Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
Fairlight Books Mother Sea
Book SynopsisOn a remote Indian Ocean island, with the seas rising and the birth rate plummeting, climate scientist Sisi is working hard to protect her home. But her resolve founders when she finds herself widowed and unexpectedly pregnant. With her community under threat, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child.
£9.49
Fairlight Books Mother Sea
Book SynopsisIn an island community facing extinction, can hope rise stronger than grief? Sisi de Mathilde lives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean. With the seas rising, the birth rate plummeting and her community under threat, she works as a scientist, reporting on local climate conditions to help protect her island home. But her life is thrown into turmoil when she finds herself newly widowed and unexpectedly pregnant. When a group of outsiders arrive and try to persuade her community to abandon the island, Sisi is caught between the sacred 'old ways' of her ancestors and the possibilities offered by the outside world. As tensions rise and the islanders turn on one another, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child.Trade Review'Lyrical, moving, and at times haunting, Mother Sea proves that Wilson is an author to watch out for. The prose drew me in immediately, and I found it hard to tear my eyes away, reading well into the night. This is a book I will be thinking about for a long time. Just brilliant!' -Awais Khan, author of 'No Honour'; 'With prose as vivid and colourful as a sunset, Wilson paints a tale that is both timeless and intensely topical. I was mesmerised and moved by the unfolding story and I have never read anything where climate change is felt so corporeally - it affects our environment, but also our bodies, our children' -Maria Turtschaninoff, author of the 'Red Abbey Chronicles' and 'Inherited Land'; 'Complex, rich and beautifully crafted' -Claire North, author of 'The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August'; 'Wilson's novel is rooted in a deep sense of place, beautifully evoking the history and magic of Scotland. A fantasy-tinged story about the hole grief makes, complicated family relationships, and the road to healing' -A.C. Wise author of 'Wendy, Darling' on 'The Way the Light Bends'; 'Wilson's prose moves at a relaxed pace - sticky, sweet and abundant' -The Daily Telegraph
£13.49
The Book Guild Ltd The Epilogue Event
Book SynopsisDramatic, detailed, and romantic.' Megan Bradbury, author of Everyone is Watching.2010. The end of the world has begun, but no one is paying attention. People are unaware of the breaking pandemic, code name, The Epilogue Event.Accidentally finding himself at centre stage, an unlikely and unwilling hero Peter Finch, must, if he is to survive, awaken powers he has been trying to forget for over thirty years. And time is not on his side. A mysterious Artificial Intelligence, the cause of the plague, is slowly gaining control over everyone Peter loves and everything he values.On the streets of West London, the most powerful slave of a New Order, Dr Gordon Langley, is projecting a terrifying message. Unless Peter, aided by a band of misfits and criminals, can confront Langley, and his accomplices at a research facility near Norwich, and discover the meaning of the virus and reverse it, their world will be overcome and those permitted to surv
£9.49
Fairlight Books Temper
Book Synopsis'There's a gap where my sense of place should be. It's quite a useful one sometimes. It allows me to sit on the cusp of an opinion.' Following a move to the Netherlands, a young woman dissects the developments of her new life: awkward exchanges with the people she meets, days spent alone freelancing in her apartment, her confrontation with boredom and unease. In her newfound isolation, she develops an unusual friendship with Colette, a woman she neither likes nor can keep away from. As her feelings of dislocation grow, larger anxieties about her purpose - or lack of it - begin to encroach. And underneath it all, a burgeoning frustration bubbles. Intimate, incisive and brilliantly observed, Temper explores loneliness, self-worth and disconnection with head-nodding accuracy.Trade Review'Temper explores loneliness, alienation and transience in lucid, gorgeous prose. Walker's observations on the nature of work and the hollowness of modern life are stark and brilliant; a must-read for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider' -Jessica Andrews, author of 'Saltwater' and 'Milk Teeth'; 'An intimate portrait of a young woman dislocated and adrift, Temper is at once subtle and full of force, deeply relatable and coolly unfamiliar' -Chloe Ashby, author of 'Wet Paint'; 'Phoebe Walker's prose is subtle, incisive, and rich in dark surprises. In Temper, she provides an unsettling and highly intimate account of loneliness, disconnection and malignant relationships. This is a quietly devastating debut' -Naomi Booth, author of 'Exit Management' and 'Animals at Night';
£10.44
Fairlight Books The Redemption of Isobel Farrar
Book SynopsisEngland, 1926. Lady Isobel Farrar, an ageing widow with a colourful past, has returned home after years of living abroad. As she moves back into Halcyon Hill, her beloved country house, she finds herself dwelling on a long-buried secret. In the wake of a terrible tragedy when she was young, Isobel gave up a child for adoption, and now she can't help but wonder what became of him. Life has not been kind to Frank Brodie. Cruelly mistreated by his adoptive parents, he spent his young adulthood struggling to survive on the harsh streets of London, before the Great War took him away to the trenches. Now he has found safety with Arthur, an older man who loves and protects him. But something is still missing from Frank's life. When mother and son are finally reunited, will they be able to lay the past to rest?Trade Review'A beautiful tale of love, and family - a magnificent read by a truly fine storyteller' -Ami Rao, author of 'David and Ameena' and 'Boundary Road'; 'An absorbing read from start to finish. Well plotted and beautifully narrated. Heartwarming' -Melanie Levensohn, author of 'A Jewish Girl in Paris'; 'Clark writes with intelligence, warmth, bravery and wit' -Sue Townsend, author of the 'Adrian Mole' series
£8.54
And Other Stories The ThinkingAboutGladys Machine
Book SynopsisLevrero's writing is distinguished by its bounteous imagination, and nowhere more so than in this 1970 story collection. From the Escher-like grammatical maze of The Boarding House' to the Lewis Carroll-esque The Basement', this book explores uncanny domestic spaces, using the structures of the stories themselves as tools for re-inventing narrative possibility.
