Jim Crace: Harvest

The latest addition to my website is Jim Crace‘s Harvest. Crace has said that this is his final novel. It is an excellent novel, telling the story of an unnamed (not only by the author but by the characters) village somewhere in England, at the time of the enclosure of the common land. At the … Read more

Reviving the dead in literature

I have to confess that we read the Telegraph at the weekend, primarily for the crossword, a Saturday morning treat, Helen Yemm‘s gardening column and, of course, to get a perspective on what the old colonels are thinking this week. We even visited Helen Yemm’s garden when she had an open day a few weeks … Read more

Iván Thays: La disciplina de la vanidad [The Discipline of Vanity]

The latest addition to my website is Iván Thays‘ La disciplina de la vanidad [The Discipline of Vanity], a superb Peruvian post-modern novel about writers and writing. The nominal plot is a conference organised by the Spanish Centre for Young Writers. They have invited young authors from all over the Spanish-speaking world to a conference … Read more

Jim Crace: The Pesthouse

The latest addition to my website is Jim Crace‘s The Pesthouse. I have long held the view that the United States, a country which has passed from barbarism to decadence without passing through the intervening stage of civilisation (the original quote is attributed to numerous people), will, eventually, when resources run out, collapse into a … Read more

Indriði G. Þorsteinsson: Norðan við stríð (North of War)

The latest addition to my website is Indriði G. Þorsteinsson/Indridii G Thorsteinsson‘s Norðan við stríð (North of War). This novel is based on a little-known episode of World War II, when British troops occupied Iceland in May 1940, to forestall a German invasion. The Icelandic government reluctantly accepted the invasion though maintained their neutrality. The … Read more

Sarah Mkhonza: Weeding the Flowerbeds

The latest addition to my website is Sarah Mkhonza‘s Weeding the Flowerbeds, the first novel from Swaziland on my website Actually, this is a memoir, slightly fictionalised but, frankly, there is very little literature from Swaziland in English. Sarah Mkhonza tells the story of herself and other girls at two boarding schools in Swaziland during … Read more