The latest addition to my website is Xiaolu Guo‘s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers. This is her first book written in English though it is (deliberately) written in bad English. It is a semi-autobiographical account of her own arrival in London and her struggles with the language and the culture. She writes as she … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rim Kin‘s សូផាត (Sophat), the first Cambodian novel published. It is a straightforward novel of love and loss. Sophat is born to an orphan woman, Soya, and her lover, the rich official, Suon. Suon abandons Soya when given an opportunity to return to Phnom Penh and while she … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Chantal Fraïsse‘s La bèstia de totas las colors [The Beast of All Colours], written in Occitan. This was prompted by my visit to Provence in May where I found bookshops, such as one called the Librairie de Provence, did not actually stock any books in Provençal/Occitan. On returning … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Joanna Scott‘s Arrogance, another superb novel by Scott, this one being about the Austrian artist Egon Schiele, who died aged twenty-eight during the influenza pandemic at the end of World War I. Schiele was not a man to observe conventional morality and was in trouble with local communities … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Xiaolu Guo‘s 我心中的石头镇 (Village of Stone). She is one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. This novel was the last of several that she wrote in Chinese and the only one of those that has been translated into English. Her subsequent novels have been written in English. It … Read more
The latest addition to my website is François Mauriac‘s La Fin de la nuit (The End of the Night). This is a follow-up to his Thérèse Desqueyroux (Therese; later: Therese Desqueyroux), written eight years earlier. In his introduction, Mauriac makes it clear he wanted to continue the story of Thérèse. It is now fifteen years … Read more
The latest addition to my website is A. M. Homes‘ Jack, her first novel. It is certainly an enjoyable novel, though the humour is not nearly as black as her recent prize-winning May We Be Forgiven. Jack, the hero/narrator, is a fifteen-year old boy, whose parents get divorced and who subsequently discovers that the reason … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marcu Biancarelli‘s Pegasi astru virtuali (51 Pegasi, astre virtuel) [51 Pegasi, Virtual Star], the first Corsican novel on my site. Frankly, it is not a very good novel. The narrator, Marco, is a writer/professor, who has left Corsica for ten years and, when he returns, Corsica has become … Read more
I do not subscribe to many magazines but one I read avidly is La Quinzaine littéraire. It has been edited and published by the first-class publisher, Maurice Nadeau, since 1966. It is currently facing financial difficulties and Nadeau has been fighting to save it. Sadly he died yesterday, aged 102, fighting for his magazine till … Read more
The latest addition to my website is David Szalay‘s The Innocent. Szalay is another of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. This novel is written from the perspective of a committed MGB (precursor to the KGB) agent, Aleksandr, who Szalay cleverly makes us think of as a reasonable person, despite his firm commitment to the Soviet … Read more