Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 'A strange, painfully tender exploration of the brutality of desire indulged and the fatality of desire ignored... Exquisite' Eimear McBride Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people - dutiful wife and mild-mannered office worker. One day, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares, Yeong-hye decides to become a vegetarian. But in South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, it is a shocking act of subversion. Yeong-hye's passive rebellion rapidly manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, from sexual sadism to attempted suicide, and in increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, as all the while she spirals further into her fantasies... Disturbing and beautiful by turns, The Vegetarian is a revelatory novel about modern day South Korea; a tale of shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others.Trade ReviewShocking... The writing throughout is precise and spare, with not a word wasted. There are no tricks. Han holds the reader in a vice grip... The Vegetarian quickly settles into a dark, menacing brilliance that is similar to the work of the gifted Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa in its devastating study of psychological pain... [It] is more than a cautionary tale about the brutal treatment of women: it is a meditation on suffering and grief. It is about escape and how a dreamer takes flight. Most of all, it is about the emptiness and rage of discovering there is nothing to be done when all hope and comfort fails... A work of savage beauty and unnerving physicality. Mind-blowing -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *It's a bracing, visceral, system-shocking addition to the Anglophone reader's diet. It is sensual, provocative and violent, ripe with potent images, startling colours and disturbing questions. Sentence by sentence, The Vegetarian is an extraordinary experience. [It] will be hard to beat -- Daniel Hahn * Guardian *A strange, painfully tender exploration of the brutality of desire indulged and the fatality of desire ignored... Exquisite -- Eimear McBride, Baileys Women's Prize-winning author * A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing *Entrancing and tense... the writing is spare and haunting... its crushing climax, a phantasmagoric yet emotionally true moment that's surely one of the year's most powerful... [This is] an ingenious, upsetting, and unforgettable novel -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)The Vegetarian is hypnotically strange, sad, beautiful and compelling. I liked it immensely -- Nathan Filer, author * The Shock of the Fall *A stunning and beautifully haunting novel. It seems in places as if the very words on the page are photosynthesising. I loved this graceful, vivid book -- Jess Richards, author * Snake Ropes *The Vegetarian is a story about metamorphosis, rage and the desire for another sort of life. It is written in cool, still, poetic but matter-of-fact short sentences, translated luminously by Deborah Smith, who is obviously a genius -- Deborah Levy, author * Swimming Home *Poetic and beguiling, and translated with tremendous elegance, The Vegetarian exhilarates and disturbs -- Chloe Aridjis, author * The Book of Clouds *[The Vegetarian] is understated even in its most fevered, violent moments. It has a surreal and spellbinding quality. Enthralling -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *This short novel is one of the most startling I have read. Kang is well served by Deborah Smith's subtle translation in this disturbing book -- Julia Pascal * Independent *Kang belongs to a generation of writers that aim to discover secret drives, ambitions, and miseries behind one's personal destiny... [The Vegetarian] deals with violence, sanity, cultural limits, and the value of the human body as the last refuge and private space * Tiempo Argentino *Disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is translated by Deborah Smith into poetic yet matter-of-fact prose -- Richard Eves * Big Issue in the North *A fine novel -- David Hebblethwaite * Shiny New Books *This off-kilter novel from Korea is simultaneously beautiful and sinister * Absolutely Dulwich *The Vegetarian is so strange and vivid it left me breathless upon finishing it. I don't think I've ever read a novel as mouth-wateringly poetic, or as drenched in hypnotic oddities, taboos and scandal. It seems to have been plucked out of the ether, ready-made to take us all by surprise. Exciting and compelling -- Lee Rourke * New Humanist *Elegantly translated into bone-spare English by Deborah Smith... The Vegetarian whispers so clearly, it can be heard across the room, insistently and with devastating, quiet violence -- Joanna Walsh * New Statesman *Fascinating and powerful. A really engrossing read * Guardian *Unsettling... [a] strange and ethereal fable, rendered stranger still by the cool precision of the prose -- Peter Brown * TLS *In The Vegetarian Han Kang ruthlessly targets South Korea's social codes, using the story of a simple, personal rebellion to expose a callous patriarchy. Sharply ironic -- Ruairi Casey * Totally Dublin *[A] heady, unsettling novel... Kang writes in a coolly unsentimental style, and achieves a delicate balance of restraint and passion in a story pulsing with desire, betrayal and destruction. Haunting -- Mireille Juchau * The Australian *Visceral and terrifying, The Vegetarian is a startling reminder of the utter unknowability of another's mind. Nonetheless, reading it, you will feel it in your flesh: the desire for peace, a plea for safety, for escape from your own inevitable mortality. It is artfully plotted yet reads like a fever dream, sweeping and surreal. It will leave you aching -- Sarah Gerard, author * Binary Star *Considering this book just as a story about a vegetarian is a mistake. It is rather a meticulously constructed and haunting novel. Right at the moment you turn the last page, you'll feel grateful for your ordinary life -- Kyung-Sook Shin, Man Asian Literary Prize-winning author * Please Look After Mom *Like a small seed, Han Kang's startling and unforgettable debut goes to work quietly, but insistently. Her prose is so balanced, so elegant and assured, you might overlook the depths of this novel's darkness - do so at your own peril -- Colin Winnette, author * Haints Stay and Coyote *Brutal and beautiful - the translation alone is a work of art - this is a book for anyone who believes that the novel's job is to turn its reader inside out -- Eimear McBride, ‘Summer Read’ * Guardian *Subtle, provocative... a beautiful book -- Chad W Post * Frankfurt Show Daily *Immediately absorbing...It's the kind of story where every word matters -- Lesley McDowell * Sunday Herald *An irresistibly weird and sensuous story -- Daniel Hahn, Books of the Year * New Statesman *Han Kang's vivid and at times violent storytelling will wake up even the most jaded of literary palates * Independent *A transformative fable about desire, frustration and individual will -- Best Books of 2015 * Guardian *Paradoxically, both enlightening and incomprehensible. It is a strange book, with overtones of Kafka, and a plot that has no resolution. And yet it continues its reader, turning the seeming banality of a woman's decision not to eat meat into a surreal psychological odyssey -- Xenobe Purves * Litro *This compact, exquisite and disturbing book will linger long in the minds, and maybe the dreams, of its readers. -- Boyd Tonkin, chair of judges for Man Booker International Prize 2016Split into three parts, Kang's narrative dances tantalisingly around her central character, the too-often silent Yeong-hye... As a character she appears the twisted product of the multitude of watchful eyes, the switching preoccupations, and the opinions of those around her. She herself remains mysteriously elusive, her own thoughts only ever revealed in sparing flashes interspersed throughout the narrative... Teetering between explanations both 'ordinary' and 'extra-ordinary', she leaves no room for certainty, constantly teasing the reader, and the ambiguity that remains both torments and delights. This masterpiece of Korean fiction is finally made available to English readers in Deborah Smith's achingly elegant prose, the first of Han Kang's novels to be translated. Thankfully I am certain it will not be the last. -- Thea Hawlin * London Magazine *While the narrative exposes the plight of women in a male-dominated Korean society, it also takes a broader, philosophical look at suffering and grief, loneliness and the death of hope. It explores the brutal power shifts in relationships. On all levels, artistic and moral, it is a remarkable meditation with universal resonance. At its heart is the individual trying, and failing, to live. Deborah Smith's translation, magnificently alert to the sensitive, sophisticated nuances and tonal variations, can only be described as inspired. -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *A truly memorable novel [with] visceral and unfaltering writing that is innately uneasy to read [...] Han Kang expertly structures the novel around the three long chapters that explore the voices around Yeong-Hye. Though the narrative is never hers, Yeong-Hye remains the focus of the novel throughout. Each chapter features dream sequences which blur the everyday and ethereal and provide the reader with rich and dynamic prose. The fact that these sequences work so well in The Vegetarian is a huge credit to the work of Deborah Smith who achieves a translation that is wonderfully readable in English whilst at the same time profoundly different to English language novels. * Words Shortlist *One of the most erotic literary novels of the season... The Vegetarian has been praised on both sides of the Atlantic as strange visionary and transgressive. * Economist *A haunting, hypnotic read, Han Kang's novel is a bold example of what world literature has to offer us here in Britain. -- Erica Wagner * Harper's Bazaar *The winner of the 2016 Man International Booker Prize is an unsettling, sensual and surreal novel about a dutiful wife who rebels against her stultifying marriage. * i *No blurb that I have read for this book does it justice. That's because the premise is peculiar; an unremarkable man meets an unremarkable woman and they get married. Their lives are ordinary, until one day she has a dream that compels her to become a vegetarian. At which point the tale goes nuclear. -- Summer books round up * The Times *Intriguing -- Charlotte Mendelson, summer books round up * Observer *At once dreamy and nightmarish, a beautiful horror and easily one of the best books I've read in years. -- Lisa McInerney * Guardian *[An] engrossing read which takes you deep into the fascinating and complex world of another culture, South Korea. The harrowing but beautifully told story of a woman who would not conform. -- Top ten books chart * Western Morning News *Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others. * Western Morning News *Kang has crafted a wounding, unsettling book. The fantastical imagery of plants, trees and flowers reinforce Yeong-hye's purity. The book is a journey in trying to understand her and the reactions she inspires in others... Han Kang's great achievement is crafting a small tale from which great things grow * Irish Examiner *A violent, magical and surreal tale... Unforgettable -- Fiona Wilson, Best Books of 2016 * The Times *I loved this haunting [novel] -- Lionel Shriver, Best Books of 2016 * Observer *Visceral -- Best Books of 2016 * Financial Times *This slim novel from South Korea is one of the most erotic literary novels of the season -- Best Books of 2016 * Economist *[An] unsettling novel... This spare and elegant translation renders the original Korean in pointed and vivid English, preserving Han's exploration of whether true innocence is possible in a vicious and bloody world -- The Ten Best Books of 2016 * New York Times *Scary and sad, but also deeply tender. It made me question my autonomy, which is exactly what I look for in a book -- Brie Larson * Stylist *A disturbingly cerebral analysis of conformity, autonomy and patriarchy * Dumfries and Galloway Life *[An] eerie modern classic * Metro *

