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 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 Ghazaleh Alizadeh‘s خانه ادریسیها (The House of The Edrisis (Volume 1). The novel is set in what we know as Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan, but it had been part of Persia and is now (1910s) part of Russia. The Edrisis are a decaying family living in a large … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Scholastique Mukasonga‘s Sister Deborah. The novel is set in Rwanda when it was a Belgian colony. A ,mission consisting of black Americans comes to a village in Rwanda, with Sister Deborah seemingly the leader. She seems to have the gift of healing and helps many, including Ikirezi, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website isOlga Tokarczuk‘s Empuzjon (Empusium). The novel is set in 1913 in a Magic Mountain-like tuberculosis sanatorium. Our hero is Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a young Polish student of hydroengineering from Lwow now Lviv. We mainly follow Wojnicz and the other denizens of the boarding house where he is staying. Strange things … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vigdis Hjörth‘s Om bare (If Only). Ida Heier is married with two children and a successful playwright. One day at a conference she meets Arnold Bush (short, balding). He is a professor of German. They end up in bed. The rest of the book describes her obsession with … Read more