£13.49
Amaurea Press Keepers of the House
Book SynopsisA new edition of the best-selling, award-winning first book.When the Beltrán brothers came to this Andean valley, they found behind barred windows beautiful twin sisters - last in the line of an illustrious conquistador. Through them the Beltrán dynasty was born - a dynasty that ruled the valley for 200 years and was now returning to the dust.Two centuries later, Lydia Sinclair was scarcely out of school when she fell in love with Don Diego Beltrán and left England behind for her husband's Andean estate. Benito, the family's oldest retainer, said that through her the valley would not be forgotten: 'Fate has brought you here to us, to chronicle our decline.'In the night's stillness he told her of romance and battle, drought and pestilence, splendour and suffering.The characters in the valley's tumultuous history rose up before Lydia as if they still roamed the dusty slopes: Admiral Silence who enjoyed no one's company so decided never to speak again; General Mario who prophesied the ruin of their valley as he decayed from leprosy behind a mask; María Candelaria whose beauty and wildness caused the massacre of nearly half of the Beltráns; La Comadre Matilide, the peasant woman of striking ugliness whom people bribed to stay in their houses because her departure left a sense of ill omen; the aged sisters who sat amidst hoards of china and gambled at cards for their every move. Finally there was Cristóbal Beltrán, who sifted the sand in the hourglass, ageless and all-knowing and indestructable.Out of the upheaval and decay come a narrative and language astonishing in their fertility. This new edition accompanies the publication of Lisa's new memoir, Better Broken Than New.Trade Review"A genuine and haunting and unforgettable work of art. It is this novel's triumph to be consistently exhilarating, never less than a pleasure to read." - Standard"Has something of Márquez's power of depicting in microcosm the cruelties and catastrophes, the endemic corruption, and the feudal relationship with death and the supernatural that characterises South American life." -- New Statesman"Richly evocative and cunningly crafted." - Observer"This is an account - particularly gripping because of the quality of the writing and the esoteric setting - of a strong-willed young woman's education by experience." -- Times Literary Supplement
£10.36
Amaurea Press The Bay of Silence
Book SynopsisA new edition of the best-selling fourth novel.It all appears innocent enough: a handsome couple in their thirties - she an actress, he a successful graphic designer - revisiting Sestri Levante on the Italian Riviera where they once spent their honeymoon. But it is not at all innocent. The couple have been driven here by paranoia - by a slow dread of what will happen to the two of them and to their daughters if anyone finds out about their baby Amadeo, whose identity, and even whose existence, is at the heart of the schizophrenic illness from which Rosalind has long suffered. Two people hiding the world from each other, Rosalind and William cannot escape the chilling truth that lies at the centre of Lisa St Aubin de Terán's compelling novel.The resort of Sestri Levante has twin, Janus-facing bays: one which Hans Christian Andersen called the Bay of Fairytales and another which the local people have long called the Bay of Silence. It is to the Bay of Silence that Rosalind now retraces her steps - to the spot where she first encountered the exotic golden stranger Angelo who was to play such a seductive and haunting role on her honeymoon and in her marriage. Both she and her husband independently try to make sense of the tragic events which have engulfed their lives. They each try to analyse the pressure placed on their marriage - which has allowed distressing events to be forgotten and self-delusion to herald the unthinkable.In her fourth novel, Lisa St Aubin de Terán creates an atmosphere which is profoundly unsettling. She weaves an escalating story of tension and human drama, combining the depth of character analysis which was so admired in The Tiger, with a striking new sense of pace and menace.Lisa St Aubin de Terán is the prize-winning Anglo-Guyanese London-born author of 20 books, including novels, short stories and nonfiction. Much of her writing draws on her varied life experiences. And time warps, rural communities, isolation and grace under pressure are still the dominant themes in both her life and work.Trade Review"She has the surrealist's gift for making the mundane exotic." -- Financial Times"Combines a powerful sense of place with an unusually compassionate understanding of human complexity." -- Daily Telegraph
£10.36
Orenda Books The Descent
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd Rinsing Mukamis Soul
Book SynopsisAn incisive novel laying bare the contradictory societal response to gender, sex and redemption. Rinsing Mukami''s Soul looks at revenge as a powerful tool for reclamation when young Mukami''s carefully ordered life is cruelly thrust into scandal.Njambi McGrath, award winning author of Through the Leopard''s Gaze, delivers this stunning debut novel examining the validity of fury as response when a young Kenyan girl''s mistakes in first love are ruthlessly held against her by a paternalistic society.Mukami is a young scholarship student at a prestigious boarding school. She has a clear path ahead of her, but a deceptive smile, a school expulsion and an impossible pregnancy see her well ordered life hurtling towards complete and utter disarray.Facing disappointment from her family and finding that innocence is not a strong enough place from which to mount a defence, she declares revenge. This charged novel asks us to question why girls and women a
£17.09
Headline Publishing Group Impossible
Book SynopsisOne morning, high in the Dolomite mountains, two hikers are some distance apart. The path in places is narrow and perilous. One man falls to his death. The other sounds the alarm. But these men are not strangers. Members of the same revolutionary group forty years earlier, the first had betrayed the second, who must now hold his own against a young magistrate intent upon having him tried for murder.Was their meeting an improbable encounter, or an impossible coincidence?Impossible is a brilliant hymn to the lure of the mountains, an engrossing illumination of political brotherhood, and also the subtlest of detective stories.
£10.44
Orenda Books Toxic
Book SynopsisShamed schoolteacher, Mathilde, moves to a dairy farm in the Norwegian countryside for an ‘easier life’, but she’s soon up to her old tricks … upending and unsettling the lives of two reclusive farmers. Exquisitely written, razor-sharp and simmering with an unexpected tension, Toxic marks the return of one of Norway’s finest writers… 'Flatland has the gift that I most often covet in the work of other writers: the ability to make everyday events compelling … how the quietest existence can brim with urgency and drama' Ann Morgan ‘Helga Flatland writes with elegance and subtle humour' Daily Express ‘The author has been dubbed the Norwegian Anne Tyler and for good reason’ Good Housekeeping –––––––––––&ndas
£9.49
Parthian Books The Dark Philosophers
Book SynopsisSex, murder, and a devastating, humour mark these three novellas that Gwyn Thomas wrote in 1946. In Oscar, the narrator of death and exploitation fails to fend off the evil that envelops him. InSimeon, the abuse of sexual and family power ends with violent death, and in The Dark Philosophers itself, the grimly humorous philosophers gather in an Italian café to tell the tragic tale of revenge and manslaughter that they engineer.
£9.49
Whitefox Publishing Ltd We Will Be Forest
Book SynopsisA universal recipe for when life feels barren. A botanical tale of closeness and caring.Anna is mourning the end of her marriage when she runs into Maria by chance at her mother''s gallery in Milan. When Maria suddenly collapses and is taken to hospital, the pair''s lives are irrevocably changed.Over the course of the long, dry summer that follows, the pair come together to convalesce. Maria, an avid gardener, observes half-dead plants on Anna''s terrace, and finds solace in teaching Anna how to care for them. In doing so, the pair also begin to care for each other''s loneliness, and find in the natural world a deeply restorative power one that will open them up to new love and life.InWe Will Be Forest, Ilaria Bernardini draws on a private affair illness, the end of a marriage, a child to protect to bring to life a powerful poetic universe in which words sprout like branches and leaves.
£10.44
Parthian Books QUEER SQUARE MILE: Queer Short Stories from Wales
Book SynopsisThe first anthology of its kind in Wales, which finally sheds light on a largely hidden queer cultural history with the careful selection of over 40 short stories (1837-2018) including work by John Sam Jones, Sian James, Rhys Davies, Deborah Kay Davies, Aled Islwyn, and Kate North. New translations of Kate Roberts, Mihangel Morgan, Jane Edwards, Pennar Davies and Dylan Huw make available their compelling stories for the first time to a non-Welsh speaking readership. An accessible but scholarly introduction places the writers and their stories in their historical and literary contexts. In these stories gender refuses to be fixed: a dashing travelling companion is not quite who he seems in the intimate darkness of a mail coach, a girl on the cusp of adulthood gamely takes her father's place as head of the house, and an actor and patron are caught up in dangerous game-playing. In the more fantastical tales there are talking rats, flirtations with fascism, and escape from a post-virus 'utopia'. These are stories of sexual awakening, coming out and redefining one's place in the world. Release and a certain heady license may be found in the distant cities of Europe or north Africa, but the stories are for the most part located in familiar Welsh settings - a schoolroom, a provincial town, a mining village, a tourist resort, a sacred island. The intensity of desire, whether overt, playful, or coded, makes this a rich and often surprising collection that reimagines what being queer and Welsh has meant in different times and places.Trade Review"An impressive book " Nation.Cymru; "Successfully anthologises a queer Welsh canon" Wales Arts Review
£17.00
Parthian Books The Volunteers
Book SynopsisA compelling thriller, The Volunteers is also an engrossing reminder of the conflict between moral choice and political loyalty, for through his obsessive pursuit of justice Redfern finally encounters the truth about himself.