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Book Synopsis''My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man''s life?''A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia''s foremost writer.One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics'' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize The Melancholy of Resistance, László Krasznahorkai's magisterial, surreal novel, depicts a chain of mysterious events in a small Hungarian town. A circus, promising to display the stuffed body of the largest whale in the world, arrives in the dead of winter, prompting bizarre rumours. Word spreads that the circus folk have a sinister purpose in mind, and the frightened citizens cling to any manifestation of order they can find - music, cosmology, fascism. The novel's characters are unforgettable: the evil Mrs. Eszter, plotting her takeover of the town; her weakling husband; and Valuska, our hapless hero with his head in the clouds, who is the tender centre of the book, the only pure and noble soul to be found. Compact, powerful and intense, The Melancholy of Resistance, as its enormously gifted translator George Szirtes puts it, 'is a slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type.' And yet, miraculously, the novel, in the words of Guardian, 'lifts the reader along in lunar leaps and bounds.'Trade ReviewThe universality of Krasznahorkai's vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing. -- W.G. SebaldLászló Krasznahorkai writes prose of breathtaking energy and beauty. He manages to combine our most earthly concerns with large cosmic questions. His tones and textures are filled with both risk and certainty. He has elevated the novel form and is to be ranked among the great European novelists -- Colm ToibinAs the worthy winner of this year's Man Booker International prize, Krasznahorkai throws down a challenge: raise your game or get your coat... the intensity of his commitment to the art of fiction is indisputable...exhilarating, even euphoric. -- Hari Kunzru * The Guardian *

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Book SynopsisHaruki Murakami (Author) In 1978, Haruki Murakami was twenty-nine and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won a new writers' award and was published the following year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, that turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon.In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Men Without Women, Murakami's distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring his place as one of the world's most acclaimed and well-loved writers.Philip Gabriel (Translator) Philip Gabriel is the author of Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature and Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature and has translated many novels and short stories by the writer Haruki Murakami and other modern writers. He is recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature (2001) for his translation of Senji Kuroi's Life in the Cul-de-Sac, and the 2006 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize War & War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform Korim is on the verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carried along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almost mad, but also keenly empathic, Korim has discovered in a small Hungarian town's archives an antique manuscript of startling beauty: it narrates the epic tale of brothers-in-arms struggling to return home from a disastrous war. Korim is determined to do away with himself, but before he commits suicide, he feels he must escape to New York with the precious manuscript and commit it to eternity by typing it all out onto the world wide web. Following Korim with obsessive realism through the streets of New York (from his landing in a Bowery flophouse to his move far uptown with a mad interpreter), War and War relates his encounters with a fascinating range of people in a world torn between viciousness and mysterious beauty. Following the eight chapters of War & War is a short 'prequel acting as a sequel', 'Isaiah', which brings us to a dark bar, years before in Hungary, where Korim rants against the world and threatens suicide. Written like nothing else (turning single sentences into chapters), War & War affirms W. G. Sebald's comment that Krasznahorkai's prose far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing.Trade ReviewLászló Krasznahorkai writes prose of breathtaking energy and beauty. He manages to combine our most earthly concerns with large cosmic questions. His tones and textures are filled with both risk and certainty. He has elevated the novel form and is to be ranked among the great European novelists. * Colm Tóibín *As the worthy winner of this year's Man Booker International prize, Krasznahorkai throws down a challenge: raise your game or get your coat ... the intensity of his commitment to the art of fiction is indisputable ... exhilarating, even euphoric. -- Hari Kunzru * Guardian *The universality of Krasznahorkai's vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing. * W.G. Sebald *

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Book Synopsis With Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Man Booker International Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk returns with a subversive, entertaining noir novel. In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her sixties, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller by ‘one of Europe’s major humanist writers’ (Guardian) offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination – and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk’s native Poland. Trade Review‘A magnificent writer.’ — Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate ‘Though the book functions perfectly as noir crime – moving towards a denouement that, for sleight of hand and shock, should draw admiration from the most seasoned Christie devotee – its chief preoccupation is with unanswerable questions of free will versus determinism, and with existential unease.... In Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s translation, the prose is by turns witty and melancholy, and never slips out of that distinctive narrative voice.... That this novel caused such a stir in Poland is no surprise. There, the political compass has swung violently to the right, and the rights of women and of animals are under attack (the novel’s 2017 film adaptation, Spoor, caused one journalist to remark that it was “a deeply anti-Christian film that promoted eco-terrorism”). It is an astonishing amalgam of thriller, comedy and political treatise, written by a woman who combines an extraordinary intellect with an anarchic sensibility.’ — Sarah Perry, Guardian‘One among a very few signal European novelists of the past quarter-century.’ — The Economist‘Aspects of dark fantasy permeate Olga Tokarczuk’s grimly comic tale of death and vengeance, set in a remote forested plateau on the border between two realms, with a cast of intelligent animals, ghostly apparitions, celestial influence and humans who resemble trolls, witches, giants and goblins.... Translated with virtuosic precision and wit by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Tokarczuk’s prescient, provocative and furiously comic fiction seethes with a Blakean conviction of the cleansing power of rage: the vengeance of the weak when justice is denied.... [An] elegantly subversive novel.’ — Jane Shilling, New Statesman‘Drive Your Plow is exhilarating in a way that feels fierce and private, almost inarticulable; it’s one of the most existentially refreshing novels I’ve read in a long time.’ — Jia Tolentino, New Yorker‘Amusing, stimulating and intriguing ... [Drive Your Plow] might be likened to Fargo as rewritten by Thomas Mann, or a W. G. Sebald version of The Mousetrap.… Olga Tokarczuk’s previous novel, Flights ... was the winner of the Man Booker International Prize, for translated fiction, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, though smaller in scale, will help confirm her position as the first Polish writer to command sustained Western attention since the end of the Cold War.’ — Leo Robson, The Telegraph‘Janina is such an unusual, engaging narrator that her nihilism is strangely cheering; this was one of the funniest books of the year.’ — Justine Jordan, Books of the Year 2018, Guardian‘Strange, mordantly funny, consoling and wise, Olga Tokarczuk’s novels fill the reader’s mind with intimations of a unique consciousness. Her latest novel to be translated into English, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead is simultaneously unsettling and oddly companionable. Suffused with William Blake, astrological lore, and the landscapes of middle Europe, it’s both a meditation on human compassion and a murder mystery that lingers in the imagination.’ — Marcel Theroux, author of Strange Bodies‘I loved this wry, richly melancholic philosophical mystery. It’s a compelling and endlessly thought-provoking novel, luminous with the strangeness of existence.’ — Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From

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Book SynopsisThe million-copy bestselling phenomenon: a funny, moving, uplifting tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step. Now a major film starring Tom HanksTrade ReviewDelightful ... the perfect holiday read. * Evening Standard *It's the most enchanting, beautiful tale. -- Ben FogleA warm and tender story about love, loss and second chances, peppered with memorable characters, wonderful set pieces and some beautifully black humour. Ove is a joy from start to finish. -- Gavin Extence, author of The Universe versus Alex WoodsAn uplifting, life-affirming and often comic tale of how kindness, love and happiness can be found in the most unlikely places. * Sunday Express *A charming debut. * People *

