Fiction in translation
Pushkin Press My Brother
Book SynopsisFROM THE AUTHOR OF THE GIRL IN THE EAGLE'S TALONS, THE NEW GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO THRILLER FEATURING LISBETH SALANDER STEEPED IN DARKNESS, COMPLICITY AND FORGIVENESS, THIS BESTSELLING SCANDI NOIR IS FOR FANS OF LITERARY FICTION SUCH AS MY ABSOLUTE DARLING, A LITTLE LIFE AND THE DISCOMFORT OF EVENING A MAJOR BESTSELLER OPTIONED FOR TV BY THE PRODUCERS OF THE BRIDGE SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRESTIGIOUS AUGUST PRIZE TRANSLATED INTO ELEVEN LANGUAGES 'Well worth the read' GUARDIAN 'Bleak and beautiful rural noir' CRIMEREADS'Perfect for fans of Scandi-noir dramas' CULTUREFLY ____________ Jana Kippo has returned to Smalånger to see her twin brother, Bror, still living in the small family farmhouse in the remote north of Sweden. Within the isolated community, secrets and lies have grown silently, undisturbed for years. Following the discovery of a young woman's body in the long grass behind the sawmill, the siblings, hooked by a childhood steeped in darkness, need to break free. But the truth cannot be found in other people's stories. The question is - can it be found anywhere? A literary noir of phenomenal power about the magnetic attraction of the wrong person, the brutality visited upon one human to another - and a rural community that stood by and did nothing ____________ FURTHER PRAISE FOR MY BROTHER 'Possesses the same melodramatic power as Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels' ETC 'A media sensation. . . remarkable' GP 'Brutal, colourful, carnal. . . Impossible to put down' Expresse 'A rare story-telling talent' Aftonbladet ____________ READERS LOVE MY BROTHER 'A powerful story, brilliantly translated' 'Rural and epic in landscape, deep and heart-breaking in loss, and truth' 'If you enjoyed The Discomfort of Evenings by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, I think you will enjoy this too!'Trade Review"Chinks of light appear as secrets are revealed… Well worth the read"--GUARDIAN "Original and fascinating, the best debut I’ve read from a Swedish writer in years"--MARTIN HOLMÉN, AUTHOR OF THE STOCKHOLM TRILOGY "Bleak and beautiful rural noir"--CRIMEREADS "From the start, there is an energy in the writing of this novel that only occasionally lets up… unfolding mysteries with miseries"--IRISH TIMES "My Brother is perfect for fans of Scandi-noir dramas"--CULTUREFLY"An exposition on human frailty and resilience, and on despair and hope… Darkly poetic"--EUROPEAN LITERATURE NETWORK"This year’s best novel… Brutal, colourful, carnal… Impossible to put down"--EXPRESSEN"Every now and then there are debut novels that appear like crown jewels… My Brother belongs there: clever, detailed and shimmering"--SVENSKA DAGBLADET "[Karin Smirnoff] is a rare story-telling talent"--AFTONBLADET "[My Brother] possesses the same melodramatic power as Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels"--ETC "Secrets and lies grow thick and tall like tree trunks… [My Brother] has its own logic and its own hard, coarse beauty"--SMÅLANDPOSTEN "Karin Smirnoff’s debut novel has become a media sensation… It’s a remarkable novel."--GP
£8.54
Pushkin Press Swann in Love
Book SynopsisWhen Charles Swann first lays eyes on Odette de Crécy, he is indifferent to her beauty. Their paths continue to cross in the drawing rooms and theatres of Parisian high society, and the seeds of desire in Swann begin to flourish. What follows is a journey through self-delusion, jealousy and delirious fantasy, which will take Swann far from the sedate comfort of his society life. A standalone novella from Proust's monumental masterpiece, Swann in Love is a sublimely witty and poignant story of the illusions of love and desire. Full of the rich social satire and penetrating insight that distinguish Proust's style, it is the perfect introduction to one of the world's great novelists.Trade Review “Where to start with... Marcel Proust.” --Lucy Raitz, The Guardian “If you can’t handle 1.5 million words of Proust, try Swann in Love.” --The Washington Post “Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century.” --Sunday Telegraph “One of the miracles of European literature.” --Guardian
£13.49
Pushkin Press Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird
Book SynopsisIn these tense, macabre stories, bodies fall from the sky, perfect nails conceal grisly secrets and violence pulses behind gleaming façades. From hellish visions to obsessive relationships, acclaimed author Agustina Bazterrica takes us to the dark heart of human desires and fears. Shocking, brutal, yet glinting with sharp humour, Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird is a breathtaking dive into human monstrousness from a master of contemporary horror.
£9.49
Granta Books The Sweet Indifference of the World
Book SynopsisA man and a woman meet in a park. The man has a story to share, one of a past relationship that contains echoes, similarities to the woman's life too remarkable to be considered just a coincidence. And so the lines of reality begin to blur. Is the man a warning from the future? Is the woman destined to repeat the same mistakes? Who really exists? Is there such thing as fate?
