With Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries winning the ManBooker Prize, I must apologise to Jim Crace and Ruth Ozeki, as I predicted that Crace would win and Ozeki should win, a curse that doomed both of them. Nevertheless, congratulations to Eleanor Catton. Her novel is a very fine one and I am convinced that she will … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sadriddin Aini‘s Марги судхур (Death of a Money Lender), the first Tajik novel on my website. It is an amusing novel but with a certain seriousness, telling the story of Kori-Ichkamba, a large man, who spends his time cajoling, cheating and avoiding paying for anything at all. He … Read more
Now that the Nobel Prize – congratulations to Alice Munro but, as I almost never read short stories, I am afraid that I have not read her nor do I have plans to do so – and German Book Prize – congratulations to Terézia Mora, whom I hope to read soon – are out of … Read more
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
French writer Christian Gailly died earlier this week. He was part of the Editions de Minuit/minimalist group. Though barely known in the English-speaking world, three of his novels have been translated – The Passion of Martin Fissel-Brandt, Red Haze and An Evening at the Club. I own three of his books (in French), including An … 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
Scientists have now “proved” that reading literary fiction makes you a more feeling person. After reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence, the study says. Even though I am happy to have an excuse for reading literary fiction, I … 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