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Book SynopsisA beguiling novel about three women struggling to determine their own lives in contemporary Tokyo.'Breathtaking' – Haruki Murakami author of Norwegian WoodA New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year' and one of Elena Ferrante's 'Top 40 Books by Female Authors'. Shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.On a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty-year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by her daughter, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession. Her silence dominates Natsuko’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one another.Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and finds herself on a journey back to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and her family’s past as she faces her own uncertain future.In Breasts and Eggs Mieko Kawakami paints a radical and intimate portrait of contemporary working class womanhood in Japan, recounting the heartbreaking journeys of three women in a society where the odds are stacked against them. Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd.'Bold, modern and surprising' – An Yu, author of Braised Pork'Incredible and propulsive' – Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting TimesTrade ReviewI can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami’s novella Breasts and Eggs . . . breathtaking . . . Mieko Kawakami is always ceaselessly growing and evolving -- Haruki MurakamiIncredible -- Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory PoliceBreasts and Eggs, which caused a small sensation upon its publication in the UK and US last year, was a fierce yet thoughtful tale of working-class womanhood * New Statesman *Bold, modern, and surprising -- An Yu, author of Braised PorkIt is Tokyo as it is lived in, not a film set * New York Times *If you like Sheila Heti, you'll love Mieko Kawakami * NPR *A dazzling intellectual thriller by a new Japanese literary star . . . stunning * Financial Times *Breasts and Eggs is stunning - its rage, wry humour and nihilism rendered with real care. -- Olivia Sudjic, author of SympathyIncredible and propulsive -- Naoise DolanFierce and sweet and I would like the rest of Kawakami’s work translated, please -- Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater, in The TimesMieko Kawakami is a writer of rare candour and brilliance -- Rónán Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry PaulAlready a literary sensation . . . Kawakami writes with unsettling precision about the body — its discomforts, its appetites, its smells and secretions. -- Katie Kitamura * New York Times *An original and deeply moving novel—that is by turns hilarious, sexy, devastating, and always unforgettable. Breasts and Eggs crackles with provocative insights into the passage of time, friendship, money, and the pleasures and pains of living in a body. -- Laura van den Berg, author of The Third HotelOne of Japan’s brightest stars is set to explode across the global skies of literature . . . Kawakami is both a writer’s writer and an entertainer, a thinker and constantly evolving stylist who manages to be highly readable and immensely popular. * Japan Times *Mieko Kawakami lobbed a literary grenade into the fusty, male-dominated world of Japanese fiction with 'Chichi to Ran'('Breasts and Eggs') * Economist *Kawakami is emerging as one of Japan’s most prominent young literary voices, with thoughtfulness and eccentricity at the heart of her prose * Culture Trip *So finely crafted, every few lines could be a haiku, and you almost forget how difficult it must have been to create something so perfectly simple. And when you notice the clarity, meditativeness, eccentricity, quirk and wit in her writing, you immediately understand how Murakami could be inspired by a writer like this -- Praise for Ms Ice Cream Sandwich * Ladies Finger *The novel details the lives of three women: the 30-year-old unmarried narrator, her older sister Makiko, who’s obsessed with getting breast implants and her daughter, Midoriko. With humour and compassion, Kawakami explores female oppression in Japan, reproduction rights and motherhood * Now Magazine *Originally published in Mieko Kawakami’s native Japanese, the author’s stellar 2008 novel Breast and Eggs is being translated to English for the first time ever this month, opening her bold writing up to a wider audience * Dazed and Confused *

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Book SynopsisGabriela Cabezón Cámara (San Isidro, 1968) is an Argentinian writer and journalist, and a leading figure in Latin American literature. She is a co-founder of the feminist movement NiUnaMenos (Not One Less), which campaigns against gender-based violence. Her novel THE ADVENTURES OF CHINA IRON was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker and the Prix Medicis in France.

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Book SynopsisThe Cat Who Saved Books is a heartwarming story about finding courage, caring for others – and the tremendous power of books. 'Enchanting' – Observer__________Natsuki Books was a tiny second-hand bookshop on the edge of town. Inside, towering shelves reached the ceiling, every one crammed full of wonderful books. Rintaro Natsuki loved this space that his grandfather had created. He spent many happy hours there, reading whatever he liked. It was the perfect refuge for a boy who tended to be something of a recluse.After the death of his grandfather, Rintaro is devastated and alone. It seems he will have to close the shop. Then, a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears and asks Rintaro for help. The cat needs a book lover to join him on a mission. This odd couple will go on three magical adventures to save books from people who have imprisoned, mistreated and betrayed them. Finally, there is one last rescue that Rintaro must attempt alone . . .Sosuke Natsukawa’s international bestseller, translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai, is a story for those for whom books are so much more than words on paper.Trade ReviewA charming and heartwarming tale of the power of books * Manx Independent *Quirky and heartwarming in equal measure, The Cat Who Saved Books invites us to remember the joy of curling up with a favorite book * Japan Times *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022From the bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs and international literary sensation Mieko Kawakami comes a sharp and illuminating novel about a fourteen-year-old boy subjected to relentless bullying.In Heaven, a fourteen-year-old boy is tormented for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, he chooses to suffer in silence. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate, Kojima, who experiences similar treatment at the hands of her bullies. Providing each other with immeasurable consolation at a time in their lives when they need it most, the two young friends grow closer than ever. But what, ultimately, is the nature of a friendship when your shared bond is terror?Unflinching yet tender, sharply observed, intimate and multi-layered, this simple yet profound novel stands as yet another dazzling testament to Mieko Kawakami’s uncontainable talent. TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of the Year'Mieko Kawakami is a genius' - Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times'An expertly told, deeply unsettling tale of adolescent violence' - VogueTranslated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd.Trade ReviewTaking two outcast teens as its unhappy protagonists, it is an expertly told, deeply unsettling tale of adolescent violence that will, no doubt, only grow the author's fan base * Vogue *This is the real magic of Heaven, which shows us how to think about morality as an ongoing, dramatic activity. -- Merve Emre * New Yorker *To read Heaven, by the author of Breasts and Eggs, and newly translated into English from Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd, is to bear witness to an unrelenting horror film of one boy’s youth * The Washington Post *The second novel to appear in English by the bestselling Japanese author Mieko Kawakami is tauter and even more perceptive than its predecessor . . . Heaven is less than half the length and holds double the emotional force * New Statesman *For me this is a perfect novel, and one I know I will return to before long -- Megan Nolan, author of Acts of DesperationHeaven is a thoughtful novel about the value of the flaws that make us who we are * Literary Review *Short but assured. . .by the end, the reader is so dizzily absorbed in its visceral details and philosophical complexity that, when the twist comes, it hits you with a strange and unexpected force * Financial Times *Impeccably translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, the book is full of masterly set pieces of violence, scenes of senseless bullying so lucid you can almost feel the pain yourself . . . * New York Times Book Review *Heaven is told with astonishing frankness and economy. It will cut through all your defences down to every layer of fear, isolation, hope and need you’ve ever felt . . . Mieko Kawakami is a genius -- Naoise DolanA raw, painful, and tender portrait of adolescent misery, reminiscent of both Elena Ferrante's fiction . . . I cannot, in good conscience, endorse it without a warning: This book is very likely to make you cry * NPR *Brilliant . . . This captivating, quietly devastating book is about the relationship between two school misfits. The same vulnerabilities that expose them to their tormentors allow them to see one another with a pure sort of attention -- Megan Nolan * New Statesman *In this horror film, oblivious authority figures walk on by as you grope for breath, wondering what it even means to be alive and free * Independent *Simple and profound, Heaven is an undeniable masterpiece -- Mitsuyoshi NumanoA poignant odyssey into the haunted caverns of adolescence . . . Kawakami writes with jagged, visceral beauty about those early antagonists we carry around in our heads, scars we bear into adulthood, ‘caught in the undertow’ of hormones and sorrow * Oprah Daily *Mieko Kawakami pulls from the all too familiar places we learn to accept as normal in our youth and gives them to us to reflect on as adults in a painful yet necessary way. Even if we could never learn the absolute truths behind humans' capacity for violence as well as empathy, we are certainly closer now with Heaven -- An Yu, author of Braised PorkKawakami unflinchingly takes the reader through the abyss of depraved, dehumanizing behavior with keen psychological insight, brilliant sensitivity, and compassionate understanding. With this, the author’s star continues to rise * Publishers Weekly *Mieko Kawakami has spun a poignant tale on the theme of bullying . . . Heaven is a tour de force * Tokyo Shimbun *Heaven covers new terrain, masterfully broadening the literary landscape * Yomiuri Shimbun *Kawakami has a unique knack for burrowing into discomfort, and she does it in a startlingly graceful way. Like her last novel—an unsparing treatise on the pressures of being a woman in male-dominated Japan—this book isn’t for the fainthearted. Told from the perspective of a 14-year-old boy in present-day Japan, Kawakami’s tale follows the volatile lives of two teenagers relentlessly bullied by their peers . . . An unexpected classic * Kirkus *Rises above the philosophical questions at its depths and delivers the reader to a devastating conclusion * Elle Japan *Kawakami’s powerful and unassuming novel explores horrific accounts of bullying in a Japanese school . . . Her sensitive, evocative storytelling sets her apart as an incredible literary talent * BookList *Kawakami is a writer who doesn’t shy away from hard truths and painful experiences, so Heaven will not be an easy read, but it’s guaranteed to be a rewarding one * The Japan Times *It is difficult to write young voices well: easy to forget how smart teenagers are, or to portray them in terms of what adults might wish for them. Mieko Kawakami, however, is adept at understanding their perspective and capturing the despair and intractability of those difficult years . . . As with Kawakami's previously translated work, Breasts and Eggs, this is an adroit novel of real feeling and insight from a writer who wants her readers to think for themselves -- Rónán Hession * Irish Times *Mesmerizing . . . Kawakami is a master of the interior voice. There is something about her prose that is so immediate and pressing it blocks out the future almost as if it were a threatening force. We are forced to deal with her characters as they are living now: alone, vulnerable, and unprotected * World Literature Today *These raw and realistic portrayals of bullying are counterbalanced by textured exposition of the philosophical and religious debates concerning violence to which the weak are subjected * Paperback Paris *Moving and intelligent. Kawakami gives us characters who speak to the heart and illustrate in one form or another the dilemma facing everyone in adolescence. Hopeful yet chilling in equal measures * American Booksellers Association *Heaven takes on the issue of bullying, and why a victim might choose not to fight back. Two teenagers bond over their torment, and their passive response reveals many kinds of societal injustice * Washington Post *This sharp new novel from Mieko Kawakami [is] a sucker-punch of a story that implores you to question even your own morality * Cosmopolitan *With grace and clarity, Kawakami explores destructive nature of adolescent violence, and the power of empathetic friendships * The Millions *How can a relationship really last when its foundation is built on shared experiences of humiliation? The author moves toward an answer in this quietly devastating tale of middle school drama * TIME *If you enjoyed Mieko Kawakami’s brilliant Breasts and Eggs, you’re certain to be astonished by her latest novel exploring violence and bullying with fierce, feminist and damning candor * Ms. Magazine *While Kawakami refuses to give us answers, the elegance and care with which she describes her characters’ lives invite the reader to ask such questions of themselves. This is not a cruel story, but rather one that understands hurt and pain for what it is: universal, unjust and material for new life * BookPage *Mieko Kawakami is the reigning queen of contemporary Japanese literature for good reason * Japan Times *Kawakami is taking the reader by the hand and guiding us through someone’s small, interior life as a method of contemplating wide-ranging, universal issues such as the body, ethics, and meaning * Bad Form Review *A poignant and unsettling look at what makes a friendship and, on a macro level, what makes an unequal society. Kawakami’s writing is meticulous and assured, and Heaven leaves a bruise * The Skinny *Exceptional -- David Hayden * White Review 'Books of the Year' *