£9.49
Honno Ltd Dancing on Knives
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£9.49
Jantar Publishing Ltd Birds of Verhovina
Book SynopsisThe reader arrives in Adam Bodor's world, the periphery of civilization, at the break of dawn. Adam, the foster son of Brigadier Anatol Korkodus is waiting at the dilapidated station for a boy who is arriving from a reformatory. Soon afterwards, Korkodus is arrested for unfathomable reasons. Yet this decaying and sinister world is not devoid of a certain joie de vivre: people eat gourmet dishes, point out their interlocutor's hidden motives with incredibly dark humor and enjoy the region's stunning natural beauty.
£14.25
Jantar Publishing Ltd Barcode
Book SynopsisBarcode, Krisztina Toth's first substantial work in prose after four volumes of remarkable verse, consists of fifteen beautifully written and highly sensual short stories. Each story, apart from one, is told with poetic intensity and intimacy from a young, unnamed female narrator's point of view.
£11.40
Honno Welsh Women's Press The Small Mine
Book Synopsis
£10.44
Whitefox Publishing Ltd The Fractured Tree
Book SynopsisA riveting financial thriller about temptation, choices, and the ruthless pursuit of profit and power in the City of London and the oil and gas fields of America. In 2014, environmentalists want to ban fracking, which has powered America to become the top oil producer in the world. Saudi Arabia is worried that too much supply will depress oil prices. One man has a plan that will make him billions. Into this world, twenty-four-year-old Sebastian has the seemingly good fortune to be offered a dream job working for Edouard de Tocqueville, one of the most powerful bankers in the City of London. But, dazzled by the opportunity laid out before him, Sebastian fails to see the devastating consequences of his actions...
£15.19
Renard Press Ltd The Green Indian Problem
Book SynopsisSet in the valleys of South Wales at the tail end of Thatcher's Britain, The Green Indian Problem is the story of Green, a seven year-old with intelligence beyond his years - an ordinary boy with an extraordinary problem: everyone thinks he's a girl. Green sets out to try and solve the mystery of his identity, but other issues keep cropping up - God, Father Christmas, cancer - and one day his best friend goes missing, leaving a rift in the community and even more unanswered questions. Dealing with deep themes of friendship, identity, child abuse and grief, The Green Indian Problem is, at heart, an all-too-real story of a young boy trying to find out why he's not like the other boys in his class. Longlisted for the Bridport Prize (in the Peggy Chapman-Andrews category)
£9.50
Ringwood Publishing Kitten Heels
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Atlantic Books Chances Are
Book SynopsisOne beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the 1960s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher and Mickey an ageing musician. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since 1971: the disappearance of their friend Jacy. Now, decades later, the distant past interrupts the present as the truth about what happened to Jacy finally emerges, forcing the men to reconsider everything they thought they knew about each other. Shot through with Russo's trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader's heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship's bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family.For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are is a stunning demonstration of a highly-acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable body of work.Trade ReviewCleverly paced, Russo's latest novel folds page-turning suspense into an unhurried, warmly observed portrait of friendship in later life. * Mail on Sunday *His stories are omnisciently narrated in a tone of sardonic understanding of human folly, which places him in the house of American style on a polished mezzanine between John Updike and Anne Tyler...Chances Are, a rare mix of the tense and tender, should gain Russo further literary acclaim. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *There's much to enjoy in Richard Russo's typically nuanced portrait of three childhood friends...[a] fine-grained exploration of troubled, small-town masculinity...Russo's prose is so quietly melodious you can almost hear it singing. * Daily Mail *An eloquent excavation of long-buried secrets. * Observer *totally engrossing...Humane and beautifully crafted, it provides further compelling evidence of Russo's prestige as a contemporary American writer. * Sydney Morning Herald *...chances are awfully good that you'll lap up this gripping, wise and wonderful summer treat. * Boston Globe *Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo balances suspense with comedy in this gripping tale. * Time *Richard Russo is often compared to Dickens, to whom he clearly owes a debt, but the ghost hovering over his fabulous new novel, Chances Are, feels more like Sam Shepard...Next to Colson Whitehead's new book, there's not a better paced summer read -- John Freeman * Literary Hub *...blends everything we love about this author with something new...Vintage Russo...No one understands men better than Russo, and no one is more eloquent in explaining how they think, suffer and love. * Kirkus (starred review) *Russo's hallmark themes - the intricacy of male friendships, one-sided love, the collision of the past with the present - are on full display * New York Times *...a brisk story with memorable characters and smart things to say about loss and missed opportunities. * Minneapolis Star Tribune *...there's heart and beauty on every page. * USA Today *Richard Russo can write like Edith Wharton leavened with a touch of David Lodge. * The Economist *A writer of great comedy and warmth, Russo's living proof that a book can be profound and wise without aiming straight into darkness. * USA Today *Perhaps if it was pointed out that here was a US writer who stood somewhere between Anne Tyler at her darkest and Russell Banks, with an occasional hint of Richard Ford at his least bleak, perhaps Russo would become as widely read as he deserves to be. * Irish Times *No one writing today captures the detail of life with such stunning accuracy. -- Annie Proulx
£8.99
Honno Welsh Women's Press Queen Of The Rushes: A Tale of the Welsh Revival
Book SynopsisThe 1906 classic is finally back in print!
£10.44
Candy Jar Books Operation Auger
Book Synopsis
£8.54
SPCK Publishing The Snares of Death
Book SynopsisEveryone agrees that Bob Dexter, the prominent Evangelical clergyman, has a great deal of personal charisma. Those who know him realise that he also has an unshakable faith in his own righteousness, and a real talent for rubbing people up the wrong way. It is no surprise, therefore, that someone should want to kill him. In fact, when the Reverend Dexter moves to a small Norfolk parish, traditionally Anglo-Catholic, and begins remoulding it in his own image, his distraught parishioners are not the only ones with good reason to want to remove him. And there are secrets in his seemingly tranquil family life that Dexter does not even begin to suspect – until the fateful and eventful day of his death. Solicitor David Middleton-Brown and his artist-friend Lucy Kingsley step in to investigate. Their search for the truth culminates at the annual National Pilgrimage to Walsingham, where Anglo-Catholic pomp clashes with heated Evangelical protest, and feelings run perilously high. Too late, perhaps, David realises the danger: will he be in time to prevent a second murder?Trade ReviewThe writing is elegant . . . to match the apparently normal little English town beneath which lurks the kind of emotion that stirred murder throughout the works of Agatha Christie. * Sunday Telegraph *There is real tenderness . . . in her detailed portraits of the faithful, from the sensitive student of church architecture who functions as sleuth to the dear old church biddies who arrange the flowers and spread the gossip with as much relish as the witches in Macbeth. * The Sunday New York Times Book Review *Charles deftly mixes religious rites and politics with her own insight into human behavior. Discerning mystery readers pray for good books like this one. * Orlando Sentinel *
£10.44
ThunderPoint Publishing Limited Oystercatcher Girl
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Selkies House Limited Celebration
Book SynopsisA powerful modern homage to a landscape and its people, Celebration is short fiction from Croatia's most respected contemporary writer, Damir Karakas, the most recent winner of the Mesa Selimovic Award for best fiction in the Balkans. Ellen Elias-Bursac is the award-winning translator of Dasa Drndic.
