tmn The latest addition to my website is Johan Bojer‘s Den store hunger (The Great Hunger). Bojer write about the poor and downtrodden. This book is about Peer Holm, the illegitimate son (as was Bojer himself) of a well-to-do army officer). He was farmed out to poor foster-parents in the Lofoten Islands, where the main activity … Read more
Every year around this time, I read only books from one country. As we are hoping to visit Norway for the first time later this year, I have selected this country. Norwegian literature is too vast to give anything more than a relatively brief summary, which I shall do, focussing on authors and works available … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fiona Snyckers‘ Lacuna. J M Coetzee‘s Booker Prize-winning novel Disgrace was controversial, particularly for the scene where Lucy Lurie is raped by three black men. The book was criticised for being racist, showing black men as violent, but also for sexism as Lucy is seen as passive, refusing … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Karen Duve‘s Regenroman (Rain). Leon Ulbricht is an unsuccessful writer when his friend Harry Klaamt gets him the job of writing a biography of Harry’s boss, Benno Pfitzner, a former boxer and current pimp and thug. With the advance, Leon, with his docile but attractive wife Martina, buys … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Andrey Kurkov‘s Смерть постороннего (Death and the Penguin). Yes, it is about a penguin but the penguin is both Viktor’s quirky pet but also a symbol for someone struggling to cope in an alien environment. Viktor is a writer who gets a job writing obituaries in advance of … Read more
A second covid year, and undoubtedly not the last has meant, for me, much less travel and none abroad and much less going out – I cannot remember the last time I went to the cinema, theatre or a pub and while I can remember the last time I went to a football match, it … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juan Andrés Ferreira‘s Mil de fiebre [A Temperature of a Thousand Degrees]. This is a very long novel about two young Uruguayan men who struggle with life. Werner Gómez wants to be a writer and writes huge amounts, including a regular blog, stories, articles and novels but has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Michel Houellebecq‘s Anéantir [Annihilate]. This is a fairly typical Houellebecq novel. It opens in late 2026. There are three main plot lines: a group of terrorists initially sends out some highly sophisticated CGI videos, using a technology not thought possible, and which appear initially on French government sites … Read more
\ The latest addition to my website is Ghazi Algosaibi‘s شقة الحرية (An Apartment Called Freedom). This novel takes place between 1956 and 1961, primarily in Cairo and follows a group of young men, primarily Bahraini, who have gone to Cairo to study. As well as their studies, they pursue other activities. Girls are their … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Muhsin al-Ramli‘s حدائق الرئيةة (The President’s Gardens). The novel tells the stories of three close Iraqi male friends. At the beginning of the novel, in the village where htey live, nine crates are found, containing the severed heads of various villagers, including one of the three friends, Ibrahim. … Read more