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Book SynopsisBorn in Turin in 1972, Fabio Geda is an Italian novelist who works with children in difficulties. He writes for several Italian magazines and newspapers, and teaches creative writing at the Italian school of storytelling, Scuola Holden, in Turin. This is his first book to be translated into English.Trade ReviewA frank, revealing and clear-eyed testament of the experiences faced by a young asylum-seeker in the contemporary world -- Diane Samuels * Guardian *A moving and eye-opening account chronicles hardships no child should have to endure, mitigated by intermittent kindnesses * Sunday Times *A beautifully written and moving book * Choice *This little gem, beautifully and unobtrusively translated, will raise tears of sorrow and joy * Independent *The threat of arrest and deportation is constant, with worse to fear at the hands of traffickers... A remarkable story * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisIn The Last Wolf, a philosophy professor is mistakenly hired to write the true tale of the last wolf of Extremadura, a barren stretch of Spain. His miserable experience is narrated in a single, rolling sentence to a patently bored bartender in a dreary Berlin bar. In Herman, a master trapper is asked to clear a forest's last 'noxious beasts.' Herman begins with great zeal, although in time he switches sides, deciding to track entirely new game... In Herman II, the same events are related from the perspective of strange visitors to the region, a group of hyper-sexualised aristocrats who interrupt their orgies to pitch in with the manhunt of poor Herman... These intense, perfect novellas, full of Krasznhorkai's signature sense of foreboding and dark irony, are perfect examples of his craft.Trade ReviewThe Last Wolf reveals what a light-footed and lucid writer Krasznahorkai is, how he entertains as well as disturbs. The book is an excellent short introduction to his fiction, much as Metamorphosis is to Kafka ... Krasznahorkai's method is to examine reality "to the point of madness" and he does so with majestic style and black comedy. -- Luke Brown * Financial Times *Unforgettably visceral and beautiful * Observer *Together, The Last Wolf and Herman raise a set of spiritual questions that affirms their author as one of the most important - and eccentric - writers working today. * Spectator *Melancholy, fantastical and entirely original ... seductive and comical, too -- Adam Thirlwell * Guardian *Exquisite ... claustrophobic, exhilarating and tinged with fatal comedy * New Statesman *Wonderful ... perfectly judged -- David Mills * Sunday Times *A visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic and often shatteringly beautiful ... magnificent works of deep imagination -- Man Booker International Prize citationThe Last Wolf is a great introduction to the world of László Krasznahorkai. Enter here and keep going. -- Sjón[Krasznahorkai has] a magnificently strange and hypnotic way of thinking. * TLS *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for The Man Booker International Prize 2018 A Hungarian interpreter obsessed with waterfalls, at the edge of the abyss in his own mind, wanders the chaotic streets of Shanghai. A traveller, reeling from the sights and sounds of Varanasi, encounters a giant of a man on the banks of the Ganges ranting on the nature of a single drop of water. A child labourer in a Portuguese marble quarry wanders off from work one day into a surreal realm utterly alien from his daily toils. In The World Goes On, a narrator first speaks directly, tells twenty-one unforgettable stories, then bids farewell ('for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me'). As László Krasznahorkai himself explains: 'Each text is about drawing our attention away from this world, speeding our body toward annihilation, and immersing ourselves in a current of thought or a narrative...' The World Goes On is another masterpiece by the winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. 'The excitement of his writing,' Adam Thirlwell proclaimed in the New York Review of Books, 'is that he has come up with his own original forms-there is nothing else like it in contemporary literature.'Trade ReviewOne of the great inventors of new forms in contemporary literature ... there is nothing else like it in contemporary literature -- Adam Thirwell * New York Review of Books *This collection - a masterpiece of invention, utterly different from everything else - is hugely unsettling and affecting; to meet Krasznahorkai's characters, to read his breathless, twisting sentences, is to feel altered. * Guardian *Stories of journeys that, whether undertaken or thwarted, arrive at transcendence. At the end there is only one way to go, in what has to be the most powerful page written so far this century. -- Paul Griffiths * TLS Books of the Year *

