The latest addition to my website is Colm Tóibín‘s The Testament of Mary. I have generally not enjoyed Tóibín’s work and this was no exception. Indeed, I only read it because it was on the Man Booker shortlist. It is the testament of the Virgin Mary, writing long after her son’s death, speaking not as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is NoViolet Bulawayo‘s We Need New Names. Narrated by a ten-year old girl, Darling, in Zimbabwe, this novel recounts, on the one hand, the grim situation in Zimbabwe as as seen by Darling, and how people, particularly the children survived, and, on the other hand, the cultural differences that … Read more
The latest additions to my website are the two novels by Jhumpa Lahiri. The first is The Namesake, a novel which has deservedly received much acclaim and has been made into a successful film. It deals with the issue of names, identity and cultural differences. Gogol Ganguli is so named because, thanks to a book … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s The Black Book. This was Durrell’s first novel, written when he was twenty-two and published in France when he was twenty-four (it was considered too obscene to be published unexpurgated in England). It has some of the hallmarks of a first novel by a twenty-two year … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Arnon Grunberg‘s Figuranten (Silent Extras). Grunberg tells the story of three young people – two Dutch men and and an Argentinian woman – who want to make it in the world but struggle to do so. They have ambitions to become film or theatre stars but only get … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Georges Ngal‘s L’Errance [Wandering]. This is a follow-up to his Giambatista Viko ou Le Viol du discours africain [Giambatista Viko or the Rape of African Discourse]. Like its predecessor, it is both a mockery of current views of African culture, particularly by Africans, as well as proposals for … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thomas Pynchon‘s Bleeding Edge. This novel continues with Pynchon’s obsession with conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies. It is set at the turn of the millennium, so includes conspiracies about 9/11 and, as you can imagine, it is not Al-Qaida who gets the blame. It tells the story of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mario Vargas Llosa‘s El héroe discreto [The Discreet Hero]. This is his latest novel, which has yet to be translated into English, though will undoubtedly appear in English before long. Amazingly, it is already out in German. It is not one of his great works but one of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Clemens Meyer‘s Im Stein [In Stone]. This book has been much discussed in Germany for its controversial depiction of a fictitious East German city, focussing on the underbelly of the city. The key element is prostitution and Meyer gives us a vivid description of the prostitutes themselves, their … Read more
The latest additions to my website are two books by Ruth Ozeki. The first is My Year of Meats, a very witty and somewhat polemic attack on various things – sexism, racism, the US obsession with guns and, in particular, the meat industry. It tells two stories of two women in parallel. The first, clearly … Read more