Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisA seemingly ordinary man, Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning only to discover that he has been transformed into a gigantic insect and must deal with the depression over his new physical alteration, as well as the rejection of his family, in a new translation, honoring the 125th anniversary of the author''s birth. Reprint.Trade Review"I think of a Kafka story as a perfect work of literary art, as approachable as it is strange, and as strange as it is approachable." —Michael Hofmann

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Book SynopsisAn ambitious and unscrupulous priest arrives in the provincial town of Plassans, intent on conquering its political and social life. His arrival has profound consequences for the Mouret family, whose lives are turned upside down. This is the fourth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, and the first modern translation for more than fifty years.Trade ReviewThis translation of a pivotal text in Zolas larger history of the Second Empire continues an ongoing effort to bring to light the naturalist novelists less-known work to anglophone readers and scholarship. Helen Constantines translation is accompanied by an insightful critical introduction written by Patrick McGuinness, as well as rather pithy explanatory notes that help to situate the narratives drama within the context of the Second Empire and the complex web of political intrigue taking place outside the world of Plassans. * Meredith Lehman, University of Texas, Modern Language Review *There's so much more going on here, and the novel is so worth reading, for its wonderful view of French provincial life, its extraordinary characters both low-life and high-life, its satire and its tragedy. So, well done to OUP for commissioning these new translations, this one excellently done by Helen Constantine. Highly recommended. * Harriet Devine, Shiny New Books *

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Book Synopsis“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The GuardianWhen a man is killed outside a Parisian boarding house, Inspector Maigret moves in to get to the bottom of it While keeping watch outside Mademoiselle Clément’s boarding house to await a suspect in a local bar robbery, a man named Janvier is shot in the chest. When Maigret, whose wife is away caring for her sister in Alsace, hears of the crime, he moves into the boarding house to solve the case. But the web quickly grows ever-more tangled, and Maigret must navigate generations-long secrets and a torrid affair to find his answers before it’s too late.Trade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories * Guardian *A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness * Independent *The most addictive of writers . . . a unique teller of tales * Observer *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories. -- GuardianA supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness. * Independent *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe Kites is indeed a treasure, capable of accessing an enormous node of insight and almost-overwhelming beauty spliced with bittersweet candor... we are lucky to have it at last. We're going to need it. * BOMB Magazine *This final work by a maverick genius of modern French fiction tells a story of love and war that's both charming and moving. It's a perfect introduction to the unique imagination of Romain Gary -- Boyd TonkinRomain Gary has created a gallery of heroes who are willing to die for liberty but have to settle for the lesser victory of self-knowledge * Time *A major literary star ... whose life was stranger than fiction * Guardian *A rebel French writer ... a brilliant storyteller, a master craftsman and one of France's most original writers * Independent *What talent, most certainly, how many ideas and passions too. You seize us and shake us. Ah! -- Charles de GaulleWhat a gold mine! -- Jean Paul SartreA truly beautiful novel -- David BellosGary is brilliant at capturing the existential emotion for which the title of "The Kites" is an obvious metaphor -- sky-bound yet tethered by that string. -- Gal Beckerman * New York Times Book Review *More than a humorist, more than a storyteller, he's a moralist, an independent and significant student of the struggle to tell right from wrong, good conduct from bad. This struggle took place within a life that was, as people like to say, itself as good a story as any novel that he wrote -- Adam Gopnik * The New Yorker *An extraordinary novel about lost love, memory, resistance to tyranny and individual lives caught up in the rush of history -- D. J. TaylorWhat struck me the most on reading The Kites was the energy and fervour needed to write such a text at a time when the author was so close to ending his own life. How do you create such an explosion of life and love when you are overwhelmed with the desire to die? The Kites is a novel touched from beginning to end with grace, a great saga about the innate dignity of love that succeeds in the feat of being funny and poetic, tender and sharp, committed and fierce, with a touch of brilliance in the art of dialogue and situations that avoid the twofold temptation of sentimentality and moral lesson. He mixes the spirit of childhood with the acute intelligence of the mature man. He utilises frivolity and virtuous irony to give the tragedy of life its depth and greatness - and this eloquence, this taste for language and beauty in the shadow of death demonstrates the power of literature. So, after having mixed with a memorable crowd of truculent, touching, spectacular and comical characters, you finish the text with a lingering feeling of enchantment in spite of all the bereavements and adversities. -- Muriel BarberyWhat emerges, overwhelmingly, is the sense that, in Gary's hands, fiction itself is a form of resistance. * The Guardian *A hugely enjoyable read * Spectator *Captures [Romain Gary's] slightly absurd gallantry, his humor and compassion, and his love of all things French. * Haaretz *We can weep while reading this joyful novel -- Alan Moses * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis''For fans of Jo Nesbo and Patricia Highsmith'' A. J. Finn, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Woman in the WindowYOU WAKE UP COVERED IN BLOODTHERE''S A BODY DOWNSTAIRSYOUR MOTHER''S BODYYOU DIDN''T DO IT. DID YOU?HOW COULD YOU, YOU''VE ALWAYS BEEN THE GOOD SONTHE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION FROM KOREA''S MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR YOU-JEONG JEONG.When Yu-jin wakes up covered in blood, and finds the body of his mother downstairs, he decides to hide the evidence and pursue the killer himself. Then young women start disappearing in his South Korean town. Who is he hunting? And why does the answer take him back to his brother and father who lost their lives many years ago.The Good Son is inspired by a true story. Trade ReviewAn intense, creepy, darkly funny read . . . a book focusing on the claustrophobic dynamics of a mother-son relationship that makes Mrs Bates and her son Norman look well-adjusted * Daily Telegraph *A cool, crafty did-he-do-it thriller buoyed by a rising tide of madness. Provocative yet profound, humming with mood and menace, The Good Son will rivet readers of Jo Nesbo and Patricia Highsmith -- A. J. Finn, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Woman in the WindowRightly compared to Stephen King * Die Zeit (Germany) *The queen of crime . . . You-jeong Jeong is shaking up the world of suspense with her particularly well-executed thrillers * Glamour *Readers will be relieved that this is fiction, not real life. This book will pull you in; as you devour it, you might perhaps resent the author's relentless pursuit of the evil coiled within humans. But this, too, is human * Kyoung sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER *Gripping and often gruesome . . . a disturbing story of the events that unfold after Yu-jin, 26, wakes up to find his mother in a pool of blood (we did warn you) * Cosmopolitan *Jeong expertly inches up the tension in this crafty, creepy story of a psychopath's coming-of-age * Guardian *Ingeniously twisted * Entertainment Weekly, 'Must List' *Want to read an under-the-radar psychological thriller? Feel smug about pocketing The Good Son * Elle.com, '30 Best Books to Read This Summer' *A slow-burn psychological thriller with plenty of twists and things to think about * BookRiot *The gore is intense, but the psychological terror might never wash off * Vulture *Absorbing . . . An unlikely thriller that we continue to read - thanks to Ms. Jeong's controlled prose . . . with a sickened sort of fascination. It's a testament to the author's skill and seriousness of purpose that she maintains suspense about her inhuman-seeming protagonist's fate until the bitter end * Wall Street Journal *[You-jeong Jeong is] South Korea's Patricia Highsmith, able to convey the internal and manipulative logic of even the most disturbed minds, while spritzing her tales with commentary on the isolation that comes with modern prosperity * Literary Hub *Dark, harrowing, horribly claustrophobic but hard to put down . . . You-jeong Jeong's novel speaks for a facet of the human condition that is more prevalent than we like to think -- Financial Times

