The latest addition to my website is Boualem Sansal‘s Rue Darwin. This is a superb work by Sansal which tells the story of Yazid, an Algerian, the same age as Sansal, who takes his mother to Paris to die (of cancer) and where she can see her other children, Yazid being the only one still … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ricardo Piglia‘s La ciudad ausente (The Absent City). This is a complex novel – a detective story, a political novel, a Joycean extravaganza, a Bildungsroman and a city novel, set during Argentina’s dirty war but concerned not only with the struggle against the brutal government but with two … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Zigmunds Skujiņš‘ Vīrietis labākajos gados (A Man in His Prime). This is one of two novels written by Skujiņš translated into English from Latvian. This one was published by the Soviet publishers Progress and is long since out of print and difficult to obtain. It tells the story … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dumitru Tsepeneag‘s La belle Roumaine (La Belle Roumaine). This is another totally anarchic and gloriously funny novel from Tsepeneag. The eponymous beautiful Romanian woman is Ana or maybe she is Anne or Aneta or Anette or Hannah. She might be a doctor or a nurse or she might … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Javier Marías‘ Berta Isla. This is, in my view, by far his masterpiece. It tells the story of Tomás, half-English, half-Spanish, with a gift for languages and the eponymous Berta Isla. They meet and fall in love in Madrid. Tomás goes to university in Oxford, while Berta stays … Read more
There is no reason why you would have noticed but yesterday this blog and my main website switched from http to https. If you are a user, your links, bookmarks, etc will still work with http (you will be automatically redirected). Many of you will be aware that many sites that need security – financial … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Robert Walser‘s Der Spaziergang (The Walk). This simply tells the story of a writer out for a walk in a provincial Swiss town. However, as the writer is based on Walser, he is not averse to giving his opinion on all and sundry, 1000 lashes for those cutting … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Frappe-toi le coeur [Strike Your Heart], her latest annual novel. This is something of a change from her normal style, as it is a damning indictment of two mothers, for both neglecting and spoiling their children, with dire consequences. The heroine is Diane, whose mother Marie … Read more
The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s La liebre (The Hare). If you know and love Aira, as I do, you will know what to expect: the Southern plains of Argentina, strange adventures, philosophical discussion, things not being what they seem, fantasy/magic realism. This novel is set in the nineteenth century and involves … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kate Roberts‘ Y Byw Sy’n Cysgu (The Living Sleep; later: The Awakening). This is a feminist novel, telling the story of Lora Ffennig, who learns one day that her husband has left her, stolen her nest egg and stolen from his employer, and run off with a another … Read more