£13.50
UEA Publishing Project Keshiki 4
Book SynopsisKESHIKI is a series of exquisitely designed chapbooks, showcasing the work of eight of the most exciting writers working in Japan today.Kyojiro is a cultural anthropologist, days away from making the trip of his career when he meets Mariko, a free-spirited Japanese woman living on Guam, a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. Mariko is everything Kyojiro isn't adaptable, whimsical, and ready to make life-changing decisions with the changing tides. It is during their brief time together that Kyojiro is able to watch the woman he loves metamorphosize from Mariko into Mariquita, shedding her Japanese identity and becoming a woman who belongs to Guam.In Mariko / Mariquita, Ikezawa explores the shifting notions of Japanese cultural identity against a politically charged backdrop. Ikezawa's light, teasing dialogue, and the tone conveyed in Birnbaum's translation, delicately explore the seemingly inconsequential choices we make as part of our day-to-day existence, and friction this creates with our cultural identities.
£6.99
The Mercier Press Walking Ghosts
Book Synopsis
£14.39
UEA Publishing Project Keshiki 8
Book SynopsisOkada is on a business trip to Budapest when he meets enigmatic Misa and her Italian girlfriend, Federica. Inexplicably drawn to Misa, he agrees to accompany the couple to a lavish party in Pest. On arrival, Federica ominously disappears, and Misa and Okada find themselves locked in a penthouse room with ten other guests. They are promised that they will be freed at dawn, providing that they follow the commands given to them by five spectators…A modern tale of memory, sexual tension and kink, Hirano's short story runs through the labyrinth it constructs, the narrative twisting, forking, hiding its secrets just around the corner.
£6.99
UEA Publishing Project Animalia Paradoxa: Stories
Book SynopsisA virus inflames a woman with mortal desire; a colonial naturalist seeks an impossible specimen; invisible violence stalks a safari; and a child’s bullying summons archaic armies. Ranging from taut human drama to phantasmagoria, these scenes make rich and strange connections – between ancient and new, human and animal, Africa and Europe, reality and dream. Includes prize-winning stories as well as previously unpublished works from one of South Africa’s foremost novelists.
£12.34
Text Publishing In Certain Circles
Book Synopsis
£8.54
UEA Publishing Project The Large Door
Book SynopsisAn acid-sharp novella of longing and language, in which the past comes up hard against the present, from Jonathan Gibbs, acclaimed author of Randall, or The Painted Grape (Galley Beggar, 2014):‘It was not the only painting in the room, but it was the one that drew the eye. It was a Golden Age interior, the like of which you might see a dozen times in the Rijksmuseum, Jenny guessed, and once or twice in any gallery in Europe or America with a half-decent collection. Simple, domestic: a woman and a man in a room, the striking yellow and black tiled floor spread in expanding diamonds towards the viewer. There were paintings on the walls of the room in the painting, and a mirror on the left wall, tilted, that reflected the tiles, in a masterful flourish of perspective…’When Jenny Thursley, a 40-year old linguistics lecturer, returns to Europe for a conference in Amsterdam, she finds herself pitched back into the presence of a life she had fled: a once-inspirational mentor now dying, a former lover again within reach, the flickerings of new desire. Over little more than twenty-four hours Jenny must write a keynote conferene speech, face up to her own mortality, and to the consequences of the bad choices she has made – while finding the nerve to make new choices that might be no better. Witty, sexy and provocative, The Large Door is a meditation on life and living, and on ages – golden and otherwise – that recalls the sparkling mid-century work of writers such as Muriel Spark and Brigid Brophy.
£12.34
Scribe Publications The Death of Murat Idrissi
Book SynopsisLonglisted for the International Man Booker Prize. Two venturesome women on a journey through the land of their fathers and mothers. A wrong turn. A bad decision. They had no idea, when they arrived in Morocco, that their usual freedoms as young European women would not be available. So, when the spry Saleh presents himself as their guide and saviour, they embrace his offer. He extracts them from a tight space, only to lead them inexorably into an even tighter one: and from this far darker space there is no exit. Their tale of confinement and escape is as old as the landscapes and cultures so vividly depicted in this story of where Europe and Africa come closest to meeting, even if they never quite touch.Trade Review‘The gifted Dutch writer Tommy Wieringa is a bold, intelligent stylist, unafraid of exposing the ugliness of society juxtaposed with the vagaries of human nature. A taut, intense contemporary thriller of multiple exploitations … The full mercilessness of the migrant dilemma is confronted here to devastating effect.’ -- Eileen Battersby * The Observer *‘Brilliantly paced, this slim novel delivers a high-voltage adrenaline rush while expertly weaving in commentary about displaced world citizens … A cinematic, edge-of-your-seat thriller.’ STARRED REVIEW * Kirkus Reviews *‘It has the grip of a nightmare that is all too plausible.’ -- David Mills * The Sunday Times *‘This brutally searing mini-masterpiece has haunted me all year … a razor-sharp exploration of migration.’ -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail * ‘A savagely effective little novel … A nasty masterpiece of narrative tension; it’s brutally spare.’ -- Anthony Cummins * Evening Standard *‘The sentences are concise, propelling the action along and keeping readers on the edge of their seats … a vital must-read.’ -- Clayton McKee * Asymptote *‘The Death of Murat Idrissi is a powerful tale of identity, relationships and the desire to both fit in and to escape … The Death of Murat Idrissi is a dark and deeply profound tale that examines the fragile humanity of ordinary people and exposes just how cheaply a life can be valued.’ FOUR STARS -- Erin Britton * New Books Magazine *‘A lucidly written reflection on the migrant crisis, by a Dutch master storyteller.’ -- Rose Shepherd * Saga Magazine *‘As scintillating as it is unforgiving, this tiny diamond of a novel from Dutch author Tommy Wieringa is such a masterpiece of compression it could stand as an object lesson for students of creative writing … [A] deceptively simple, yet intricately layered, tale of complicity and exploitation.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Age *‘Wieringa’s writing and Garrett’s translation are elegant. From the creation of the Strait of Gibraltar to the aftermath of Murat’s death, it is as if each sentence, each word, has been chosen with care. Both the writing and story merge into a beautiful symmetry, where it’s not possible to appreciate the devastating story without appreciating the paradoxically beautiful writing. I was able to easily slip within the minds of each character, understand their motives and anxieties. For such a short novel, it felt very full … [A] compact novella pulling powerful punches. A must read.’ -- Alice Farrant * Shiny New Books *‘Based on a shocking true story, this novel will make you question your belief in humanity … The book is short, a fast read, at an almost breathless pace. It will make you appreciate where you are now.’ -- Sophie Foster * Q Weekend *‘The prose is tight, the story packed into 100 pages, stripped of superfluous detail as a short story might be … Engaging and thought-provoking.’ -- Anne Goodwin * Annecdotal *‘All of a sudden the pace takes off, rocketing the reader to a satisfying conclusion.’ -- Lauren Novak * Adelaide Advertiser *‘A powerful and moving tale. It confronts the horror and cruelty of the migrant dilemma with understated but stark honesty.’ -- Graeme Barrow * Daily Post *‘[A] sleek literary thriller … While the underdeveloped Murat functions primarily as a political symbol, the women’s ill-fated journey leads to an emotionally complex and ultimately chilling transformation. Wieringa hits the mark with this intelligent outing.’ * Publishers Weekly *Praise for A Beautiful Young Wife: ‘Wieringa takes us on a journey deep into the psyche of an ageing male in this potent work … No words are wasted in this thought-provoking love story.’ * Herald Sun *Praise for A Beautiful Young Wife: ‘Brilliantly written … the last few pages are mesmerising.’ * The Saturday Age *Praise for Joe Speedboat: ‘Joe Speedboat is never just another would-be inspirational read about overcoming adversity … Expertly translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett, Tommy Wieringa's novel offers a rewarding journey into the unfamiliar. It is also witty, thoughtful and surprisingly tender.’ * The Independent (UK) *Praise for Tommy Wieringa: ‘The best contemporary novels are a quest made out of literary and moral ambition. Those who have successfully pursued this Holy Grail in recent times are Bolaño with his The Savage Detectives, Sebald in Austerlitz, Coetzee with Disgrace and the late Philip Roth. From now on, to that august list must be added the name of Tommy Wieringa.’ * Le Figaro *‘Brilliantly paced, this slim novel delivers a high-voltage adrenaline rush while expertly weaving in commentary about displaced world citizens … A cinematic, edge-of-your-seat thriller.’ STARRED REVIEW * Kirkus Reviews *‘Trim, arresting story of the refugee crisis that reminds us how easy it is to dehumanise others for personal gain and self-preservation. No heroes in this one.’ -- Blake Jordan * Napa Bookmine *‘The title of Tommy Wieringa’s novel, The Death of Murat Idrissi, reveals its tragic ending: Murat, the Moroccan protagonist, will die. You know this. Yet you wait in heightened anticipation for what will happen next. The novel reads like a short story but packs such a punch that the reader is left gasping, overwhelmed by dark moments introduced casually … exploring the details that determine who occupies the top rung in any social hierarchy and who is delivered into darkness, be it a shanty or the car boot that was Murat’s final resting place.’ * Necessary Fiction *‘Echoes of Don Quixote and the Odyssey frame the journey of the young women Ilham and Thouraya in this latest from award-winning Dutch author Wieringa … In this taut, psychologically powerful tale, longlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize, Wieringa’s masterly descriptions create a sense of foreboding. Wieringa excels at characterisation while raising serious questions surrounding identity and immigration in a deceptively brief work. Highly recommended.’ STARRED REVIEW -- Jacqueline Snider * Library Journal *
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Text Publishing A Million Things
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Momentum Books Aishwarya Rai Other Stories
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£6.83
And Other Stories Pure Hollywood
Book SynopsisWith Pure Hollywood, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Christine Schutt returns to the short story form that launched her acclaimed career. In tales of rare wit, Pure Hollywood brings us into private worlds of longing and danger. An alcoholic actress takes her children to live in 'a rusted box on stilts' in the desert. In an exclusive island resort, a young family's holiday has terrible consequences. A newly-wed couple who, while still 'newly everything', fall in with a misanthropic painter burned by love. 'On the beach, they agreed, their daydreaming was sometimes dangerous.' Schutt's sharply suspenseful and masterfully dark interior portraits of ordinary lives are shot through with surprise and, as Ottessa Moshfegh has it, 'exquisitely weird writing'.Trade Review'Christine Schutt is one of my shining lighthouses. I love her work with passion. Please read her new book, Pure Hollywood.' Lauren Groff`A truly gifted writer.' George Saunders`Pared down but rich, dense, fevered, exactly right and eerily beautiful' John Ashbery `Pure Hollywood is pure gold. In tales of rare wit and verve, Christine Schutt leads us into the lives of her perfectly drawn characters - couples young and old, children, skinny men, charming women - and dances on masterful prose through gardens, alcohol (often too much), luxurious homes, and resort vacation spots. Come for the art of her exquisitely weird writing and stay for the human drama.' Ottesa Moshfegh `Christine Schutt is already easily among the liveliest stylists of our time, and these eleven stories prove we ain't seen nothing yet. Each is a wonder, pickled in her crystalline idiom and cured under her brutal, astonishing wit.'Claire Vaye Watkins `With terse sentences that read like poetry, Schutt strips each scene of excess context and cuts to the heart of the moment . . . Schutt's haunting yet lyrical words linger long after the final page.' Los Angeles Times `Shot through with Woolf's lyrical, restless spirit.' New York Times Book Review `Her sentences never waste a phrase or even a word.' Washington Post`The stories in this collection evade easy capture – but in reading, isn’t the pursuit part of the pleasure? Schutt’s style – in which words crash together musically, the focus shifts and dialogue seems to take even the characters by surprise – means that the qualities come out best on a slow rereading.’ John Self, The Guardian
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Text Publishing The Seamstress Of Sardinia
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And Other Stories Something Like Breathing
Book SynopsisIt's the 1950s, and Lorrie is unimpressed when her family moves to the remote Scottish island where her grandad runs a whisky distillery. She befriends Sylvie, the shy girl next door: `The slightest smile from Sylvie was a fluffy elephant at the fair. It had to be won with a clear aim,' writes Lorrie. Yet fun-loving Lorrie isn't sure Sylvie's is the friendship she wants to win. As the adults around them struggle to keep their lives on an even keel, the two young women are drawn into a series of events that leave the small town wondering who exactly Sylvie is and what strange gift she is hiding.Readman's feel for emotional nuance and flair for mixing strangeness with poignant detail make this long-awaited debut novel one to savour.Trade Review'Angela Readman's stories are fantastic, delightful gifts.' Toby Litt, author of Hospital and one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists ----'Angela Readman's prose exhibits two complimentary styles: fabulation is rendered deadpan, while wonderfully inventive similes are used to describe the everyday. Borges, Kafka and Angela Carter will all be reference points, but there is something joyfully distinctive about Readman's voice.' Toby Lichtig, Sunday Telegraph ----'Readman writes with precision. Her stories emit suppressed yearning and she makes poignant comments about loneliness, identity, survival. Angela Carter is an obvious influence but fans of Donald Barthelme and Charles Baudelaire will cherish the emergence of a moral absurdist for our times.' Max Liu, The Independent----'A masterclass in the surreal ...This slim volume shows why she won the Costa Short Story Award.' Max Wallis, 10 Best Spring Reads, The Independent----`Sparky, shining writing that zings from the page. Subversive, funny and incisive. A real talent.' Sarah Hilary, author of Someone Else's Skin ----`Readman's narrative has an essential deadpan charm, dotted with striking, sideways observations. The story lends itself to multiple layers of interpretation and metaphor-the limits of friendship; mythmaking; the unavoidable exploration of self. An offbeat, enigmatic parable of otherness and attachment, with a style to match.' Kirkus Reviews ----`Readman weaves a fascinating and decidedly original fairytale.' - Lucy Scholes, Financial Times ----`This is a significant book that belongs to and will endure this time of change for women, it is a love story about the way women love one another...This is a book made with a scalpel: precise cuts, made by a skilled hand, for the sake of