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Book Synopsis"This fine version, with David Cronenberg's inspired introduction and the new translator's beguiling afterword, is, I suspect, the most disturbing though the most comforting of all so far; others will follow, but don't hesitate: this is the transforming text for you."-Richard HowardTrade Review"Bernofsky's vibrant new translation preserves the comedy as well as the tragedy of Kafka's text; it convinces both on its own and when read with the original in mind." -- Times Literary Supplement"...brilliant edition of Kafka's novella...prepare to be pleasantly surprised here as Susan Bernofsky's brilliant translation brings out Kafka's sharp wit." -- The Indpendent

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Book SynopsisAN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE ICELANDIC LITERATURE PRIZEThe Icelandic Dickens Irish ExaminerStefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy EILEEN BATTERSBY, T.L.S. SupplementA wonderful, exceptional writer . . . A timeless storyteller CARSTEN JENSENSometimes, in small places, life becomes bigger Sometimes a distance from the world''s tumult opens our hearts and our dreams. In a village of four hundred souls, the infinite light of an Icelandic summer makes its inhabitants want to explore, and the eternal night of winter lights up the magic of the stars. The village becomes a microcosm of the age-old conflict between human desire and destiny, between the limits of reality and the wings of the imagination. With humour, with poetry, and with a tenderness for human weaknesses, Stefánsson explores the question of why we live at all.Translated from the IcTrade ReviewStefánsson's prose rolls and surges with oceanic splendour. -- Boyd Tonkin * Spectator *Stefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy -- Eileen Battersby * Times Literary Supplement *Powerful and sparkling . . . Prize-winning translator Philip Roughton's feather-light touch brings out the gleaming, fairy-tale quality of the writing -- Irish Times * Nora O'Mahony *A wonderful, exceptional writer . . . A timeless storyteller * Carsten Jensen *The Icelandic Dickens . . . He has the same gift of writing with great understanding, an empathy with troubled souls and a skill at laugh-out-loud comedy -- Tina Neylon * Irish Examiner *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE GERMAN BOOK PRIZE, THE SWISS BOOK PRIZE AND THE JÜRGEN PONTO LITERATURE PRIZE''Powerful''Times Literary Supplement''Formally adventurous''New York Times ''An exquisite inquiry into what it means to be an individual in a body, a family, a society, with all the attendant misery, humour, joy and enduring mystery''Krystelle Bamford, author of Idle GroundsAs their grandmother slides into dementia, an unnamed narrator begins to ask questions - to fill in the gaps, to resist the silence that shrouds their family. Childhood memories resurface, revealing a path into the past, winding back through generations. This matrilineal line leads toward nature, witchcraft, freedom. Could this be where they belong?What follows is an astounding quest for liberation - from generational trauma, class identity, the limits of language. It''s a search for other forms of knowledge and traditions, other ways of becoming. Bold and expansive, Blood Book is an unforgettable reckoning with the past, and a mesmerising exploration of who we are.''Everything about it is fantastic''Die Welt''One can only marvel''Die Zeit''An important new voice for a new form of writing''Tages-AnzeigerPublished in the US as Sea, Mothers, Swallow, Tongues

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Book SynopsisCrime packed with Italian flavour - the first in a series featuring Inspector Bordelli, a police detective in 1960s FlorenceTrade Review'A real find for anyone who likes their crime novels atmospheric, discursive, humorous and thought-provoking.' * Guardian *'[Italian] writers are justifiably growing in popularity here: Marco Vichi deserves to be among them . . . [Bordelli] is stubborn, womanless, cynical and impatient, but strangely appealing.' * Marcel Berlins, The Times *'Over the course of his police procedurals, Vichi shows us ever more secret and dark sides to an otherwise sunny and open city. But his happiest creation, in my opinion, remains the character of Inspector Bordelli, a disillusioned anti-hero who is difficult to forget.' * Andrea Camilleri *'Three cheers for an absolute delight! . . . The strength of the novel is the in-depth portrayal of the characters, particularly Bordelli himself - eccentric, obstinate, generous and sad . . . The descriptions of the sounds and smells of the Tuscan summer are so vivid that you think they are real. The food is to die for. I can't wait to read the next one.' * www.shotsmag.co.uk *[The Inspector Bordelli books] feature a fascinating cop and disillusioned anti-hero who rails against both injustice and the corrupt system but faces classic murder cases with a familiar Christie-like ring * Maxim Jakubowski *'Vichi's stellar first in a new mystery series introduces endearingly melancholic Inspector Bordelli . . . [and] delivers a plausible solution worthy of a golden age crime novel. Readers will look forward to seeing more of this flawed hero.' * Publishers Weekly, starred review *'This is a promising start to a series' * Literary Review *Fuses social commentary with fine cuisine and serves it up on a charming bed of criminality, and is a creditable advert for Italian crime fiction . . . definitely one to savour. * www.bookgeeks.co.uk *A classic mystery . . . an investigator, a tormented figure and an Italy which is less cynical but no less evil than today's. * Il Venerdi di Repubblica *

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Book SynopsisWidely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza. Together they journey through sixteenth-century Spain in search of adventure, taking on spirits, evil enchanters and giants in a quest to perform acts of valour worthy of Dulcinea, his lady love. A masterpiece of world fiction and a brilliant satire on traditional romances, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is not only the world’s first modern novel – it is also an uproarious comedy that continues to delight readers today. This Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of Don Quixote is translated by the acclaimed J. M. Cohen and features an afterword by writer and journalist Ned Halley. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much-loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector’s Library are books to love and treasure.

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Book SynopsisSweden 2012. When Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti returns to work after a terrible personal tragedy his boss asks him to investigate a cold case, hoping to ease him back gently into his police duties.Five years previously a shy electrician, Arnold Morinder, disappeared from the face of the earth, the only clue his blue moped abandoned in a nearby swamp. At the time his partner, Ellen Bjarnebo, claimed that Arnold had probably travelled to Norway never to return. But Ellen is one of Sweden’s most notorious killers, having served eleven years in prison after killing her abusive first husband and dismembering his body with an axe. And when Barbarotti seeks to interview Ellen in relation to Arnold’s disappearance she is nowhere to be found . . .But without a body and no chance of interviewing his prime suspect Barbarotti must use all the ingenuity at his disposal to make headway in the case. Still struggling with his personal demons, Barbarotti seeks solace from God, and the support of his colleague, Eva Backman. And as he finally begins to track down his suspect and the cold case begins to thaw, Barbarotti realizes that nothing about Ellen Bjarnebo can be taken for granted . . .The Axe Woman is the fifth and final Inspector Barbarotti novel from bestselling author Håkan Nesser.Trade ReviewSome aficionados would argue that the Swede Hakan Nesser is the most accomplished writer in the [Nordic noir] field today, and The Axe Woman is choice fare . . . So much to praise here: the steady accumulation of suspense, the assured characterisation and the elegant prose, perfectly rendered by translator Sarah Death -- Barry Forshaw * Financial Times *The godfather of Swedish crime * Metro *A master of suspense * Sunday Times *One of the best Nordic Noir writers * Guardian *One of Sweden's best crime writers * Mail on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisMurakami's surreal, mind-bending masterpiece: a sci-fi pastiche and a Utopian fantasy novel ingeniously woven together. A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan. Unicorn skulls and voracious librarians. John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story, post-modern manifesto. All this rolled into one rip-roaring novel, End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy. A remarkable writer...he captures the common ache of contemporary heart and head' Jay McInerneyHis fantasies, with their easy reference to western pulp fiction and music, retain a beauty of the mind' GuardianWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