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Book Synopsis'You only see clearly with your heart. The most important things are invisible to the eyes.'Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful hardbacks make perfect gifts for book lovers, or wonderful additions to your own collection. This edition features a specially commissioned translation by Ros and Chloe Schwarz, as well as the charming original illustrations by Saint-Exupéry himself, coloured by Barbara Frith.After crash-landing in the Sahara Desert, a pilot encounters a little prince who is visiting Earth from his own planet. Their strange and moving meeting illuminates for the aviator many of life's universal truths, as he comes to learn what it means to be human from a child who is not. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's delightful The Little Prince has been translated into over 180 languages and sold over 80 million copies.Trade ReviewEver since its original publication in French in 1943, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s story has enchanted audiences of all ages . . . The story’s wisdom on loneliness – in cities crowded with people – and consumerism – in a world replete with natural joys – remains as resonant as eve -- Samuel Earle * The Guardian *Of all the books written in French over the past century, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince is surely the best loved in the most tongues -- Adam Gopnik * The New Yorker *Every chapter in this book has a unique lesson; every encounter is an allegory. It is whimsical and magical . . . Saint-Exupéry created a masterpiece that has lived in the hearts of adults and children for decades -- Farah Masud * The Daily Star *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 'A strange, painfully tender exploration of the brutality of desire indulged and the fatality of desire ignored... Exquisite.' Eimear McBride Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people - dutiful wife and mild-mannered office worker. One day, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares, Yeong-hye decides to become a vegetarian. But in South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, it is a shocking act of subversion. Yeong-hye's passive rebellion rapidly manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, from sexual sadism to attempted suicide, and in increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, as all the while she spirals further into her fantasies... Disturbing and beautiful by turns, The Vegetarian is a revelatory novel about modern day South Korea; a tale of shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others.Trade ReviewA strange, painfully tender exploration of the brutality of desire indulged and the fatality of desire ignored... Exquisite -- Eimear McBride, Baileys Women's Prize-winning author * A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing *The Vegetarian is a story about metamorphosis, rage and the desire for another sort of life. It is written in cool, still, poetic but matter-of-fact short sentences, translated luminously by Deborah Smith, who is obviously a genius -- Deborah Levy, author * Swimming Home *[The Vegetarian] is understated even in its most fevered, violent moments. It has a surreal and spellbinding quality. Enthralling -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *It's a bracing, visceral, system-shocking addition to the Anglophone reader's diet. It is sensual, provocative and violent, ripe with potent images, startling colours and disturbing questions. Sentence by sentence, The Vegetarian is an extraordinary experience. [It] will be hard to beat -- Daniel Hahn * Guardian *Shocking... The writing throughout is precise and spare, with not a word wasted. There are no tricks. Han holds the reader in a vice grip... The Vegetarian quickly settles into a dark, menacing brilliance that is similar to the work of the gifted Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa in its devastating study of psychological pain... [It] is more than a cautionary tale about the brutal treatment of women: it is a meditation on suffering and grief. It is about escape and how a dreamer takes flight. Most of all, it is about the emptiness and rage of discovering there is nothing to be done when all hope and comfort fails... A work of savage beauty and unnerving physicality. Mind-blowing -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *Entrancing and tense... the writing is spare and haunting... its crushing climax, a phantasmagoric yet emotionally true moment that's surely one of the year's most powerful... [This is] an ingenious, upsetting, and unforgettable novel -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)The Vegetarian is hypnotically strange, sad, beautiful and compelling. I liked it immensely -- Nathan Filer, author * The Shock of the Fall *A stunning and beautifully haunting novel. It seems in places as if the very words on the page are photosynthesising. I loved this graceful, vivid book -- Jess Richards, author * Snake Ropes *Poetic and beguiling, and translated with tremendous elegance, The Vegetarian exhilarates and disturbs -- Chloe Aridjis, author * The Book of Clouds *This short novel is one of the most startling I have read. Kang is well served by Deborah Smith's subtle translation in this disturbing book -- Julia Pascal * Independent *Kang belongs to a generation of writers that aim to discover secret drives, ambitions, and miseries behind one's personal destiny... [The Vegetarian] deals with violence, sanity, cultural limits, and the value of the human body as the last refuge and private space * Tiempo Argentino *Disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is translated by Deborah Smith into poetic yet matter-of-fact prose -- Richard Eves * Big Issue in the North *A fine novel -- David Hebblethwaite * Shiny New Books *This off-kilter novel from Korea is simultaneously beautiful and sinister * Absolutely Dulwich *The Vegetarian is so strange and vivid it left me breathless upon finishing it. I don't think I've ever read a novel as mouth-wateringly poetic, or as drenched in hypnotic oddities, taboos and scandal. It seems to have been plucked out of the ether, ready-made to take us all by surprise. Exciting and compelling -- Lee Rourke * New Humanist *Elegantly translated into bone-spare English by Deborah Smith... The Vegetarian whispers so clearly, it can be heard across the room, insistently and with devastating, quiet violence -- Joanna Walsh * New Statesman *Fascinating and powerful. A really engrossing read * Guardian *Unsettling... [a] strange and ethereal fable, rendered stranger still by the cool precision of the prose -- Peter Brown * TLS *In The Vegetarian Han Kang ruthlessly targets South Korea's social codes, using the story of a simple, personal rebellion to expose a callous patriarchy. Sharply ironic -- Ruairi Casey * Totally Dublin *[A] heady, unsettling novel... Kang writes in a coolly unsentimental style, and achieves a delicate balance of restraint and passion in a story pulsing with desire, betrayal and destruction. Haunting -- Mireille Juchau * The Australian *Visceral and terrifying, The Vegetarian is a startling reminder of the utter unknowability of another's mind. Nonetheless, reading it, you will feel it in your flesh: the desire for peace, a plea for safety, for escape from your own inevitable mortality. It is artfully plotted yet reads like a fever dream, sweeping and surreal. It will leave you aching -- Sarah Gerard, author * Binary Star *Considering this book just as a story about a vegetarian is a mistake. It is rather a meticulously constructed and haunting novel. Right at the moment you turn the last page, you'll feel grateful for your ordinary life -- Kyung-Sook Shin, Man Asian Literary Prize-winning author * Please Look After Mom *Like a small seed, Han Kang's startling and unforgettable debut goes to work quietly, but insistently. Her prose is so balanced, so elegant and assured, you might overlook the depths of this novel's darkness - do so at your own peril -- Colin Winnette, author * Haints Stay and Coyote *Brutal and beautiful - the translation alone is a work of art - this is a book for anyone who believes that the novel's job is to turn its reader inside out -- Eimear McBride, ‘Summer Read’ * Guardian *Subtle, provocative... a beautiful book -- Chad W Post * Frankfurt Show Daily *Immediately absorbing...It's the kind of story where every word matters -- Lesley McDowell * Sunday Herald *An irresistibly weird and sensuous story -- Daniel Hahn, Books of the Year * New Statesman *Han Kang's vivid and at times violent storytelling will wake up even the most jaded of literary palates * Independent *A transformative fable about desire, frustration and individual will -- Best Books of 2015 * Guardian *Paradoxically, both enlightening and incomprehensible. It is a strange book, with overtones of Kafka, and a plot that has no resolution. And yet it continues its reader, turning the seeming banality of a woman's decision not to eat meat into a surreal psychological odyssey -- Xenobe Purves * Litro *This compact, exquisite and disturbing book will linger long in the minds, and maybe the dreams, of its readers. -- Boyd Tonkin, chair of judges for Man Booker International Prize 2016Split into three parts, Kang's narrative dances tantalisingly around her central character, the too-often silent Yeong-hye... As a character she appears the twisted product of the multitude of watchful eyes, the switching preoccupations, and the opinions of those around her. She herself remains mysteriously elusive, her own thoughts only ever revealed in sparing flashes interspersed throughout the narrative... Teetering between explanations both 'ordinary' and 'extra-ordinary', she leaves no room for certainty, constantly teasing the reader, and the ambiguity that remains both torments and delights. This masterpiece of Korean fiction is finally made available to English readers in Deborah Smith's achingly elegant prose, the first of Han Kang's novels to be translated. Thankfully I am certain it will not be the last. -- Thea Hawlin * London Magazine *While the narrative exposes the plight of women in a male-dominated Korean society, it also takes a broader, philosophical look at suffering and grief, loneliness and the death of hope. It explores the brutal power shifts in relationships. On all levels, artistic and moral, it is a remarkable meditation with universal resonance. At its heart is the individual trying, and failing, to live. Deborah Smith's translation, magnificently alert to the sensitive, sophisticated nuances and tonal variations, can only be described as inspired. -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *A truly memorable novel [with] visceral and unfaltering writing that is innately uneasy to read [...] Han Kang expertly structures the novel around the three long chapters that explore the voices around Yeong-Hye. Though the narrative is never hers, Yeong-Hye remains the focus of the novel throughout. Each chapter features dream sequences which blur the everyday and ethereal and provide the reader with rich and dynamic prose. The fact that these sequences work so well in The Vegetarian is a huge credit to the work of Deborah Smith who achieves a translation that is wonderfully readable in English whilst at the same time profoundly different to English language novels. * Words Shortlist *One of the most erotic literary novels of the season... The Vegetarian has been praised on both sides of the Atlantic as strange visionary and transgressive. * Economist *A haunting, hypnotic read, Han Kang's novel is a bold example of what world literature has to offer us here in Britain. -- Erica Wagner * Harper's Bazaar *The winner of the 2016 Man International Booker Prize is an unsettling, sensual and surreal novel about a dutiful wife who rebels against her stultifying marriage. * i *No blurb that I have read for this book does it justice. That's because the premise is peculiar; an unremarkable man meets an unremarkable woman and they get married. Their lives are ordinary, until one day she has a dream that compels her to become a vegetarian. At which point the tale goes nuclear. -- Summer books round up * The Times *Intriguing -- Charlotte Mendelson, summer books round up * Observer *At once dreamy and nightmarish, a beautiful horror and easily one of the best books I've read in years. -- Lisa McInerney * Guardian *[An] engrossing read which takes you deep into the fascinating and complex world of another culture, South Korea. The harrowing but beautifully told story of a woman who would not conform. -- Top ten books chart * Western Morning News *Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others. * Western Morning News *Kang has crafted a wounding, unsettling book. The fantastical imagery of plants, trees and flowers reinforce Yeong-hye's purity. The book is a journey in trying to understand her and the reactions she inspires in others... Han Kang's great achievement is crafting a small tale from which great things grow * Irish Examiner *A violent, magical and surreal tale... Unforgettable -- Fiona Wilson, Best Books of 2016 * The Times *I loved this haunting [novel] -- Lionel Shriver, Best Books of 2016 * Observer *Visceral -- Best Books of 2016 * Financial Times *This slim novel from South Korea is one of the most erotic literary novels of the season -- Best Books of 2016 * Economist *[An] unsettling novel... This spare and elegant translation renders the original Korean in pointed and vivid English, preserving Han's exploration of whether true innocence is possible in a vicious and bloody world -- The Ten Best Books of 2016 * New York Times *Scary and sad, but also deeply tender. It made me question my autonomy, which is exactly what I look for in a book -- Brie Larson * Stylist *A disturbingly cerebral analysis of conformity, autonomy and patriarchy * Dumfries and Galloway Life *[An] eerie modern classic * Metro *

