The latest addition to my website is Yōko Ogawa‘s ミーナの行進 (Mina’s Matchbox). Tomoko’s father has died and her mother has to study so Tomoko is sent off to her aunt, her mother’s sister, who is married to a man who runs a successful energy drinks company. She gets on well with all the family, particularly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s Festival (Festival) and El juego de los mundos (Game of the Worlds), both published in one book called Festival Festival is about a film festival celebrating a Belgian film director who is hailed as an original artist though he seems only to have made B-list science … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Négar Djavadi’s Désorientale (Disoriental. The novel is narrated by Kimiâ, an Iranian bisexual living in Paris and, when we first meet her, trying medically assisted reproduction. She tells us about that but, in between, the fill and complex story of her extended family, who were in opposition both … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tchicaya U Tam’si‘s Les Phalènes [The Moths]. This is the third in his trilogy and we follow the same family we met in Les Cancrelats [The Cockroaches]but World War II has finished and things are changing, symbolised by the young women dancing in their Charleston dresses. Prosper is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gauz‘s Debout-Payé (Standing Heavy). Gauz, from the Ivory Coast, had worked as a security guard in Paris and this colourful and witty novel recounts the experience of being a security guard. While this might sound less than interesting, it certainly is not. The novel essentially covers two aspects. … 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 Alisa Ganieva‘s Offended Sensibilities. Unlike her previous books, set in Dagestan, this is set in a provincial Russian city, which is totally corrupt, presumably a microcosm of Russia as a whole. Nikolai gives a lift to a clearly disturbed man but when he is stuck in a pothole, … Read more
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The latest addition to my website is Ivan Vladislavic‘s The Distance. This novel tells the story of two brothers, Branko and Joe, growing up and living as adults in Pretoria. Each tells his version of the story, in alternating sections. They are very different, with Branko as the gregarious, sporty but not very intellectual one … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gamal al-Ghitani‘s ااب التجليات (The Book of Epiphanies), another recommendation from The Untranslated, though I have had a copy of the book for many years. As did the Untranslated, I read the French translation of the book as the English translation is a substantial abridgement. It has not … Read more