remote farm in Norway. His parents died when he was … Read more