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Book SynopsisCharlotte Salomon is born into a family stricken by suicide and a country at war. But there is something exceptional about her - she has a gift, a talent for painting. And she has a great love, for a brilliant, eccentric musician. But just as she is coming into her own as an artist, death is coming to control her country. The Nazis have come to power and, as a Jew in Berlin, Charlotte's life is narrowing, and she knows every second is precious.Inspiring, unflinching, terrible and hopeful, Charlotte is the heartbreaking true story of a life filled with curiosity, animated by genius and cut short by hatred.Trade ReviewI am deeply, deeply affected by this sad, beautiful, indignant, wrenching, important book . . . It is an artistic privilege and (I think) almost a moral duty that you all read this -- SARAH PERRY, author of THE ESSEX SERPENTFoenkinos writes arrestingly about Charlotte, masterfully imagining her interior life . . . So much space on the page visually transforms each paragraph into a stanza, while lending the words a solemn weight and power . . . [A] beautiful, wretched story * * Guardian * *An astonishing novel. Every line has something profound to say about love and loss, hope and fear, time and memory, and the enduring power of art -- ANDREW MICHAEL HURLEY, author of THE LONEYFrom its striking first sentence there is no turning away . . . A far superior tribute to any commemorative plaque -- SARA BAUME * * Irish Times * *Each sentence begins on a new line, giving it the deceptive look of a long poem. The success of this approach, loyally managed by Sam Taylor in his translation, is the make Charlotte read as a series of tricker-tape bulletins, delivered in breathless fits and starts * * London Review of Books * *Unforgettable, poetic * * Sunday Independent * *Quietly but deeply moving, incredibly powerful in its simplicity -- CLAIRE NORTH, author of THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUSTHeartbreaking. A story about loss and resilience, set in Nazi Germany, Charlotte is an inspiring novel made all the more powerful by being based on a true story about the life of a relatively unknown artist. The ending comes as no surprise, but I still found myself devastated by it -- Sarah Crossan * * Guardian * *A life-changer -- POLLY CLARK, author of LARCHFIELDA tour de force. Every important detail and much more of this supreme artist's life . . . is recorded lovingly, passionately, obsessively and lyrically . . . The verse-like narrative . . . produces a befittingly vibrant creativity * * Jewish Chronicle * *The reader follows, lump in the throat, fascinated by this tragic fate, which is told with the utmost precision * * Livres Hebdo * *Whimsical, heart-breaking and fast-paced * * The Student * *Astounding . . . Foenkinos makes us a part of this hopefully growing community: that of the admirers of a young artist named Charlotte Salomon, assassinated when she was 26 years old * * L'Express * *A sensitive and deeply moving novel * * Paris Match * *Astonishing * * Le Journal de Dimanche * *A shocking novel written with rare delicacy and honesty * * Page * *Deeply affecting, David Foenkinos' novel is like a song, celebrating the beauty, passion and drive of Charlotte Salomon's life * * L'Arche * *Devastating . . . Charlotte is one of these books by which a writer measures himself against the rules of his craft. A gamble which more than paid off for Foenkinos * * Lire * *A beautiful homage * * Le Figaro * *The charm of this novel can be described in one word: admiration. That of a talented novelist for a genius artist. This feeling gives the book greatness * * Le Figaro Litteraire * *The striking portrait of a woman whom the writer can't part with. Not to be missed * * Nouvelles Semaines * *Everything in this book is a success * * Rappels * *There is no page where the emotion doesn't come through in this poignant ode * * Phosphore * *To be read in one sitting * * Challeges * *

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Book Synopsis'Many years ago there lived in Zuchnow, in Russia, a man named Mendel Signer. He was pious, God-fearing and ordinary, an entirely commonplace Jew...' So Roth begins his novel about the loss of faith and the experience of suffering. His modern Job goes through his trials in the ghettos of Tsarist Russia and on the unforgiving streets of New York. Mendel Singer loses his family, falls terribly ill and is badly abused. He needs a miracle...Trade ReviewExtraordinary... A powerful work by a titan of early 20th-century literature -- Alistair Mabbott * Herald *[A] tender fable.... Dorothy Thompson's translation is enthralling -- Max Lui * Independent *One of the great European novelists of the century * Sunday Times *Roth... can pack more into a few pages than lesser writers can do in a few hundred. But his lightness of touch has a deceptive historical weight * Times Literary Supplement *Roth is one of those rare and welcome talents whose concision and deceptive simplicity send the cogs of the imagination whizzing into overdrive * Sunday Telegraph *Enthralling... Roth's most perfect book * Independent *One of the great writers of the century * The Times *'It is not possible to do justice to Job's poetic subtlety, but I can vouch for its extraordinary merits * Thomas Mann *Roth's philosophical acuity is matched by his deep compassion for the frailty of the human condition * Sunday Times *There are some books that seem sacrosanct and one of them is Job * Independent *Roth, above all, is a consistently magnificent writer of prose * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisRead this stunning translation of Homer's great war epic, the legendary tale of honour, love, loss and revenge during the fall of the city of Troy.High on Olympus, Zeus and the assembled deities look down on the world of men, to the city of Troy where a bitter and bloody war has dragged into its tenth year, and a quarrel rages between a legendary warrior and his commander. Greek ships decay, men languish, exhausted, and behind the walls of Troy a desperate people await the next turn of fate.This is the Iliad: an ancient story of enduring power; magnetic characters defined by stirring and momentous speeches; a panorama of human lives locked in a heroic struggle beneath a mischievous or indifferent heaven. Above all, this is a tale of the devastation, waste and pity of war.Caroline Alexander's virtuoso translation captures the rhythms and energy of Homer's original Greek while making the text as accessible as possible to a modern reader, accompanied by extensive extra material to provide a background to the poem.The result of 3,000 years of story-telling, Homer’s epic tale of the fall of Troy has resonated with every age and every human conflict: this is the Iliad at its most electrifying and vital.Trade ReviewVirtuoso * New York Review of Books *Caroline Alexander's Iliad is miraculous. It has the rhythms and even the lineation of the original Homeric text. Its language conveys the precise meaning of the Greek in a sinewy yet propulsive style that drives the reader inexorably forward. In my judgement, this new translation is far superior to the familiar and admired work of Lattimore, Fitzgerald and Fagles -- G.W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study, PrincetonOf the many new translations of Homer’s poem that have come out in the past two or three years, perhaps the most highly readable is Caroline Alexander’s. Thought to be the first woman to have Englished the poem, Alexander embraces Matthew Arnold’s four essential Homeric qualities: rapidity, plainness of style, simplicity of ideas and nobility of manner, in lines that ebb and flow with the tide of battle. The book wears its learning lightly, the introduction pitching the Iliad as the ultimate anti-war poem. * Times Literary Supplement *The Homeric Iliad originates from a rich tradition of performing song. It was meant to be heard. True to the living word of the original Greek, Caroline Alexander’s new translation invites us to engage directly with this tradition. When I read her verses I can almost hear the music of Homeric performance. -- Professor Gregory Nagy, Professor of Classical Greek Literarture, Harvard UniversityCaroline Alexander has done admirably in rendering the meaning of the Homeric text faithfully and suitably dignified language. The format gives a genuine sense of reading a verse epic. Her line-numbers match the Greek, which will make this version convenient for use by college teachers and students -- Martin West, Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

