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
The latest addition to my website isCarlos Paradona Rufino Roque‘s Tchanaze, a donzela de Sena (Tchanaze (Beauty and the Beads) . Tchanaze is the most beautiful young woman in the region in Mozambique, coveted by all the men. Mbemba, however, is inflicted with n’fucua which means that the men are not interested. The area seems … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hassouna Mosbahi‘s النهر مرتين»، دار الآداب، (We Never Swim in the Same River Twice). This book tells the stories of three friends in Tunisia during the failed Arab Spring. Omran is an intellectual who has moved to France (primarily for political reasons) but comes back to Tunisia to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vigdis Hjörth‘s Om bare (If Only). Ida Heier is married with two children and a successful playwright. One day at a conference she meets Arnold Bush (short, balding). He is a professor of German. They end up in bed. The rest of the book describes her obsession with … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Olena Stiazhkina‘s Смерть Лева Сесіла (Cecil the Lion Had to Die). In 1986 a group of Ukrainians of German origin in Donetsk decide to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Thälmann by naming a new-born child after him. Two babies are selected, to be called … Read more