The latest addition to my website is Paek Nam-nyong‘s 벗 (Friend). This is the first North Korean novel on my site. Moreover, it is not novel by a dissident North Korean but by a North Korean writer who is a member of the Party and well-respected within the country. We follow Judge Jeong Jin Wu … Read more
The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s Fulgentius. The eponymous hero of this book is a sixty-seven year old Roman general. He is setting out on his latest campaign – he has already been on over a hundred – this one to Pannonia (Eastern Europe). One thing distinguishes him from most generals. When … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sony Labou Tansi‘s La vie et demie (Life and a Half). This is a fable, bitterly attacking African dictators and their brutality and is presumably based, at least in part, on Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of what was then Zaire. Thr novel starts brutally as the Providential Guide, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Andrés Barba‘s República luminosa (A Luminous Republic). The novel is set in an unnamed Latin American country. Our unnamed narrator has recently taken over the social service department in a small town, by the jungle, with the task of helping the indigenous community. Gradually he and the people … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Russell Celyn Jone‘ Ten Seconds From The Sun. The novel is narrated by Ray Greenland a river boat pilot, happily married to Lily with two children. However, Ray Greenland is really Mark Swain, who was convicted of a brutal murder when he was twelve. He served his time, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Janos Szekely‘s Kísértés (Temptation). This is a sad tale of Béla, a Hungarian born out of wedlock in the early 1920s – his father has disappeared – and brought up in a rural area by a cruel foster woman while his mother tries to earn her living in … Read more