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Book Synopsis'Like Ursula K. Le Guin rewriting The Lord of the Flies for the quantum age' NPR 'Cixin Liu is the author of your next favourite sci-fi novel' WIRED Eight years ago and eight light years away, a supermassive star died. Tonight, a supernova tsunami of high energy will finally reach Earth. Dark skies will shine bright as a new star blooms in the heavens and within a year everyone over the age of thirteen will be dead, their chromosomes irreversibly damaged. And so the countdown begins. Parents apprentice their children and try to pass on the knowledge they'll need to keep the world running. But the last generation may not want to carry the legacy of their parents' world. And though they imagine a better, brighter future, they may not be able to escape humanity's dark instincts...Trade ReviewA unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology -- George R.R. MartinA marvellous mélange of awe-inspiring scientific concepts, clever plotting and quirky yet plausible characters * TLS *Wildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense' -- Barack ObamaChina's answer to Arthur C. Clarke * New Yorker *A milestone in Chinese science fiction * New York Times *

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Book Synopsis*Late Spring *explores the jealousy, obsession, and desperation driving China's first me generation. Written by the nation's top fashion journalist and shaped by decades of high-profile celebrity interviews. In a world where everyone has an expiration date and ambition knows no limits. What would you do to get back in the game?

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Book SynopsisA subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner José SaramagoSenhor José is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon's central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one – of an apparently ordinary woman – will transform his life. Breaking away from his strict routine, José resolves to track the woman down, obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from an oblivion deeper than the grave. 'When a very good book finds us at just the right moment in life, it can become stitched into our own identity. All the Names – a novel about identity and connection – has become stitched into mine' Samantha Harvey, IndependentTrade ReviewA novel that has soul, which Saramago offers to his readers with all his witty, intelligent, tender and magical generosity -- Samantha Harvey * Independent *Offers an unearthly, muted beauty; a freedom from the obvious, the ideological and trivial; an atmosphere of profound serenity, and a benevolent humor * Literary Review *Both delightful and unsettling which is perhaps the mark of true literature -- Anthony Daniels * Sunday Telegraph *A tantalizing novel...shifting and teasing, full of metaphorical labyrinths and false trails * Herald *It is the marriage of the living and the dying...that so strongly characterizes the writing of Jose Saramago * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisA riveting collection of short stories by the French feminist Marie-Louise Gagneur. Much acclaimed amongst her contemporaries and yet all but forgotten today, Marie-Louise Gagneur was a defining voice in French feminism. These stories, translated into English for the first time, critique the restrictions of late nineteenth-century society and explore the ways in which both men and women are hurt by rigid attitudes towards marriage. In An Atonement, the Count de Montbarrey awakes one morning to find his wife dead, leaving him free to marry the woman he really loves. Could the Count have accidentally killed his wife? And how can he atone for his crime? Three Rival Sisters tells the story of the rivalry between Henriette, Renee and Gabrielle as they compete for the affections of one man. But marriage does not necessarily guarantee happiness, as the sisters are about to find out. Steeped in wit, empathy and biting social criticism, and with echoes of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin, the stories show Gagneur to be worthy of renewed attention.Trade Review'A lively voice ... decidedly feminist for its time ... An extremely interesting discovery' Ricochet

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Book SynopsisAsle is an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbour, Asleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjorgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgangers - two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions. In this second instalment of Jon Fosse’s Septology, ‘a major work of Scandinavian fiction’ (Hari Kunzru), the two Asles meet for the first time in their youth. They look strangely alike, dress identically, and both want to be painters. At art school in Bjorgvin, Asle meets and falls in love with his future wife, Ales. Written in ‘melodious and hypnotic slow prose’, I is Another: Septology III-V is an exquisite metaphysical novel about love, art, God, friendship, and the passage of time.Trade Review‘Fosse’s fusing of the commonplace and the existential, together with his dramatic forays into the past, make for a relentlessly consuming work: already Septology feels momentous.’ — Catherine Taylor, Guardian‘The reader of I is Another is both on the riverbank and in the water being carried forward, and around, by the great, shaping, and completely engrossing, flow of Fosse’s words. It’s a doubleness of view that is reflected in the characters, named Asle, who are both one and other, and through which we can see and feel the world, and ourselves, more clearly.’ — David Hayden, author of Darker with the Lights On‘Jon Fosse is a major European writer.’ — Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle

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Book SynopsisThe protagonist of Ti Amo is a woman who is in a deep and real, but relatively new relationship with a man from Milan. She has moved there, they have married, and they are close in every way. Then he is diagnosed with cancer. It's serious, but they try to go about their lives as best they can. But when the doctor tells the woman that her husband has less than a year to live - without telling the husband - death comes between them. She knows it's coming, but he doesn't - and he doesn't seem to want to know. Ti Amo is an incredibly beautiful and harrowing novel, filled with tenderness and grief, love and loneliness. It delves into the complex emotions of bereavement, and in less than 100 pages manages to encapsulate an extraordinary scope and depth, asking how and for whom we can live, when the one we love best is about to die.Trade Review‘This novella, sometimes hard to read for its bleakness but impossible to look away from, shows that even when we know the destination, the journey is still worthwhile.’ The Guardian ---- ‘Tender, anguished and truthful, Ti Amo recalls a line from a novel by Duras I read years ago: “There are no holidays from love” – as most of us discover, sooner or later.’ The Spectator ---- ‘What is so impressive is her ability to capture – with precision, candour and, indeed, tenacity – her shifting sense of self, as the foundations on which it rests crumble with every passing moment.’ Wall Street Journal ---- ‘The most skilful of writers…you need this Norwegian writer on your bookshelf.’ The I ---- ‘Ti Amo is a complex look at grief, love and loneliness, longing, not veiled within a wider narrative or hidden under layers.’ The Skinny ---- ‘The novel shares a compassionate vision, bridging the gulf between the one who will go on and the one who will not ... A remarkably frank and finely sieved account of two people approaching the ultimate parting of the ways.’ Kirkus Reviews, starred review ---- 'What do we really talk about when we talk about "truth" in literature? Orstavik's painful book on grief provides rich answers. Thoughtful and - even for her - enormously raw, Orstavik accomplishes an astonishing amount in very few pages.' Morgenbladet ---- 'An exceptionally good novel about grieving and waiting . . . Orstavik writes so well that the book feels essential, timeless and universal.' Aftenposten ---- 'Orstavik writes mercilessly and beautifully about losing her husband. This little novel is a heart-breaking gem. Ti Amo is an endlessly sorrowful novel, but it's written with such forceful presence, a kind of wonder and tenderness towards life and a celebration of love, that you can't help but feel enriched by reading it. It's very hard and very beautiful.' Information ---- 'One of the most powerful things about the book is its description of the process of losing someone to illness. The time it takes. That it's possible to feel bereaved even before death arrives . . . It's exhausting reading, breathless in its resignation . . . And then, midway through the book, there is a turning point. This is where the book really grabbed me, catching me off guard, brilliantly. Without revealing too much, I will say that it's one of life's ambushes deep down in the valley of death, equal parts dream and taboo, possible and impossible, an incident that gives grief a nuance it can probably only have for those who have stared into its eyes long enough.' Klassekampen ---- 'This little novel from Orstavik opens up spaces full of emotion and wise thoughts about life, love and death. All we can do is say thank you, and enter.' Klassekampen, Best of 2020 ---- 'Hanne Orstavik has written perhaps her finest novel about her life's greatest loss.' Adresseavisen, #1 on the Best of 2020 list ---- 'With Ti Amo, Hanne Orstavik rediscovers the intensity and presence of her first novel Love. Ti Amo explores the liminal experiences that a novel can contain. At the same time we see her oeuvre from a new perspective. It's a powerful novel about loving, and her best in a long time.' Astrid Fosvold, Vart Land, Best of 2020 ---- 'A tender novel about losing your closest one to cancer . . . perceptive, thoughtful and brilliantly written . . . [Orstavik's] novels are characterised by her use of language and words to create identity. She has never done it as successfully and satisfyingly as now . . . above all it's a beautiful novel. About love in a real sense.' Adresseavisen, 6/6 stars ---- 'What is true? What is real? How do you get inside another human being? These questions have been central throughout Hanne Orstavik's work. In her latest novel, Ti Amo, in a story which is her own, she takes these questions to another level . . . Orstavik has an impressive ability to expose a person's inner world, to find a way in to where it hurts the most and explore complex experiences in simple prose, without everything falling apart.' Vart Land

