No, she hasn’t but I needed a catchy title that combined the two key literary events of the past couple of weeks and Bob Dylan unmasked definitely seemed like second best. So let’s start with Elena Ferrante. Many people have been very critical about the unmasking of her by Claudio Gatti. Jeanette Winterson, for example, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ivan Vladislavic‘s Double Negative. This is Vladislavic’s most recent novel and, while a fine work, not quite of the same standard of his earlier work. It is divided into three sections, the first set during apartheid in South Africa, the second just after the end of apartheid and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bakhtiyar Ali‘s Ghazalnūs wa bāghakānı̄ khayāl (I Stared at the Night of the City). This is an absolutely brilliant, complex, long, magic realist novel, set in an unnamed Kurdish city but, presumably, the author’s home town of Slemani (Sulaymaniyah) . The basic theme if that kings need poets … Read more
No, this is not a joke. Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2016. A lot of people are really not going to like this but I have always been impressed by Bob Dylan’s lyrics. Whether he is worthy of winning it over other US writers, such as Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Youssef Ziedan‘s عزازيل (Azazeel). This is a brilliant book, set in the fifth century A.D., telling the story of Hypa, an Egyptian Christian monk, who travel around the Middle East (modern Egypt, Syria, Israel and Turkey). Hypa is caught up in the religious disputes between the early Christians … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sara Stridsberg‘s Ode till min familj (Gravity of Love). This is Sara Stridsberg’s first novel translated into English (another one will be published in 2017). Not surprisingly, her work is available in nine other languages. This one is set primarily in the Beckomberga psychiatric hospital, an actual hospital … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Max Aub‘s Campo francés [French Camp]. This is the fourth in Max Aub’s six volume Civil War series, El laberinto mágico (The Magic Labyrinth), though it was the fifth to be published. This one is set primarily in France, starting with the period immediately after the end of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marlen Haushofer‘s Die Mansarde (The Loft). This is Haushofer’s last published novel and a first-class one it is. The unnamed narrator lives in Vienna with her husband, Hubert, and their fifteen-year old daughter, whom they hardly ever see. They have a son who lives on his own. She … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Zadie Smith‘s Swing Time, another superb novel from this author. The unnamed narrator is the daughter of a white man and black woman. She grows up wanting to be a dancer (hence the title) and, with her friend, Tracey, attends dance classes. But their paths diverge. Our narrator … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ramon Saizarbitoria‘s Martutene (Martutene). This is a mammoth (816 pages) Basque novel, that has claims to being the Great Basque Novel. Primarily, it tells the stories of two couples. One couple is Martin, a successful Basque short story writer who is trying to write his first novel, and … Read more