healing.' - Carmen Marcus ----`Beautifully bittersweet, this first novel is a rich evocation of youth and a joyous celebration of individuality.' - Star Tribune ---- 'Readman's strength lies ... in capturing that teenage state of in-betweenness.' - Francesca Carington, Daily Telegraph ----'From the wilderness of the setting to seminal moments in the girls' friendship, Readman captures her subjects with ease and clarity. Something Like Breathing is a charming debut whose young voices beguile from the beginning and impart their lessons with a light touch along the way.' - Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times ---- `Something Like Breathing is an auspicious work from a writer unusually skilled with language and subtext. It's a sad, serious, beautiful novel worth diving into head first.' Katharine Coldiron, The Guardian ----'Something Like Breathing does many things very well. Readman's prose is lithe and sparkling, glinting like the sea around the girls' island home. She skilfully evokes the minutiae of daily life , the subtly changing landscapes of human relationships , the strength and fragility of teenaged friendship, and the various small violences enacted on individuals - particularly women - though the vigorous policing of social norms.. But it is Readman's exploration of the politics of difference, of strangeness, that propels the novel to its bittersweet finish,, which, like first kisses and last ones, lingers long after its final touch.' Marion Rankine, Brixton Review of Books ----`Angela Readman, a poet and award- winning short-story writer, is exceptionally good both at capturing voices and at rendering the shades of love and envy that can surround a friendship. [...] Readman tells a story of the violence that can exist in a family or a town, how difference and proximity are understood and respected, and how one self might try to capture another. Gentle and provocative by turns, Something Like Breathing asks good questions about the ways we might feel for someone, without consuming them.’ Sophie Ratcliffe, The Times Literary Supplement
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And Other Stories Tentacle: Winner of the 2017 Grand Prize of the
Book SynopsisPlucked from her life on the streets of post-apocalyptic Santo Domingo, young maid Acilde Figueroa finds herself at the heart of a voodoo prophecy: only she can travel back in time and save the ocean - and humanity - from disaster. But first she must become the man she always was - with the help of a sacred anemone.Tentacle is an electric novel with a big appetite and a brave vision, plunging headfirst into questions of climate change, technology, Yoruba ritual, queer politics, poverty, sex, colonialism and contemporary art. Bursting with punk energy and lyricism, it's a restless, addictive trip: The Tempest meets the telenovela.Trade Review`Rita Indiana is fearless and brilliant and Tentacle is her finest novel, an unforgettable experience.' Junot Diaz'Indiana is truly a renaissance woman. Not only is she one of the most exciting Dominican authors in recent years, she is also a musical force to be reckoned with. [...] She's one of those rare artists whose music you can either dance to or sit down and listen to as if it were a great novel.' Alt.Latino, NPR.org`Reads like an extended song. . . . So fast-paced that it must be swallowed whole, for setting it aside is as dangerous as jumping from a speeding motorcycle.' El Pais on Papi ---- `Rita Indiana is unclassifiable. Tentacle is a kind of pulp fiction for educated classes, a wild but carefully conceived combination of sci-fi adventure, art-world-cum-hipster-satire, eco- and socially-aware thriller, with a work of Caribbean studies breaking in from the side. It works. The tone is cool and nonchalant. The characters achieve that; the author never intrudes between them and us ... When the denouement comes it is brutal and irresistibly attractive.'Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau ----`Merengue star Indiana knows how to get things dancing. Her literary tricks come from the oral traditions of voodoo and Santeria. Many of Tentacle's characters are reincarnations of earlier lives and linked to those lives. In this way she infects the visible world with the invisible world.' Ralph Hammerthaler, Suddeutsche Zeitung ----- `Rita Indiana is comfortable with the language of modern technology, but her joy in storytelling, the effervescence of her imagination and the way she wraps stories within stories are all firmly part of a Latin American tradition: Tentacle recalls important works from the sixties like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.' Eva Karnofsky, Deutschlandfunk Radio ---- `A great novel. There's so much in it: the history of the Dominican Republic, politics and of course religion. Music is referenced, and biology, conservationism too, and it's full of wit, thanks to the way Rita Indiana tells it.' SWR2 Radio ---- 'A fasten-your-seat-belt, strap-on-your-crash-helmet novel of magic, time travel, art, buccaneers, ecological disaster, and more. Unlike any dystopian novel you've read, Indiana pushes and stretches the form like an octopus working its way through a maze to pose fundamental questions about gender, identity, and society. This book should make Rita Indiana a literary superstar.' Josh Cook, Porter Square Books, Boston, MA, and author of An Exaggerated Murder ---- `Tentacle reaches back and forward through the ages, harnessing the fluidity of time, gender, and the natural world to reflect on colonial history and imagine a deeply disturbing future. [...] Obejas's English version certainly captures some of that vernacular feel, mobilizing US slang as well as Spanish syntax and vocabulary, reminding readers that while this is a story with a global vision, it has a Caribbean setting.' - Ellen Jones, Los Angeles Review of Books ---- `An electric novel with a big appetite and a brave vision.' - Tor.com ---- `Tentacle shapeshifts dizzyingly around three time spans and a loosely connected group of characters, and takes on huge themes, including race and gender, the impact of tourism, apocalyptic events and ecological disaster. [...] Whether we would really want to change the past, given the opportunity, is one question posed in this blast of a novel; what it is to act beyond self-interest is another. Tentacle reads like Kathy Acker with a tighter narrative grip.' - Suzy Feay, The Guardian ---- 'Where to begin? Rita Indiana's Tentacle has the settings, themes, and expansiveness of a much larger book, but it blends that ambition with a host of irreverence (along with some nods to the music of Giorgio Moroder, which is never a bad thing). It's a time-travel story, a meditation on gender and sexuality, and an art-world satire-as well as, arguably, a satire of `chosen one' narrative tropes. To say that this is unlike anything else you'll read this year is probably stating the obvious.' - Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders ---- 'From beginning to end, Tentacle is a strange, unnerving, and at times beautiful book that critiques global inequality and the politicization of climate change.' - Amy Brady, Chicago Review of Books ---- 'Tentacle is not a book that produces catharsis. It is the opposite. It is a book that demands reflection from its reader and then, hopefully, action. [...] The cruelty of the past is also that of the present - a reality ensured by those who cling to power and its many cloaks: white supremacy, misogyny, and transphobia. If the future is to be different, it will be up to the marginalized and to those who are willing to disinvest in privilege. Our planet's future rests quite literally, the novel suggests, with the fate of the oppressed.' - Kristie Soares, Los Angeles Review of Books ---- 'Tentacle is as strange and beautiful a sea-change as its epigraph from The Tempest suggests ... Achy Obejas brings the volume to English language readers with a social burja-cyborg flare - at once witchy, almost shamanisitically intuitive about the nature of language, and yet precise.' - Alexandra Marracini, Times Literary Supplement
