The latest addition to my website is Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles‘s El síndrome de Lisboa (The Lisbon Syndrome). The novel is set in Caracas, Venezuela, where repression by the authorities is at its height. One day, Lisbon disappears and we eventually find out it might have been hit by an asteroid. Meanwhile, our hero Fernando, whose … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Miklós Szentkuthy‘s Prae (Prae Part 2). This is the second part of Szentkuthy’s monumental novel, the first part having been reviewed previously. Like the first part it is long and very complicated, with key themes – love/lust, loneliness, religion, morals and coping with life, examined in a decidedly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Markiyan Kamysh‘s Оформляндія або прогулянка в Зону (Stalking the Atomic City). Markiyan Kamysh is a stalker, which means he enters Chernobyl illegally and wanders round exploring, regardless of the dangers of radiation, wild animals, snow drifts and the police. He has faced all four and survived. Why does … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hermann Bürger‘s Brenner Part 1 Brunsleben (Brenner), This is the semi-autobiographical story of Hermann Arbogast Brenner, a man who has failed at most things but is now writing a diary as he is dying of cancer. Bürger himself took his own life three days after the book was … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Prae ( Prae Part 1). Miklós Szentkuthy published this novel in 1934 and it has never been translated into any other language (apart from one chapter in French) till now. This is the first part, a mere 950 pages in length. My review of the second part will … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yuri Felsen‘s Обман (Deceit). This novel was first published in 1930 and is one of three surviving novels by Felsen, others being lost after he was sent to Auschwitz and murdered, and the first to appear in English. It is written in the form of a diary by … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ulrike Almut Sandig‘s Monster wie wir (Monsters Like Us). The novel is narrated by Ruth, now a successful violinist to her almost invisible (in this novel) Finnish boyfriend Voitto. Ruth grew up in East Germany where she met Viktor at school and the two became friends. However, they … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Manuel Astur‘s San: el libro de los milagros (Of Saints and Miracles). Marcelino, a naive young man living in Asturias, a remote rural part of Spain, is cheated out of his farm by his conniving brother (who takes after their drunken, violent father). He kills his brother and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hiroko Oyamada‘s 工場 (The Factory)>. We follow the stories of three employees as they go to work at the Factory and are still there, in the same jobs, fifteen years later. Their jobs seem mundane – one shreds documents one proofreads and one is meant to be developing … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rachael McGill‘s Fair Trade Heroin. Gwen is an aid worker in Afghanistan in the 1990s, just as the Taliban are taking over. While other aid agencies are moving out, Gwen wants to help the people of a village and, in particular, the women, by offering them alternative employment … Read more