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Book SynopsisA beautifully moving tale of loss and reaching out to the ones we love.Our narrator’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the Devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week . . .Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the Devil our narrator will take himself – and his beloved cat – to the brink.Genki Kawamura's If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life.This beautiful tale is translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland, who also translated The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. Fans of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles will also love If Cats Disappeared from the World.Trade ReviewA warm, quirky novel on life, love, family estrangement and what remains when we are gone with a surprising emotional charge. * Observer *If you're a fan of The Guest Cat (or even just cats generally), you'll love this. * Sunday Times #StyleReads *This brief existential enquiry into life’s priorities is gently charming. * The Skinny *A moral tale. * The Express *A poignant, affecting story about facing up to one's mortality, taking responsibility for one's choices and deciding what truly holds value. * The Herald *Reminiscent of Johnathan Livingston Seagull, this was a quick read – it only took me a few hours – but it will stay with you long after you finish it. * My Weekly *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 'Beautiful, horrible... the most exciting discovery I've made in fiction for some time' Kazuo Ishiguro 'Smoky, carnal, dazzling' Lauren Groff Welcome to Buenos Aires, a place of nightmares and twisted imaginings, where missing children come back from the dead and unearthed bones carry terrible curses. Thrumming with murderous intentions, family betrayals and morbid desires, these stories shine a light on a violent city gripped by urban madness; giving voice to the lost, the oppressed and the forgotten. Lucid and darkly poetic, unsettling and otherworldly, these tales of revenge, witchcraft and fetishes are a masterpiece of contemporary Gothic and a bewitching exploration of the dark inclinations that threaten to lead us over the edge. 'I loved these twisted, lustful whispers in the dark' Daisy Johnson 'Queen of Latin American gothic' Financial TimesTrade ReviewAfter you've lived in Enriquez's marvellous brain for the time it takes to read The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, the known world feels ratcheted a few degrees off centre. Smoky, carnal and dazzling -- Lauren Groff, author of Fates and FuriesI loved these twisted, lustful whispers in the dark. There is serious power in this writing -- Daisy Johnson, author of SistersA weird and wonderful exploration of contemporary horror - cities falling apart, society turning on itself, the loneliness of the internet age. But more than that: these stories are fun. Wild, triggering, sinister, button-pushing fun -- Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious HeresiesRotting little ghosts, heartbeat fetishes, curses and witches and meat: each of these stories is a luscious, bewitching nightmare. I adore this book -- Kirsty Logan, author of The GracekeepersEnriquez's work: tainted rivers, corrupted streets, spoiled meat, slain children, deeply registers the horror of known commonplace. She writes her stories, based in the atmosphere of truth, with a darkly descriptive poetic turn -- Patti SmithEnriquez is a mesmerizing writer who demands to be read. Like Bolaño, she is interested in matters of life and death, and her fiction hits with the full force of a train -- Dave Eggers, author of The CircleSpine-tingling but stunning... these glittering, gothic stories are a force to be reckoned with, and Enriquez's talent and fearlessness is something to behold * Financial Times *Brilliantly unsettling... Tricking us into waiting for a ghost to "put out its head", Enriquez surprises us with real horror -- Chris Power * Guardian *Reminds us what a remarkable and twisted instrument [Enriquez's] imagination is... A heady brew -- Jane Graham * Big Issue *When it comes to book reviewing clichés, the word "haunting" is surely one of the tattiest, yet Mariana Enriquez's newly translated short story collection restores to that tired adjective all its most mysterious, fearful strangeness... an arrestingly original talent -- Hephzibah Anderson * Observer *A twisted mix of nightmarish desires and ink-black gothic... that will leave you shaken but secretly rather thrilled. Everything about these tales feels shockingly alive... Darkly comic * The Times *[Mariana Enriquez] reaffirms her claim to the title of queen of Latin American gothic * Financial Times *[A] spine-tingling, luminous collection whose enthralling characters all dance across the spectral line between our world and the beyond -- Best books of 2021 * Oprah Daily *Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez is a highly persuasive cinematic and visceral spell-caster with an apparent desire to plant immovable nightmarish seeds in the brains of her readers... The Dangers of Smoking in Bed showcase[s] her extraordinary imagination * Big Issue *

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Book SynopsisMeursault, his anti-hero, will not lie. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal.Trade ReviewSmith's new version ... treats Camus' text with respect, directness and an unexpected delicateness. She reveals, and permits, an original edgy strangeness in the prose itself; she treats it sensually, listening to Camus' original sentence structures and lengths, and to the rhythmic fall of his prose -- Ali Smith * The Times *

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Book SynopsisToshikazu Kawaguchi was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1971. He formerly produced, directed and wrote for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. As a playwright, his works include COUPLE, Sunset Song and Family Time. The novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold is adapted from a 1110 Productions play by Kawaguchi, which won the 10th Suginami Drama Festival grand prize. It was followed by Tales from the Cafe, Before Your Memory Fades, Before We Say Goodbye and Before We Forget Kindness.Trade ReviewThe third novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. Having read the first two, we can attest it will be just the thing to curl up with on a rainy afternoon. * Sheerluxe *

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Book SynopsisHaruki Murakami (Author) In 1978, Haruki Murakami was twenty-nine and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won a new writers' award and was published the following year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, that turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon.In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Men Without Women, Murakami's distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring his place as one of the world's most acclaimed and well-loved writers.Jay Rubin (Translator) Jay Rubin is the author of Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State and Making Sense of Japanese, and he edited Modern Japanese Writers for the Scribner Writers Series. He has translated into English two novels by the Japanese writer Soseki Natsume, and also Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and after the quake.

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Book Synopsis'An irresistible Hitchcockian gem: a fiendishly-plotted crime novel told in crisp, elegant prose' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train 'Matsumoto was Japan's Agatha Christie' Laura Hackett, The Sunday Times 'It was a puzzle with no solution. But he did not lose heart.' In a rocky cove in the bay of Hakata, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Stood in the coast's wind and cold, the police see nothing to investigate: the flush of the couple's cheeks speaks clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, Torigai Jutaro, a senior detective, and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime... Now widely available in English for the first time, Tokyo Express is celebrated around the world as Seicho Matsumoto's masterpiece - and as one of the most fiendish puzzlesTrade ReviewTokyo Express is an irresistible Hitchcockian gem: a fiendishly-plotted crime novel told in crisp, elegant prose -- Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the TrainJapan's Agatha Christie. A gloriously complex case of a supposed double suicide that, at just 160 pages, you can whizz through in a day. -- Laura Hackett * The Sunday Times *This classic of postwar Japanese crime fiction was banned in its day for its 'decadent western ideas'. Now, the fascinatingly detailed investigations of Inspector Torigai echo those of Simenon's Maigret in a pared-down narrative shot through with political critique * Financial Times *A labyrinth of convincing alibis and false leads... Matsumoto's classic status is richly deserved * Daily Mail *The appearance in English of Japanese crime classics such as Seicho Matsumoto's Tokyo Express is long overdue * The Sunday Times, Best Crime Books of 2023 *The debut novel of bestselling writer Seicho Matsumoto, first published in Japan in 1958 and never out of print, is an ingeniously plotted railway mystery * Guardian *Seicho Matsumoto's brief and perennially popular Tokyo Express is a masterpiece of concision and tight plotting. . . exceptionally well paced and palpably tense, both features admirably preserved by Jesse Kirkwood in this fresh translation -- Bryan Karetnyk * TLS *Tense, enigmatic, thrillingly weird - a glorious find -- Kevin Barry, author of Night Boat to TangierAn absolute corker of a read -- so brilliantly shrouded in mystery that it was impossible to put it down -- Lisa Hall, author of Between You and MeA fiendishly complex case. A deep understanding of human nature drives this intricately plotted masterpiece of Japanese crime writing. A timely and welcome opportunity for a new generation to discover Seicho Matsumoto -- Brian McGilloway, author of The Empty RoomThe Simenon of Japan. . . a legendary writer * Le Monde *Matsumoto is a necessity, reading him is like having a bowl of rice you never get tired of -- Masato Ara

