The latest addition to my website is Peter Stamm‘s Agnes (Agnes). Our unnamed narrator is a Swiss author temporarily lviing in Chicago, where he is writing a book on US luxury trains. He had written fiction but felt he might not be good enough. He meets Agnes, a scientist, in the library and they eventually … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Xita Rubert:‘s Los hechos de Key Biscayne [The Facts About Key Biscayne]. The novel is narrated by a twelve year old Spanish girl. Her parents are separated and she and her brother Nico are living with their decidedly absent-minded professor father in Boston. In the middle of the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is ariama Bâ‘s Une si longue lettre (So Long a Letter). Ramatoulaye Fall is writing to her friend Aissatou. Ramatoulaye’s husband of many years, Modou, (they have twelve children) had taken a second wife, who is a schoolfriend of his daughter. She is, of course devastated but, unlike Aissatou, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lydie Salvayre‘s La Puissance des mouches (The Power of Flies). The unnamed narrator is in prison for murder but who did he murder? In his one-sided discussions with a judge, lawyer, psychiatrist and prison guard we learn that he hated his father who brutalised our narrator and his … Read more
The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s El presidente [The President] The eponymous president (never named) is president of Argentina. He seems to live an entirely solitary life in the Casa Rosada – unmarried with seemingly no contact with staff/colleagues. He goes out at night wandering the streets and is not recognised though … Read more
The latest addition to my website isHaruki Murakami‘s とその不確かな (The City and Its Uncertain Walls). Our unnamed seventeen year old loner hero meets a sixteen year loner girl. She insists that she is just a shadow and her real self is in a strange city which she describes. Late she will disappear and he reluctantly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Solvej Balle‘s (On The Calculation Of Volume 1 Tara Selter and her husband Thomas live in the South of France and run an antiquarian book business from their home. On 17 November Tara travels to Paris to buy books. She spends the night in a hotel. Apart from … Read more
The latest addition to my website isSamantha Harvey‘s Orbital. The novel is set entirely on the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth (sixteen times a day), with a multinational (US, UK Italy Japan, Russia) crew of six. But don’t let that put you off, as it won the 2024 Booker Prize and deservedly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maylis de Kerangal‘s Corniche Kennedy [Kennedy Corniche]. The novel is set in Marseilles, primarily on a platform overlooking Keenedy Corniche and the sea. A group of teenagers go there to sunbathe and hang out but also to jump from various high ledges into the sea. They are joined … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Radwa Ashour‘s ثلاثية غرناطة (Granada Trilogy). This tells the story of an extended Arab family who, at the beginning of the book are living in Granada from the fall of Granada in 1492 to the expulsion of the Arabs just over a century later. At the beginning there … Read more