£9.49
Transworld Publishers Ltd Greed: The page-turning thriller that warned of
Book SynopsisCORRUPT BIG BUSINESS, ECONOMY IN MELTDOWN, THE THRILLER THAT WARNED US ALL'Marc Elsberg is nothing if not prescient' GUARDIANIt’s the near future: the world economy is in freefall. Mass unemployment and hunger rage as banks, corporations and countries go bankrupt. But one group are doing just fine: the super-rich.Nobel prize-winning economist Herbert Thompson drives to an emergency summit in Berlin, to deliver his ground-breaking solution to the world’s elite: a formula that will reverse the downturn, transform the economy, and give everyone a share of the wealth.Thompson never arrives. He is killed in a car crash on the way.Jan, a keen cyclist out late, sees the incident. Convinced Thompson has been murdered, he vows to find out why.But there are powerful forces at work, who will stop at nothing to keep Jan silent.How far will they go to satisfy their greed? And who can stop them?A spine-chillingly realistic thriller on the horrors of freewheeling capitalism and the threat of human greed.By the global bestselling author of Blackout and Code Zero_____________PRAISE FOR MARC ELSBERG‘Fast, tense, thrilling, timely. This will happen one day’ LEE CHILD‘Dazzling’ Times Book of the Month'Both gripping and visionary' rbb Kulturradio'Elsberg succeeds in combining complex storylines into one breathtaking tale of suspense' BILD'Part Dan Brown-style chase and part eco-thriller, this debut will get people talking' BOOKLIST US
£8.54
Vintage Publishing The Day the Sun Died
Book Synopsis‘One of the masters of modern Chinese literature’ Jung ChangThis gripping dystopia contrasts the reality of life in China today with the sunny optimism of the ‘Chinese dream’.One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian notices that something strange is going on. As the residents would usually be settling down for the night, instead they start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Li Niannian watches, mystified. Until he realises the people are dreamwalking, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn’t already gone down. And before too long, as more and more people succumb, in the black of night all hell breaks loose. Set over the course of one night, The Day the Sun Died pits chaos and darkness against the bright ‘Chinese dream’ promoted by President Xi Jinping. We are thrown into the middle of an increasingly strange and troubling waking nightmare as Li Niannian and his father struggle to save the town, and persuade the beneficent sun to rise again. Praise for Yan Lianke's books: ‘Nothing short of a masterpiece’ Guardian‘A hyper-real tour de force, a blistering condemnation of political corruption and excess’ Financial Times‘Mordant satire from a brave fabulist’ Daily Mail ‘Exuberant and imaginative’ Sunday Times ‘I can think of few better novelists than Yan, with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth’ New York Times Book ReviewTrade ReviewA winner of the Kafka Prize and a frequently cited contender for the Nobel, Yan is one of those rare geniuses who finds in the peculiar absurdities of his own culture the absurdities that infect all cultures * Washington Post *Yan Lianke, one of the most important literary interpreters of contemporary China, combines shocking satire and sharp imagery to address the moral vacuum at the heart of the country's extraordinary transformation -- Catherine Taylor * 1843 *Yan Lianke's powerful dystopian novel, narrated by a teenage boy, is set during a single night in a remote Chinese village... The underlying political message, that China is sleepwalking to disaster under President Xi Ping, could hardly be plainer... But there is so much colour in the book, as the sleepwalkers act more and more oddly, that politics seems secondary. Poignant and unsettling -- Max Davidson * Mail on Sunday *Masterful...a brave and unforgettable novel, full of tragic poise and political resonance, masterfully shifting between genres and ways of storytelling, exploring the ways in which history and memory are resurrected, how dark, private desires seep or flood out -- Sean Hewitt * Irish Times *A remarkable novel – open, like most good novels, to a variety of interpretations. The events described are incredible; the atmosphere all too believable -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing The Doll
Book Synopsis'A fascinating study of a difficult love' John Burnside, GuardianYoung Ismail's world centres around his mother. Naïve and fragile as a paper doll, she is an unlikely presence in her husband's imposing house, with its hidden rooms and infamous dungeon. Yet despite her youthful nature, she is not without her own enigmas. Most of all, she fears that her intellectual, radical son will exchange her for a superior mother when he becomes a famous writer.From the winner of the first ever Man Booker International Prize, this is a disarming story of home and creative ambition, of personal and political freedom. Rooted in the author's own childhood in Albania, it is dedicated to the memory of his mother.'Laconic, sinister and drily funny' SpectatorTrade ReviewAn essential work. The Doll is mesmerising, and like Kadare’s family home conceals both darkness and flashes of light in its interior -- Nilanjana Roy * Financial Times *The poignant observation, bitter irony and misspoken fear running through the narrator’s central relationship with his mother, a woman secretly terrified of being disowned as unworthy the moment