The latest addition to my website is Boris Poplavsky‘s Домой с небес (Homeward from Heaven). This is a follow-up to his earlier Аполлон Безобразов (Apollon Bezobrazov) and, indeed, features the devilish character Apollon Bezobrazov, who appears to assist our hero, Oleg, when things are not going well. Oleg is a Russian exile living in Paris … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bakhtiyar Ali‘s Henarî Dunya (The Last Pomegranate Tree In The World). This is another superb novel from Bakhtiyar Ali telling the story of Muzafar-i Subhdam who had been captured while fighting Saddam Hussein and kept imprisoned in a remote desert prison for 21 years, unaware that Saddam has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Laurent Mauvignier‘s Histoires de la nuit (The Birthday Party). The book is set in a small French hamlet called Three Lone Girls. There are three houses: one empty, one inhabited by Christine, an elderly artist and the third inhabited by Patrice Bergogne, his wife, Marion and their daughter, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Almudena Sánchez‘ s Fármaco (Pharmakon). This is about Almudena Sánchez’s struggle with depression, which hit her in her early thirties. Unlike other novels/memoirs on depression, this is not a realist account of the depression. Rather it is a writer writing about her depression rather than a depressive giving … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Angelos Terzakis‘ Ταξίδι με τον Έσπερο [Travelling with Hesperus]. It tells the story of Glaukos, a sixteen year old rGreek boy who has lost both his parents and lives with an aunt in Belgium. The pair are visiting the family estate in Greece. Initially Glaukos goes for walks … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Daniele Mencarelli‘s Tutto chiede salvezza (Everything Calls For Salvation). This is an autobiographical novel about seven days Mencarelli spent in a mental institution in 1994.He was bipolar and had a breakdown, smashing his house up and causing his father to collapse. We follow his seven days and that … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sergei Lebedev‘s Год кометы (The Year of the Comet). Our unnamed hero is born in the later days of the Soviet Union and the book is essentially about what it was like during that period. The first part looks more backwards, particularly as his grandmothers dote on him … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ahmed Taibaoui‘s اختفاء السيد لا أحد The Disappearance of Mr. Nobody). Set in Algeria, the novel is divided into two linked parts. In the first apart, we meet the eponymous Mr Nobody. He had almost been executed as a teenager during the Algerian Civil War but had been … Read more