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Book SynopsisTHE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO LIVES ON.Lisbeth Salander is an unstoppable force:Sentenced to two months in Flodberga women's prison for saving a young boy's life by any means necessary, Salander refuses to say anything in her own defence. She has more important things on her mind.Mikael Blomkvist makes the long trip to visit every week - and receives a lead to follow for his pains. For him, it looks to be an important expose for Millennium. For her, it could unlock the facts of her childhood.Even from a corrupt prison system run largely by the inmates, Salander will stand up for what she believes in, whatever the cost. And she will seek the truth that is somehow connected with her childhood memory, of a woman with a blazing birthmark on her neck - that looked as if it had been burned by a dragon's fire . . . The tension, power and unstoppable force of The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye are inspired by Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, as Salander and Blomkvist continue the fight for justice that has thrilled millions of readers across the world.Translated from the Swedish by George GouldingTrade ReviewSome fictional characters prove too popular to die . . . Such is the case with Lisbeth Salander . . . Lagercrantz is doing a wonderful job. It would be hard to imagine a sequel more faithful to its work of origin than this one, which emulates the spirit and the style of the original trilogy. * Wall Street Journal *Expertly told, the plot crackles with life * Daily Mail *Lagercrantz's latest Salander novel, is even bolder - if somewhat more fantastical . . . Larsson had grand ambitions for his Millennium series, projecting a total of 10 novels. In Lagercrantz's hands, the series is realizing grand ambitions of another sort . . . The Girl Who Takes an Eye for An Eye intensifies the mythic elements of Larsson's vision. * Washington Post *Lagercrantz doesn't falter in the mayhem department . . . Larsson fans certainly won't be disappointed. * Kirkus Reviews *Lagercrantz's excellent second contribution to Stieg Larsson's Millennium series . . . twisting plot lines tie together in this complicated, fascinating mystery. As a bonus, readers learn the meaning of the dragon tattoo on Lisbeth's back. * Publishers Weekly *Lagercrantz's compassion for the underdog adds genuine emotion to his baroque plotting. There is much to admire in the way he has grasped a tricky assignment - to continue one of the big­gest hits of recent years. Roll on the next "girl" * South China Morning Post *

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Book SynopsisOn a Woman's Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her own choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America's tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by romance and new freedoms, but also forever haunted by her past and society's expectations. Strikingly translated by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer's classic queer novel is a tentpole of European and post-colonial literature. And amid tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers, it is also a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. Who is Noenka? Roemer asks us. I'm Noenka, she responds resolutely, which means

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Book SynopsisHaruki Murakami's third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase is the mystery hybrid which completes the odyssey begun in Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973.The man was leading an aimless life, time passing, one big blank. His girlfriend has perfectly formed ears, ears with the power to bewitch, marvels of creation. The man receives a letter from a friend, enclosing a seemingly innocent photograph of sheep, and a request: place the photograph somewhere it will be seen. Then, one September afternoon, the phone rings, and the adventure begins. Welcome to the wild sheep chase.'Mr. Murakami's style and imagination are closer to that of Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver and John Irving' New York TimesTrade ReviewWonderfully easy to read and just as wonderfully difficult to make sense of...like the narrator, who slowly accepts the presence in his life of mystery, we slowly recognize the possibility of a new kind of world. Like him, we lean forward and topple headlong into magic * Washington Post *It begins as a detective novel, dips into a screwball comedy, and at its close becomes a tale of possession...A highly accomplished piece of craftsmanship * New Yorker *Mr. Murakami's style and imagination are closer to that of Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver and John Irving * New York Times *A Wild Sheep Chase has the conventional hull of a thriller - a quest, a mystery, an extraordinary woman, and plenty of elegant duress - but its fantastic superstructure transforms it into something quite different...a science fiction fantasy, a romance, a metaphysical tease, or a dramatisation of philosophical ideas * Independent *If you consider yourself an intelligent, sensitive common reader but wish to accommodate something a little removed from your experience, and probably your imagination, I dare you to turn your eyes towards Murakami and head off on a wild sheep chase. * Glasgow Herald *

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Book SynopsisThe expression 'Sicilian uncle' has the same sense in Italian as 'Dutch uncle' does in English, but with sinister overtones of betrayal and inconstancy. The four novellas in Sicilian Uncles, originally published in 1958, are political thrillers of a kind - the first fruits of Sciascia's maturity. In these stories, illusions about ideology and history are lost in mirth, suffering and abandoned innocence. Each novella has its historical moment: the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Spanish Civil War, the death of Stalin, the 'events' of 1848. These occasions and their consequences are registered in the lives of Sciascia's wonderfully drawn characters. Each has voice, wit and a private history which opens out onto the wider circumstances of his time.

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Book SynopsisA well-know bibliophile is found hanged days after selling a rare manuscript of Alexander Dumas's classic, The Three Musketeers. Across Madrid, Spain's wealthiest book dealer has finally laid his hands on a 17th-century manual for summoning the devil.Trade ReviewA dizzyingly complicated, dazzlingly allusive, breathlessly exciting novel of adventure and detection -- Michael Kerrigan * Scotsman *A noir meta-fiction. Even a reader armed with a Latin dictionary and a copy of The Three Musketeers cannot anticipate the thrilling twists of this Escher-like mystery * New Yorker *A sophisticated and exciting intellectual game which brilliantly illustrates the sheer delight of fiction -- Stephanie Merritt * Daily Telegraph *A rip-roaring entertainment - tongue in cheek and sword in hand * Mail on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisThe successful writer Oki has reached middle age and is filled with regrets. He returns to Kyoto to find Otoko, a young woman with whom he had a terrible affair many years before, and discovers that she is now a painter, living with a younger woman as her lover. Otoko has continued to love Oki and has never forgotten him, but his return unsettles not only her but also her young lover. This is a work of strange beauty, with a tender touch of nostalgia and a heartbreaking sensitivity to those things lost forever.