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Book SynopsisMinor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba – the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people – and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.Trade Review‘All novels are political and Minor Detail, like the best of them, transcends the author’s own identity and geography. Shibli’s writing is subtle and sharply observed.’ — Fatima Bhutto, Guardian‘A sophisticated, oblique novel about empathy and the urge to right wrongs’ — Anthony Cummins, Observer‘An intense and penetrating work about the profound impact of living with violence—Shibli’s work is powerful and this translation by Elisabeth Jaquette is rendered with exquisite clarity and quiet control.’ — Katie da Cunha Lewin, Los Angeles Review of Books‘This is probably my novel of the year so far.’ — Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail‘Though Minor Detail initially promises to be a kind of counterhistory or whodunit—a rescue of the victim’s story from military courts and Israeli newspapers–it turns out to be something stranger and bleaker. Rather than a discovery of hidden truths, or a search for justice, it is a meditation on the repetitions of history, the past as a recurring trauma ... For Shibli, the emblematic experience of occupation is the longue duree of ennui and isolation rather than a dramatic moment of crisis.’ — New York Review of Books

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Book SynopsisKafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.Trade ReviewWonderful... Magical and outlandish * Daily Mail *A magnificently bewildering achievement... Brilliantly conceived, bold in its surreal scope, sexy and driven by a snappy plot... Exuberant storytelling * Independent on Sunday *Cool, fluent and addictive * Daily Telegraph *Hypnotic, spellbinding * The Times *Addictive... Exhilarating... A pleasure * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisRead the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon – soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones. Imagine the universe as a forest, patrolled by numberless and nameless predators. In this forest, stealth is survival – any civilisation that reveals its location is prey. Earth has. Now the predators are coming. Crossing light years, the Trisolarians will reach Earth in four centuries' time. But the sophons, their extra-dimensional agents and saboteurs, are already here. Only the individual human mind remains immune to their influence. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a last-ditch defence that grants four individuals almost absolute power to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from human and alien alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead. Praise for The Three-Body Problem: 'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired 'Immense' Barack Obama 'Unique' George R.R. Martin 'SF in the grand style' Guardian 'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail Winner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best NovelTrade ReviewWildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense -- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United StatesA milestone in Chinese science fiction * New York Times *A marvellous mélange of awe-inspiring scientific concepts, clever plotting and quirky yet plausible characters, all conveyed in in a plain style capable of signalling hidden depths * The Times *The best kind of science fiction -- Kim Stanley RobinsonVivid, imaginative and rooted in cutting-edge science... Cixin stands at the top tier of speculative fiction in any language' -- David BrinFull of surprises and wondrous ideas... The depth of feeling here is extraordinary. Emotion and science brilliantly co-exist. To call the vision grand and ambitious seems a ridiculous understatement... I await the conclusion, Death's End, in the spring with enormous anticipation. I have no doubt that when this trilogy is complete we will have a masterpiece on our hands' * For Winter Nights *Hauntingly gentle in its delivery and gorgeous in its own wondrous atmosphere, The Dark Forest is a quiet slice of lovely science fiction... it's bursting with character and ingenuity' * Starburst magazine *Chinese SF has been neglected in the wider world for far too long * Interzone *A breakthrough book... a unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology, where kings and emperors from both western and Chinese history mingle in a dreamlike game world, while cops and physicists deal with global conspiracies, murders, and alien invasions in the real world' -- George R.R. Martin.[The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest are] the works of fiction I am most enthusiastic about * Bloomberg. *Even what doesn't happen is epic * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisA riveting, poetic and powerful work from the author of the International Booker Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian. 'Exquisite, painful and deeply courageous' Philippe Sands, Best Books of the Year, Guardian Gwangju, South Korea, 1980. Amid a violent student uprising a young boy named Dong-ho is killed. As his friend searches for Dong-ho's corpse, we also meet an editor struggling against censorship, a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories, and Dong-ho's grief-stricken mother. Through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope comes a tale of a brutalised people in search of a voice. A modern classic, Human Acts has been both a controversial bestseller and an award-winning book in Korea, and it confirmed Han Kang as a writer of international importance. '[Han Kang's] way of telling about the events of a 10-day insurgency in Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 and its psychological, spiritual and political aftermath opened my eyes' Susie Orbach, Best Books of the Year, GuardianTrade ReviewHuman Acts is a stunning piece of work. The language is poetic, immediate, and brutal. Han Kang has again proved herself to be a deft artist of storytelling and imagery -- Jess Richards, author * Snake Ropes *An important and necessary book... a devastating and vital a work of literature -- Lucy Scholes * National *A conversation of which we rarely hear both sides: the living talking to the dead, and the dead speaking back * Sunday Telegraph ***** *This ghostly narrative is elliptical and self-conscious about the difficulty of accounting for the legacy of state violence... poignant -- Anthony Cummins * Observer *[Han Kang's] way of telling about the event of a 10-day insurgency on Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 and its psychological, spiritual and political aftermath opened my eyes to the cruelty and viciousness perpetrated on the youth of that city. Her writing is spare and yet clotted with emotion -- Susie Orbach, Best Books of 2016 * Guardian *Han Kang's Human Acts is piercing: an exquisite, painful and deeply courageous account of the 1980 Gwangju massacre -- Philippe Sands, Best Books of 2016 * Guardian *Powerful and disturbing... lyrical and chilling * Mail on Sunday *Powerful -- David Hebblethwaite * Shiny New Books blog *[Han Kang's] way of telling about the events of a 10-day insurgency in Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 and its psychological, spiritual and political aftermath opened my eyes to the cruelty and viciousness perpetrated on the youth of that city. Her writing is spare and yet clotted with emotion -- Susie Orbach, Best Books of 2016 * Guardian *Han Kang's Human Acts is no less piercing: an exquisite, painful and deeply courageous account of the 1980 Gwangju massacre -- Philippe Sands, Best Books of 2016 * Guardian *An extraordinary novel about politics and torture, about the way we memorialize past wrongs. Deborah Smith's translation is typically lucid and readable -- Alex Preston, Best Books of 2016 * Observer *Beautiful and brutal... A fearless examination of the state of humanity and the diagnosis isn't good. This is the pitiless kind of novel that burrows into its reader -- Lisa McInerney * Irish Times *Though there's violence and bloodshed on a large scale in Han's depiction of the Gwangju Uprising, it is the small human movements that I found most vivid. That contrast helped to create the strongest experience of all the books I read this year -- David Hebblethwaite * David's Book World *Raw and beautiful, Han's prose was as contrary as the human acts she described * New Internationalist *[Human Acts] unblinkingly explores the aftermath of one of the darkest moments in South Korean history... It's written with a clear-eyed exactness that is at times horrifying... Ultimately, this is a harrowing novel that deftly examines human cruelty -- Ruchira Sharma * Independent *[A] remarkable novel... A technical and emotional triumph * Daily Telegraph *Han Kang's Human Acts, translated by Deborah Smith, gutted me. The language finds ways to dig in and hold you even as you want to turn from the horror depicted -- Maaza Mengiste * Guardian *Brilliant... Incredibly moving -- Lisa McInerney