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Text Publishing Joan Is Okay
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And Other Stories To Leave with the Reindeer
Book SynopsisTo Leave with the Reindeer is the account of a woman who has been trained for a life she cannot live. She readies herself for freedom, and questions its limits, by exploring how humans relate to animals. Rosenthal weaves an intricate pattern, combining the central narrative with many other voices - vets, farmers, breeders, trainers, a butcher - to produce a polyphonic composition full of fascinating and disconcerting insights.Wise, precise, generous, To Leave with the Reindeer takes a clear-eyed look at the dilemmas of domestication, both human and animal, and the price we might pay to break free.Trade Review'This polyphonic novel portrays a merciless war waged by humanity on wild nature. This is the battleground where the author tears to pieces today's education, imposed behaviours and conventions.' Elle (France)' "Tigon, leopon, pumapard, jaglion, tiguar, jagulep, leoger, tigoness, lipard, jagress . . .' Oliva Rosenthal's book is like the chimerical animals she lists on the first page. It is a hybrid, a strange and disconcerting cross; a sphinx of a book: half-human, half-beast.' Les Inrockuptibles ---- 'In To Leave with the Reindeer, Olivia Rosenthal recounts the painfulmetamorphosis of an obedient animal into a liberated woman . . . There's no complacency in this intense work; it is moving in its precision and in the perfect match between voice and subject.' Canard Enchaine ---- 'Apparently lurching, disparate, this novel about domestication in fact coheres, born by a strong rhythmic sensibility and by subtle play on repetition. Poetic and humorous, To Leave with the Reindeer explores our illusions, the destruction of our childhood dreams and the savagery that we hide deep within ourselves.' Telerama ---- 'Olivia Rosenthal subtly layers short paragraphs, swinging between the daily life of her homo sapiens and clinical statements about animal life. [...] This is a novel that will haunts its reader for days. And that will, above all, awake the animal in us." L'Express --- 'Brilliant, exciting, and never moralizing.' Vogue (France) --- 'Book after book, Rosenthal has taken care to dress her iconoclasm in a unique approach made up of stylistic accumulations and shrewd collages.' Livres Hebdo --- `To Leave with the Reindeer offers startling and frequently beautiful ruminations on the way the tension between wildness and domesticity affects both humans and beasts. By eschewing most of the qualities of a traditional novel, Rosenthal's book takes risks, which offer luminous moments.' Kirkus Reviews ---- `Olivia Rosenthal captures the world of the child with inchoate wants and needs, inexplicable to others and herself, in vivid and concise vignettes, against a background of information and opinions about animals and how we treat them - for food, education and, then, to make ourselves feel better after destroying their habitats. This is rich, allusive and evocative.' Lucy Dallas, The Times Literary Supplement ---- `captivating and strange novel' Dundee University Review of the Arts ---`Poetic, factual, intimate and clinical.’ Tony Messenger, Review31
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And Other Stories I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me: Now a new
Book Synopsis'I don't expect anyone to believe me,' warns the narrator of this novel, a Mexican student called Juan Pablo Villalobos. He is about to fly to Barcelona on a scholarship when he's kidnapped in a bookshop and whisked away by thugs to a basement. The gangsters are threatening his cousin-a wannabe entrepreneur known to some as 'Projects' and to others as 'dickhead' - who is gagged and tied to a chair. The thugs say Juan Pablo must work for them. His mission? To make Laia, the daughter of a corrupt politician, fall in love with him. He accepts . . . though not before the crime boss has forced him at gunpoint into a discussion on the limits of humour in literature. Part campus novel, part gangster thriller, I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me is Villalobos at his best. Exuberantly foul-mouthed and intellectually agile, this hugely entertaining novel finds the light side of difficult subjects - immigration, corruption, family loyalty and love - in a world where the difference between comedy and tragedy depends entirely on who's telling the joke.Trade Review'A funny, moving account of status, power and immigration, which also dips into comic literary theory and author hang-ups. Highly entertaining, with a magnificent sucker-punch finish.' Paul Ewen----'An eccentric hybrid, combining pulpy crime fiction . . . with avant-garde archness. Villalobos's take is refreshingly exuberant.'Houman Barekat, The Guardian----'A testament to the vibrancy of the Latin American novel.' Nick Burns, Literary Review----'Villalobos's chaotic, feverish narrative works - it is a challenging, but rewarding read.' Lucy Popescu, Financial Times----'A wild-eyed, motor-powered, hilarious blast about kidnapping, gangsters and political corruption.' Jane Graham, Big Issue----'So propulsive it's nearly impossible to stop reading. . . This is a hilarious novel, and it's brilliant and bittersweet, too, in surprising ways. Pitch-perfect from start to finish.' Kirkus starred review----'A postmodern thriller and intellectual satire that fizzes with verbal gusto and black humour' Max Liu, The i----'A fast-paced, irreverent tale. . . intellectually nimble, wildly entertaining, and undeniably filthy.' Publishers Weekly----'A fantastical world so powerful and mesmerising that it's almost impossible to leave it.' Morning Star----'I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me does for The Savage Detectives what The Big Lebowski does for The Big Sleep. . . . This is a comic novel with something for everyone-humor, both high and low, with plenty of jokes to go around. Then again, humor described is humor denied, so when I say I laughed my ass off, I don't expect anyone to believe me.' Southwest Review
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Text Publishing Now Is Not The Time To Panic
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And Other Stories Made in Saturn
Book SynopsisThese are the children of revolutions, and this is their story. This is the Caribbean. This is Argenis Luna: an artist who no longer paints, a heroin addict who no longer uses, and an overgrown child trying to make sense of his inheritance in a country where his once-revolutionary father is now part of the ruling elite. Thrown out of rehab in Havana, with Goya's tyrannical god Saturn on his mind, Argenis picks his way through the detritus of an abandoned generation: the drag queens, artists, hustlers and lovers trying to build lives amidst the wreckage. Mesmerising and visionary, Made in Saturn is a hangover from a riotous funeral, a rapid-fire elegy for the revolutionary spirit, and a glimpse of hope for all who feel eclipsed by those who came before them.Trade Review‘Nothing human is alien to Ms. Indiana. Like France’s brilliant punk-realist Virginie Despentes, she sees through the costumes of class and ideology. Her characters are raggedly real [...] A wild and liberating book.’ Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal ----'Dominican writer Rita Indiana made a splash in 2018 with the unclassifiable Tentacle. Made in Saturn, the tale of a drug-addicted artist going clean, promises to be less baffling but equally hip.' Suzi Feay, Financial Times ----'A deeply nuanced, atmospheric, and graphic depiction of mental illness, drug addiction, and recovery.' Kirkus Reviews ---‘Award-winning queer Dominican author Rita Indiana makes a blazing comeback to the rap game...Her critically acclaimed novels, such as Tentacle, thoroughly dissect the relationships between gender, class and race in Caribbean society...Her sixth novel, Made in Saturn, is due for release in 2020 via British publisher And Other Stories.’ Suzy Exposito, Rolling Stone ----‘Captures the Caribbean setting and complex political history with vibrant detail.’ Book Riot ----‘A powerful but quiet story about a young artist lost in the shuffle of politics and revolution; an artist who cannot be saved by his talent, who cannot find solace in the hedonism of drug use, and still must find a way to be a human being in a turbulent world. A vibrant, yet complex take on the "sad young literary man" story and another brilliant work by an author whose stature in world literature will only continue to grow.’ Josh Cook, Porter Square Books----- ‘Rita Indiana, with Tentacle, already showed that she could fulfill the promises made in Papi. Would it be possible to go further? How far would her narrative power go? Made in Saturn is the answer to these questions, and it is not only a book that's new, like all of Indiana's works, but it is a book that is good. Very good. A Duchampian Goya, we might say, if it wouldn't be scandalous to some. [...] Argenis Luna, the protagonist of this novel, is both a mythological figure and a pariah on Earth. After living with him for ten pages we understand and love him. His contradictions are our own. He will live beside us forever.’ El País ----‘Rita Indiana...is a voice with power and personality. She demonstrates it in her latest novel Made in Saturn, in which the children of all the revolutions that promised a free Latin America but ended in failure are embodied in Argenis, a character as real as he is magical.’ UDL Libros link: Udllibros.com ----‘Each of her novels is marked by a concept; each is part of something larger. Made in Saturn, for example, is positioned as complement to Tentacle, and the author has announced that there will be a new novel to complete the trilogy. What unites these books is the critique of power. It is a contemporary and rebellious art, ready to fight.’ El Tiempo ----‘Compared to Tentacle, which drew on science fiction and were you could sense the influence of Lovecraft, Made in Saturn practises a kind of scathing hyperrealism in a Caribbean setting weighed down with corruption, ideological ruin and outrageous consumption.’ Revista de Letras ---‘Through her stark portrait of the protagonist and her unmistakably Caribbean prose, Rita Indiana shows why she is one of the most attractive voices in Latin American literature today’ Sin Embargo ----‘Ovid told the story of the god Saturn who, for fear of being dethroned, ended up devouring his children. Many centuries later, Francisco de Goya painted the scene in one of his most emblematic works. And, now, Rita Indiana has borrowed, once again, the myth, to revisit it in fiction. In her latest novel, the deity appears to be the very revolution that aimed to bring freedom to Latin America and failed in the attempt, leaving multiple and abandoned children around her. Offspring like Argenis—protagonist of the story with which Indiana, one of the most talented voices of current Caribbean literature—portrays that lost generation that continues to struggle so as not to be devoured.’ABC----'Rita Indiana’s voice is lyrical and transgressive, attractive and original. Siren songs, her books’ irresistible force captivates readers from their first lines and doesn’t let them go. Made in Saturn is a wonderful, absorbing read, and both classic and modern. El Cultural
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And Other Stories Theft
Book SynopsisWhat I did to them was terrible, but you have to understand the context. This was London, 2016 . . . Bohemia is history. Paul has awoken to the fact that he will always be better known for reviewing haircuts than for his literary journalism. He is about to be kicked out of his cheap flat in east London and his sister has gone missing after an argument about what to do with the house where they grew up. Now that their mother is dead this is the last link they have to the declining town on the north-west coast where they grew up. Enter Emily Nardini, a cult author, who - after granting Paul a rare interview - receives him into her surprisingly grand home. Paul is immediately intrigued: by Emily and her fictions, by her vexingly famous and successful partner Andrew (too old for her by half), and later by Andrew's daughter Sophie, a journalist whose sexed-up vision of the revolution has gone viral. Increasingly obsessed, relationships under strain, Paul travels up and down, north and south, torn between the town he thought he had escaped and the city that threatens to chew him up. With heart, bite and humour, Luke Brown leads the reader beyond easy partisanship and into much trickier terrain. Straddling the fissures within a man and his country, riven by envy, wealth, ownership, entitlement, and loss, Theft is an exhilarating howl of a novel.Trade Review‘Luke Brown’s Theft is acerbic but tender, biting but elegiac, a snapshot of early twenty-first century life in which the unceasing prospect of catastrophe is the new normal.’ Colin Barrett ----‘It's a rare thrill to find a writer with Luke Brown's gift for nimbly navigating the maze of gentrification, Brexit, and the gig economy with dark, effervescent hilarity. Theft is a funhouse mirror held up to the grim absurdity of our political moment, a quick-witted tale of generational crisis, and an incredibly poignant and funny take on what happens after bad turns to worse.’ Alexandra Kleeman----‘A raw, funny, surprisingly tender novel about belonging, class, and what makes a life a success. I loved the central brother/sister relationship and how the book confronted masculinity and the disparity between womanhood and the male experience. I grew so fond of the protagonist, and devoured the book in a day.’ Dolly Alderton----‘I love Luke Brown’s intimate detailing of both the tiny fault lines and vast chasms that divide us. This Britain is both utterly recognisable and freshly revealed and the writing assured, funny and always humane.’ Catherine O'Flynn---- ‘It’s rare to read something as cuttingly funny which is also this wise and humane, even while the plot moves like the twist of a knife. What do we choose? What’s already been chosen for us? In creating a protagonist and a scene so specific and forensically well-observed, Brown delivers a state of the nation / state of masculinity novel with the ebullience and momentum of a writer discovering his true and specific powers.’ Luke Kennard----‘Theft is a witty, tender and insightful portrait of a city, and a life, at a time of crisis. It’s engrossing and charming and made me laugh many, many times.’ Nicole Flattery----‘Astute and funny.’ Lucy Knight, Sunday Times----‘A moral novel about a crisis in masculinity [. . . a] funny, stylishly and unfrivolously written book.’ Jonathan McAloon, Financial Times ----‘A story of radical instability . . . handled with poise, precision, brio and a bracing lack of sentimentality.’ Matthew Adams, Observer----'A black comedy of sexualised class war . . . refreshingly nuanced.' Houman Barekat, Guardian ----'Theft is a clever book about a clever man . . . But moments of sincere tenderness . . . show us the unvarnished, slightly lost, charming man beneath the surface.'Claire Looby, Irish Times----‘While Theft ruminates on cultural fault lines, property and decline, it is never clunky or dour. [Brown’s] prose is brisk, unpretentious and witty . . . There is a lot to enjoy about the interplay of Theft’s mischievous, promiscuous, furious cast members, and how they come to exemplify an age.’ James Riding, Literary Review----‘Theft is brilliant on divisions between people and places, tribalism and the death of debate . . . I raced through it.’ Sara Lawrence, Daily Mail ----'An emotionally complex story of grief, desire, and Brexit . . . With bleak humour and sharp details, Brown memorably connects the personal and the political.' Kirkus Reviews----'An exhilarating novel about love, envy and revenge that, while always being a lot of fun, gives us a new perspective on the state of our divided, riven modern world.' Irish Times----'Theft is a return to the decadent literary London of his hilarious debut My Biggest Lie.' Suzi Feay, Financial Times
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