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Book SynopsisIn 1989, a North Korean dissident writer, known to us only by the pseudonym Bandi, began to write a series of stories about life under Kim Il-sung's totalitarian regime. Smuggled out of North Korea and set for publication around the world in 2017, The Accusation provides a unique and shocking window on this most secretive of countries. Bandi's profound, deeply moving, vividly characterised stories tell of ordinary men and women facing the terrible absurdity of daily life in North Korea: a factory supervisor caught between loyalty to an old friend and loyalty to the Party; a woman struggling to feed her husband through the great famine; the staunch Party man whose actor son reveals to him the absurd theatre of their reality; the mother raising her child in a world where the all-pervasive propaganda is the very stuff of childhood nightmare. The Accusation is a heartbreaking portrayal of the realities of life in North Korea. It is also a reminder that humanity can sustain hope even in the most desperate of circumstances - and that the courage of free thought has a power far beyond those seek to suppress it.Trade ReviewSpare, direct, unflinching and bitterly angry ... Bandi's characters struggle to live with love, humour and humanity while conforming to the demands of the regime, but are undone by the impossibility of the proposition, by the routine injustice, corruption and cruelties endemic in the system * Observer *A cross between parable and absurdist fiction ... yet Bandi [presents] a world in which North Koreans are nuanced: broken-hearted, idealistic, still full of life * Times Literary Supplement *Fascinating and chilling. Heartfelt and heartbreaking -- Margaret AtwoodCourageous and confounding ... It's a quiet privilege to be given access to the voiceless by listening to such vivid and uncompromised storytelling ... this collection of stories seems both a flickering light in North Korea's darkness and an unintentional reminder that it is getting darker here, too. * New Statesman *An extraordinary story of people in North Korea ... highly readable, nuanced and credible -- Stephen Evans, BBC South Korea Correspondent * BBC World Service *If poetry, as Wordsworth said, can be glossed as powerful emotion recollected in tranquillity, The Accusation reads like powerful emotion felt right now, in a condition of ongoing crisis ... In its scope and courage, The Accusation is an act of great love. -- RO Rwon * Guardian *What's especially satisfying about this collection is that its worth goes well beyond the political or historical. Without melodrama or hyperbole, Bandi places us in a parallel universe of oppressive ritual, military-style code words and bizarre restrictions ... it reads like an Orwellian dystopia, Bandi tears at the heart with simple illustrations of the tenderness between husband and wife, parent and child, and a people who gaze at the larks swooping and soaring above them and marvel at their freedom. -- Jane Graham * The Big Issue *Revealing the terrible truth of living in a country where any freedoms are curtailed, where famine and brutality are rife, but where human belief and hope can survive any odds, this is a defining read for 2017. * Emerald Street *The Solzhenitsyn of Pyongyang ... A luminous testimony, crammed with irony, on the insane regime of Kim Il-Sung and the hopelessness of the citizens of North Korea * L’Express *Even if one did not know anything about the writer or the way the manuscript was smuggled out of the country, it would not diminish the fact that the force of this collection of novellas evokes the classics of world literature about totalitarianism * L’ours *

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Book SynopsisAmidst the seedy hotels and deserted campsites of the Costa Brava, someone has gone missing.A detective sets out to find them. They search among the hapless girls, failed poets, and shifty policemen that populate this dream world but every door opens onto a nightmare.An experimental novella, spliced together in vignettes, Antwerp is Roberto Bolaño's first work of fiction. A personal declaration of the power of literature, to read it is to be present at the big bang' of Bolaño's enterprise into prose, to see the beginning, to witness the moment when his talent explodes.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER''A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolaño fan's bookshelf'' Daily TelegraphBolaño set a new speed limit for literature. He simply wrote past other authors... His books are volcanic, perilous, charged with infectious erotic energy and demonic lucidity' Benjamín Labatut, author of The Maniac

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Book SynopsisThe narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident - a man who has lost his face and, with it, connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him. His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self - a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity, and the social contract, THE FACE OF ANOTHER is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.

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Book SynopsisHere are some of Sciascia's greatest stories - brief and haunting, the realist tradition at its best. In one tale a couple of men talk, cynically yet earnestly, about the etymology of the word 'mafia' - who they are, and why their interest is so piqued by the word, becomes apparent with frightening clarity. In another story a group of peasants are taken on board ship and promised that they will be put ashore illegally at Trenton, New Jersey; after a long time at sea, their landfall is far from what they expected. And Mussolini himself takes an interest in the case of Aleister Crowley, whose presence in Sicily has become an embarrassment.Trade ReviewFew writers managed to capture the taciturn Sicilian character better than Sciascia, who always understood the power of implication in his work. [A] superb collection * The Times *Brief, haunting and unforgettable * Sunday Tribune *A well-written and instructive collection * Time Out *There are 13 stories in The Wine-Dark Sea... I guarantee you will wish there were more * Big Issue in the North *

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of the international bestseller The Elegance of The Hedgehog comes a mouth-watering tale delving into the life of a monstrous food criticAfter a lifetime of presiding over cowering chefs and pursuing sensual delights, France's greatest food critic is dying. Given just forty-eight hours to live, Pierre Arthens has one last ambition - to recall the most delicious food to ever pass his lips, an elusive taste from his childhood. From his luxury penthouse at Number 7, Rue de Grenelle, Pierre casts his mind back over a lifetime of flavour: eating grilled sardines with his grandfather, the warm, crumbly pastry of an apple tart, his first taste of velvety sashimi. But orbiting around him are a cast of family and acquaintances, each with their own story to tell about the greed and ruthlessness that has paved the way to Pierre's search for the perfect meal.

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Book SynopsisIn 1978, Haruki Murakami was 29 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, which turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon. His books became bestsellers, were translated into many languages, including English, and the door was thrown wide open to Murakami's unique and addictive fictional universe.Murakami writes with admirable discipline, producing ten pages a day, after which he runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance running in 1982 and has participated in numerous marathons and races), works on translations, and then reads, listens to records and cooks. His passions colour his non-fiction output, from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running to Absolutely On Music, and they also seep into his novels and short stories, providing quotidian moments in his otherwise freewheeling flights of imaginative inquiry. In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84 and Men Without Women, his distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring Murakami's place as one of the world's most acclaimed and well-loved writers.Trade ReviewNorwegian Wood is Japan's The Catcher in the Rye * Daily Telegraph *Everyone who reads Norwegian Wood runs out to buy copies for friends and lovers... Drawing on Fitzgerald, Capote, Chandler and the Japanese tradition, his books are at once disarmingly direct and slyly, charmingly evasive. They are playful and melancholy; full of wrong turns and red herrings, corridors that lead nowhere and - above all - girls who disappear * Guardian *A masterly novel. . . . Norwegian Wood bears the unmistakable marks of Murakami's hand * The New York Times Book Review *This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s pop, it's also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows * Independent on Sunday *Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed. Quietly compulsive and finally moving * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisThe Last Watch is the stunning sequel to the Night Watch trilogy, following the fortunes of the Others. Indistinguishable from normal people but possessed of supernatural powers and capable of entering the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists in parallel to our own, each Other owes allegiance either to the Dark, or to the Light...While on holiday in Scotland, visiting ''The Dungeons of Edinburgh'', a young Russian tourist is murdered. As the police grapple with the fact that the cause of the young man''s death was a massive loss of blood, the Watches are immediately aware that there is a renegade vampire on the loose. Anton - the hero of the Night Watch trilogy - is detailed to this seemingly mundane investigation, but begins to realise that there is much more to the story than a wildcat vampire and a single murder, and discovers that a team of unlicensed Others are hunting for a fabled magical treasure, hidden in the sixth level of the Twilight by Merlin himself...<Trade ReviewAs satisfying, violent and morally ambivalent as its predecessors. * Telegraph *...the book maintains the high standards set by it precursors admirably, and we can't help but hope that it will not be the last in this exceptional series. * SciFi Now Magazine *