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHow simple this novel is. How subtle. How strong. How unlike any other. It is unique. It is unforgettable. It is extraordinary. -- Doris Lessing * Independent *It is hard to do justice to The Ice Palace . . . The narrative is urgent, the descriptions relentlessly beautiful, the meaning as powerful as the ice piling up on the lake. * The Times *Vesaas's laconic sentences are as cold and simple as ice - and as fantastic. * The Telegraph *The atmosphere created is magical: rather than explaining something, he will just plant a poetic statement and let it grow within you. * The Telegraph *But if I had to choose a book I'm surprised isn't the most famous book in the world it might be The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas. -- Max Porter * Times Literary Supplement *A haunting story, full of ice and wind and poetry. -- Dea Brøvig * The Guardian *If I had to choose a book I'm surprised isn't the most famous book in the world it might be The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas. -- Max Porter * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis''A truly great translation . . . This English version really is better'' - A. N. Wilson, The SpectatorTIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014This acclaimed new translation of Dostoyevsky''s ''psychological record of a crime'' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders alone through the slums of St. Petersburg, deliriously imagining himself above society''s laws. But when he commits a random murder, only suffering ensues. Embarking on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was born in Moscow and made his name in 1846 with the novella Poor Folk. He spent several years in prison in Siberia as a result of his political activities, an experience which formed the basis of The House of the Dead. In later life, he fell in love with a much younger woman and developed a ruinous passion for roulette. His subsequent great novels include Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.Oliver Ready is Research Fellow in Russian Society and Culture at St Antony''s College, Oxford. He is general editor of the anthology, The Ties of Blood: Russian Literature from the 21st Century (2008), and Consultant Editor for Russia, Central and Eastern Europe at the Times Literary Supplement.Trade ReviewA superb translation -- Jennifer Szalai * The New York Times *A truly great translation ... Sometimes new translations of old favourites are surplus to our requirements. Sometimes, though, a new translation really makes us see a favourite masterpiece afresh. And this English version of Crime and Punishment really is better ... Crime and Punishment, as well as being an horrific story and a compelling drama, is also extremely funny. Ready brings out this quality well ... That knife-edge between sentimentality and farce has been so skilfully and delicately captured here ... Ready's version is colloquial, compellingly modern and - in so far as my amateurish knowledge of the language goes - much closer to the Russian. ... The central scene in the book is a masterpiece of translation -- A. N. Wilson * Spectator *I was delighted to discover Oliver Ready's new translation of Crime and Punishment ... It is brimful of a young man's rage and energy and bullshit. I adored it -- Peter CareyThis vivid, stylish and rich rendition by Oliver Ready compels the attention of the reader in a way that none of the others I've read comes close to matching. Using a clear and forceful mid-20th-century idiom, Ready gives us an entirely new kind of access to Dostoyevsky's singular, self-reflexive and at times unnervingly comic text. This is the Russian writer's story of moral revolt, guilt and possible regeneration turned into a new work of art ... [It] will give a jolt to the nervous system to anyone interested in the enigmatic Russian author -- John Gray * New Statesman, 'Books of the Year' *Oliver Ready's translation of Crime and Punishment . . . is a five-star hit, which will make you see the original with new eyes -- A. N. Wilson * Times Literary Supplement, 'Books of the Year' *At last we have a translation that brings out the wild humour and vitality of the original -- Robert ChandlerI was bowled over, by the novel itself and the utterly brilliant translation, which grabs you by the lapels and doesn't let go. In the course of my work, I go through mountains of nonfiction to try to understand the world. This summer, I was reminded of the power of a novel to uncover something much deeper about the human spirit -- Fareed Zakaria * The New York Times Book Review *A tour de force built from prose that is not only impeccable in its own right but also perfectly suited to the story, its characters, its epoch and themes. We should treasure this new translation and, indeed, this new book * New York Journal of Books *A dazzlingly agile and robust new translation . . . Ready, who has a practiced ear for Russian dialect and a natural grace with English, is exceptionally deft at navigating [the novel's] challenges ... His ability to reproduce the whole heady brew of Dostoyevsky's novel in a consistent but nimble modern English ought to be applauded * Los Angeles Review of Books *What a great book this is and nothing like the dated, heavy Russian literature I thought I might have to wade through. It's a page turner - a dark, comic thriller with an anti-hero akin to Macbeth and characters so perfectly rendered as to leap from the page. The style is really modern and constantly delves into the mad thoughts of the protagonist - if you can call him that - Raskolnikov. Try it, especially Oliver Ready's high-tempo version -- Gary KempOliver Ready's version is outstanding in finding le mot juste for all of Dostoevsky's graphic verbs and odd objects (few Russian writers have a lexical range to equal Dostoevsky's) * The Times Literary Supplement *Ready's translation is nothing less than a wonder. He mirrors the tonal shifts in Dostoyevsky's original more nimbly than any English-language translator has before, and he catches the dark humour that runs through the book mostly below its surface, and best of all, he captures the essential, unchanging absurdity of Raskolnikov perfectly ... Ready's version crackles with grubby, demented vitality -- Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *Ready's lively translation succeeds in admirably capturing the psychological intensity of Dostoyevsky's style. . . . [It] replicates natural speech patterns in a way that Pevear and Volokhonsky's rather stilted translation does not. . . . [Ready's] English prose is rhythmic and, at times, poetic. . . . It is [the novel's] sense of frenzy that Ready so brilliantly captures in his new translation, which will ensure that another generation of readers remains enraptured by Crime and Punishment -- Slavic and East European JournalReady's vivid, new version ... is more than a Titanic idea of a great translation. It is the real thing ... Crisp and compelling, building on staccato rhythmic structures to heighten the novel's dramatic tension, then elegantly sidling into Dostoyevsky's abrupt denouement, his translation brings new life to a 150-year-old classic, rendering the familiar in fresh light * The Wichita Eagle *A gorgeous translation ... Inside one finds an excellent apparatus: a chronology, a terrific contextualizing introduction, a handy compendium of suggestions for further reading, and cogent notes on the translation. . . . But the best part is Ready's supple translation of the novel itself. Ready manages to cleave as closely as any prior translator to both spirit and letter, while rendering them into an English that is a relief to read * The East-West Review *What a pleasure it is to see Oliver Ready's new translation bring renewed power to one of the world's greatest works of fiction ... Ready's work is of substantial and superb quality ... [His] version portrays more viscerally and vividly the contradictory nature of Raskolnikov's consciousness. ... Ready evokes the crux of Crime and Punishment with more power than the previous translators have ... with an enviably raw economy of prose * The Curator *[An] excellent new translation * Critical Mass *Ready's new translation of Crime and Punishment is thoughtful and elegant [and] shows us once again why this novel is one of the most intriguing psychological studies ever written. His translation also manages to revive the disturbing humour of the original ... In some places, Ready's version echoes Pevear and Volokhonsky's prize-winning Nineties version, but he often renders Dostoyevsky's text more lucidly while retaining its deliberately uncomfortable feel. . . . Ready's colloquial, economical use of language gives the text a new power * Russia Beyond the Headlines *A clever modern translation of this classic of Russian horror that gave me nightmares as a student. We journey through suffering, repentance and expiation of sin -- Neil Mendoza * The Week *

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Book SynopsisWhen We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled minds we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, they alienate friends and lovers, they descend into isolated states of madness. Some of their discoveries revolutionise our world for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear. With breakneck pace and wondrous detail, Benjamín Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.Trade Review'Ingenious, intricate and deeply disturbing... Labatut has written a dystopian nonfiction novel set not in the future but in the present' - John Banville, Guardian'We may be familiar with such things as Schrdinger's cat and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle... but the sheer audacity, the utter insanity of the ideas and the thinkers who discovered these ideas has never, in my experience, been so vividly and terrifyingly conveyed as in this short, monstrous, and brilliant book' - Philip Pullman'Absolutely brilliant. I was utterly gripped and wolfed it down. It feels as if he had invented an entirely new genre' - Mark Haddon, author of 'The Porpoise''Labatut uses fiction to crack open the stories of scientists and mathematicians whose expanded our notions of the possible, while also presenting them as human, all too human' - Dazed

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Book SynopsisIn Água Viva Clarice Lispector aims to ''capture the present''. Her direct, confessional and unfiltered meditations on everything from life and time to perfume and sleep are strange and hypnotic in their emotional power and have been a huge influence on many artists and writers, including one Brazilian musician who read it one hundred and eleven times. Despite its apparent spontaneity, this is a masterly work of art, which rearranges language and plays in the gaps between reality and fiction.Trade ReviewA bewitching, jewel-like book unlike anything in modern literature. Agua Viva baffles and inspires me ... Each word of the book lands with the sweet force of a blade ... crystalline -- Carlos Valladares * Gagosian Quarterly *An emblematic twentieth-century artist who belongs in the same pantheon as Kafka and Joyce * Edmund White *Lispector stands at the pinnacle of Brazil's impressive literary achievement * Washington Post Book World *One of the very great writers of the last century * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisBased on Cartarescu's own experience as a teacher, Solenoid submerges us in the mundane details of a diarist's life and spirals into an existential account of history, philosophy and mathematics. Grounded in the reality of communist Romania, it grapples with frightening health care, the absurdities of the education system and the struggles of family life, while investigating other universes and forking paths. In a surreal journey like no other, we visit a tuberculosis preventorium, an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators and a minuscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide. Combining fiction with autobiography and history, Solenoid searches for escape routes through the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various monstrous realities erupt within the present.

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