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Book SynopsisThis is the first unexpurgated English edition of Curzio Malaparte’s legendary work The Skin. The book begins in 1943, with Allied forces cementing their grip on the devastated city of Naples. The sometime Fascist and ever-resourceful Curzio Malaparte is working with the Americans as a liaison officer. He looks after Colonel Jack Hamilton, “a Christian gentleman . . . an American in the noblest sense of the word,” who speaks French and cites the classics and holds his nose as the two men tour the squalid streets of a city in ruins where liberation is only another word for desperation. Veterans of the disbanded Italian army beg for work. A rare specimen from the city’s famous aquarium is served up at a ceremonial dinner for high Allied officers. Prostitution is rampant. The smell of death is everywhere.Subtle, cynical, evasive, manipulative, unnerving, always astonishing, Malaparte is a supreme artist of the unreliable, both the product and the prophet of a world gone rotten to the core.

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Book SynopsisFrom one of twentieth-century China''s greatest writers and the author of Lust, Caution, this is an unforgettable story of a love affair set in 1930s Shanghai. Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory, where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after a separation of many years, can they start their relationship again? Or is it destined to be the romance of only half a lifetime? This affectionate and captivating novel tells the moving story of an enduring love affair, and offers a fascinating window onto Chinese life in the first half of the twentieth century.Eileen Chang was born in Shanghai in 1920. She studied literature at the University of Hong Kong but returned to Shanghai in 1941 during the Japanese occupation, where she estTrade ReviewIt took 46 years, but at long last English-language readers are now able to enjoy one of Eileen Chang's most popular works, Half a Lifelong Romance. A dramatic story of love, betrayal, opportunism and family oppression set in 1930s Shanghai, it is an enveloping, haunting and insightful read, rich in Chang's trademark passionate prose * Wall Street Journal *Eileen Chang is the fallen angel of Chinese literature -- Ang LeeA dazzling and distinctive fiction writer * New York Times Book Review *Chang's world is a stark and mysterious place where people strive to find their way in love but often fail under the pressures of family, tradition, and reputation * New Yorker *Karen S. Kingsbury's capable new translation of the novel * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisGabriel García Márquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, explores the loneliness of power in Autumn of the Patriarch.''Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside''As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through dusty corridors in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man lying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their arrogant, manically violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal?Tracing the demands of a man whose egocentric excesses mask the loneliness of isolation and whose lies have become so ingrained that they are indistinguishable fromTrade ReviewIt asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling * Observer *Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality * Vogue *

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Book Synopsis''My title speaks not merely of war, but also of the crumbling of a regime and the end of a world.'' Émile ZolaThe penultimate novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, La Débâcle (1892) takes as its subject the dramatic events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1. During Zola''s lifetime it was the bestselling of all his novels, praised by contemporaries for its epic sweep as well as for its attention to historical detail.La Débâcle seeks to explain why the Second Empire ended in a crushing military defeat and revolutionary violence. It focuses on ordinary soldiers, showing their bravery and suffering in the midst of circumstances they cannot control, and includes some of the most powerful descriptions Zola ever wrote. Zola skilfully integrates his narrative of events and the fictional lives of his characters to provide the finest account of this tragic chapter in the history of France. Often compared to War and Peace, La Débâcle has been described as a ''seminal'' work for

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2017 It's 1970, and in the People's Republic of Congo a Marxist-Leninist revolution is ushering in a new age. But over at the orphanage on the outskirts of Pointe-Noire where young Moses has grown up, the revolution has only strengthened the reign of terror of Dieudonné Ngoulmoumako, the institution's corrupt director. So Moses escapes to Pointe-Noire, where he finds a home with a larcenous band of Congolese Merry Men and among the Zairian prostitutes of the Trois-Cents quarter. But the authorities won't leave Moses in peace, and intervene to chase both the Merry Men and the Trois-Cents girls out of town. All this injustice pushes poor Moses over the edge. Could he really be the Robin Hood of the Congo? Or is he just losing his marbles? Black Moses is a larger-than-life comic tale of a young man obsessed with helping the helpless in an unjust world. It is also a vital new extension of Mabanckou's extraordinary, interlinked body of work dedicated to his native Congo, and confirms his status as one of our great storytellers.Trade ReviewHeartbreaking... Black Moses abounds with moments of black humor but the levity is balanced by Mabanckou's portrait of a dysfunctional society rent by corruption * The New York Times *Black Moses exhibits all the charm, warmth and verbal brio that have won the author of Broken Glass and African Psycho so many admirers - and the informal title of Africa's Samuel Beckett. Helen Stevenson, his translator, again shakes Mr Mabanckou's cocktail of sophistication and simplicity into richly idiomatic English * Economist *Alain Mabanckou addresses the reader with exuberant inventiveness in novels that are brilliantly imaginative in their forms of storytelling. His voice is vividly colloquial, mischievous and often outrageous as he explores, from multiple angles, the country where he grew up, drawing on its political conflicts and compromises, disappointments and hopes. He acts the jester, but with serious intent and lacerating effect. -- Man Booker International Prize 2015, judges’ citationAfrica's Samuel Beckett ... one of the continent's greatest living writers * Guardian *A Congolese rewriting and reimagining of Dickens * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisGonzalo is a frustrated would-be poet in a city full of poets; poets lurk in every bookshop, prop up every bar, ready to debate the merits of Teillier and Millan (but never Neruda - beyond the pale). Then, nine years after their bewildering breakup, Gonzalo reunites with his teen sweetheart, Carla, who is now, to his surprise, the mother of a young son, Vicente. Soon they form a happy sort-of family - a stepfamily, though no such word exists in their language. In time, fate and ambition pull the lovers apart, but when it comes to love and poetry, what will be Gonzalo's legacy to his not-quite-stepson Vicente? Zambra chronicles with tenderness and insight the everyday moments - absurd, painful, sexy, sweet, profound - that constitute family life in this bold and brilliant new novel.Trade ReviewErotic and erudite, tender and wise, this novel tumbles through Chilean literary history via an intimate portrait of a young artist's yearnings; it will delight every lover and poet alike. -- Preti TanejaA very funny, warm and beautiful novel -- Sheila HetiHis clever irony, his lighthearted yet powerful prose, his gift for capturing this life that passes through and yet still escapes us - everything Zambra has already put into practice in his novellas and short stories explodes with vitality in Chilean Poet. Contemporary, ingenious, magnificent -- Samanta Schweblin, author of * Little Eyes *Every beat and pattern of being alive becomes revelatory and bright when narrated by Alejandro Zambra. He is a modern wonder -- Rivka Galchen, author of * Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch *Zambra writes with wit and warmth, and his characters are penned with compassion and humour... An uplifting and at times laugh-out-loud read -- Jo Lateu * New Internationalist *[Chilean Poet] treats the thorny topic of collective identity not as tragedy, but as a familial comedy. Its laughs are forged across languages * New York Times Book Review *A tender and funny story about love, family and the peculiar position of being a stepparent ... [Chilean Poet] broadens the author's scope and quite likely his international reputation * Los Angeles Times *Splendid . . . [it has] one of the best endings to a novel that I have read in years, a scene of beautiful emotional improvisation * Wall Street Journal *The thing that has always made Zambra's writing irresistible (to me, anyway) is his attention to the seemingly inconsequential matters that render our lives so flush with consequence... wonderfully original -- Il'ja Rákoš * The Millions *[Zambra is] an artist who does not simply notate the numbing details of daily life but spins the quotidian into art * Vulture *...cleareyed and tender * Kirkus Reviews *Excruciatingly funny... a highly entertaining, engaging and complex detailing of why words matter -- translated fiction round-up by Michael Cronin * The Irish Times *So convincing, so tenderly wrought, and so laugh-out-loud funny, that one begins to suspect Chilean Poet might be the best thing [Zambra has] ever written... it is, in short, a complete joy -- Jane Graham * Big Issue *A heartwarming comedy about parenthood and poetry... deft, poignant and emotionally acute -- Houman Barekat * FT *Superb... [Zambra is] one of the sharpest writers in Spanish today... Chilean Poet, happily, is accomplished at all it does -- Cal Revely-Calder * Sunday Telegraph *The pursuit of a poetic life becomes the vehicle for a wry and poignant story of masculine self-discovery ... A sharp-eyed, warm-hearted modern-family romance in the vein of a David Nicholls or Nick Hornby from the Southern Cone... [a] genial, shrewd and tender novel -- Boyd Tonkin * ArtsDesk *In this profound, at times absurd and often very funny investigation of family and failure, Zambra proves himself to be an important voice in contemporary Latin American literature * Monocle *

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Book Synopsis"There is absolutely no necessity to learn how to read; meat smells a mile off, anyway. Nevertheless, if you live in Moscow and have a brain in your head, you'll pick up reading willy-nilly, and without attending any courses. Out of the forty thousand or so Moscow dogs, only a total idiot won't know how to read the word 'sausage'." When a stray dog dying on the streets of Moscow is taken in by a wealthy professor, he is subjected to medical experiments in which he receives various transplants of human organs. As he begins to transform into a rowdy, unkempt human by the name of Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, his actions distress the professor and those surrounding him, although he finds himself accepted into the ranks of the Soviet state. A parodic reworking of the Frankenstein myth and a vicious satire of the Communist revolution and the concept of the New Soviet man, A Dog's Heart was banned by the censors in 1925 and circulated only in samizdat form. Nowadays this hugely entertaining tale has become very popular in Russia, and has inspired many adaptations across the world.Trade ReviewThis is a story which is full of metaphorical and ironic prose and is a mixture of the comical and the terrifying. It provides a chilling reminder that if you do monstrous things you are likely to create monsters. This underlying message remains as true today as it was back in the 1920s, and so feels both timely and contemporary. * Nudge Books * One of the great writers of the twentieth century. -- A.S. Byatt

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Book SynopsisThomas Bernhard was born in Holland in 1931 but grew up in Austria. His interest in music and theatre led him to study at the Akademie Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has written a quantity of poetry, several novels, short stories and plays and three volumes of autobiography. He died in 1989.Trade ReviewAstonishingly original, a composition of strange new beauty * The Nation *If against its own vision Correction offers us only a Teutonic injunction to take courage, we must do so from Bernhard's own example, from his determination to look more steadily than any who have come before into the perishing of the soul * Chicago Tribune *Thomas Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction. After Kafka's and Canetti's, his sensibility is one of the most acute, the most capable of exemplary images and gestures, in modern literature -- George Steiner * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis''A book of excruciating sobriety and warmth and a magical concreteness of observation... I know of no book which conveys more about that complex fate, being a European at the end of European civilization'' Susan Sontag At first The Emigrants appears simply to document the lives of four Jewish émigrés in the twentieth century. But gradually, as Sebald''s precise, almost dreamlike prose begins to draw their stories, the four narrations merge into one overwhelming evocation of exile and loss.''An unconsoling masterpiece... Exquisitely written and exquisitely translated...a true work of art'' SpectatorTrade ReviewStrange, beautiful and terribly moving * A.S. Byatt *This deeply moving book shames most writers with its nerve and tact and wonder * Michael Ondaatje *An unconsoling masterpiece...It is exquisitely written and exquisitely translated...a true work of art * Spectator *A spellbinding account of four Jewish exiles. Its restrained and meditative tone has stayed with me all year * Nicholas Shakespeare *A sober delicate account of displacement, and a classic of its kind. Modest and remote, it resurrects older standards of behaviour, making most contemporary writing seem brash and immature. No book has pleased me more this year * Anita Brookner, Spectator *

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Book SynopsisTwo prostitutes are murdered in Tokyo.Twenty years previously both women were educated at the same elite school for young ladies, and had seemingly promising futures ahead of them. But in a world of dark desire and vicious ambition, for both women, prostitution meant power. Grotesque is a masterful and haunting thriller, a chilling exploration of women''s secret lives in modern day Japan.Trade ReviewDelves so deep beyond its own shock horror premise that much contemporary crime fiction looks like cheap, exploitative rubbish by comparison ....an utterly absorbing novel that gives as vivid - and disturbing - a picture of contemporary Japan as you could imagine * Metro *Suicide, paedophilia, incest and murder combine with subtle touches of humour to form a story that will leave you questioning your own morality * Dazed and Confused *This is a rich, complex read. Be prepared for a book utterly unlike anything we are used to in crime fiction * Independent *It is one of the most unexpected and playful novels to emerge from Japan in recent years...a triumph. In its boldness and originality, it broadens our sense of what modern Japanese fiction can be * Telegraph *Unclichéd contemporary noir at its most absorbing and relevant...a masterful and haunting achievement * Tangledweb.co.uk *

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Book Synopsis''As good as anything Tolstoy ever wrote... Self-assured, vital, unforgettable'' Guardian The title story of this collection is about a man battling a mysterious illness. His family visit his bedside, their faces masks of concern. His colleagues pay their respects but only think of the advantages created by his death. This intensely moving story of Ivan Ilyich''s lonely end is one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy''s late fiction.The ten other stories in this collection include ''The Kreutzer Sonata'', ''The Devil'', and ''Hadji Murat'' which has been described by Harold Bloom as ''the best story in the world''.Trade ReviewAs good as anything Tolstoy ever wrote... Self-assured, vital, unforgettable * Guardian *The simplicity and power of this novella, the story of the terrible encroachment of death on a shallow man spiritually unprepared for it, has staggered millions * Sunday Telegraph *I don't read Russian, but I think Tolstoy's writing comes over whatever translation you read...he wrote the great, terrible story The Death of Ivan Illyich -- Redmond O'Hanlon * Independent *An indubitable masterpiece -- Yann MartelFor me, the best insight into the process of dying comes from Leo Tolstoy in his short story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, which examines the life and death of the most ordinary man -- Oliver James * Mail on Sunday *

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