her son achieves the fame he so desires, are what dominate this fascinating study of a difficult love. -- John Burnside * Guardian *In a properly ordered world, Ismail Kadare would by now have got the Nobel prize for literature. By any reckoning, he is one of the most important living European writers, a man whose work is as compelling as any novelist to have emerged from the vanished world that was the Communist bloc -- Melanie McDonagh * Evening Standard *Laconic, sinister and drily funny... Miss this fatalistic, deadpan wit, well served in John Hodgson’s nicely crafted translation, and you miss something essential in Kadare. -- Boyd Tonkin * Spectator *Albania's greatest living novelist has invariably explored his country’s repressive political legacy in his strange and brilliant novels... [The Doll] can only enrich our understanding and appreciation of Kadare’s writing. * Daily Mail *
£8.54
Vintage Publishing Mr Kafka
Book SynopsisEnter the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague, the steelworks run by singed men, the covered market that smells of new-born babes, the cacophonous open-air dance hall. Mr Kafka is avoiding his landlady’s blueberry wine breath, a stonemason witnesses the destruction of a monument to Stalin he risked his life to build, and factory men strain to catch a glimpse of a beautiful bathing murderess. In these newly discovered stories, Hrabal captures men and women in an eerily beautiful nightmare and their spirit in all its misery and splendour.Trade ReviewHrabal’s magical stories are comic and human... They inhabit a utopian province, the realm of laughter and tears... A great writer -- James Wood * London Review of Books *Hrabal bounces and floats. His mode is a sort of dancing realism, somewhere between fairytale and satire. He is a most sophisticated novelist, with a gusting humour and a hushed tenderness of detail. We should read him -- Julian BarnesThe discovery of Hrabal's style is very simple. It makes pleasure a principle... Each of Hrabal's novels describes a spiral, a constant intricate movement between pleasure and fear and guilt and delight: they describe the difficult effort to be a hedonist in a world where pleasure has disappeare -- Adam Thirlwell * Guardian *One of the most authentic incarnations of magical Prague, an incredible union of earthy humor and baroque imagination -- Milan KunderaWritten 50 years ago, in a country whose system of government is utterly alien to our lived experience, these stories are still laugh-aloud funny on pretty much every page * Spectator *
£9.49
Quercus Publishing Seventeen: the new novel from the bestselling
Book SynopsisFROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SIX FOUR: A TENSE INVESTIGATION IN THE AFTERMATH OF AN AIR DISASTER - FOR FANS OF SPOTLIGHT AND AFTER THE CRASH.'He's a master' New York Times Book Review'Very different . . . to almost anything out there' Observer1985. Kazumasa Yuuki, a seasoned reporter at the North Kanto Times, runs a daily gauntlet against the power struggles and office politics that plague its newsroom. But when an air disaster of unprecedented scale occurs on the paper's doorstep, its staff are united by an unimaginable horror, and a once-in-a-lifetime scoop.2002. Seventeen years later, Yuuki remembers the adrenaline-fuelled, emotionally charged seven days that changed his and his colleagues' lives. He does so while making good on a promise he made that fateful week - one that holds the key to its last unsolved mystery, and represents Yuuki's final, unconquered fear.'Seventeen is a brilliant novel on any level - it's a gripping page turner, while remaining moving and complex. It's a deeply satisfying read and it will be a while before I read anything as good' William Ryan'An astringent, unforgiving picture of modern Japanese society' GuardianTrade ReviewSeventeen is a brilliant novel on any level - but as a thriller it's a gripping page turner, while remaining moving and complex. It's a deeply satisfying read and it will be a while before I read anything as good. -- William RyanYokoyama's successor to the mesmeric Six Four is every bit as ambitious and compelling. Reinventing the genre of the investigative thriller to create something rich and strange. -- Barry ForshawYokoyama possesses that elusive trait of a first-rate novelist: the ability to grab readers' interest and never let go. * Washington Post *Addictive. * The Times *A binge read. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *An education about Japan. -- David PeaceA gripping newsroom drama . . . it's a testament to Yokoyama's narrative skills that this story of office politics remains taut and tense through every page . . . a fantastic page turner. * Japan Times *
£10.44
Quercus Publishing Prefecture D
Book SynopsisA collection of four novellas: each taking place in 1998, each set in the world of Six Four, and each centring around a mystery and the unfortunate officer tasked with solving it.SEASON OF SHADOWS"The force could lose face . . . I want you to fix this." Personnel's Futawatari receives a horrifying memo forcing him to investigate the behaviour of a legendary detective with unfinished business.CRY OF THE EARTH"It's too easy to kill a man with a rumour." Shinto of Internal Affairs receives an anonymous tipoff alleging a Station Chief is visiting the red-light district - a warning he soon learns is a red herring.BLACK LINES"It was supposed to be her special day." Section Chief Nanao, responsible for the force's 49 female officers, is alarmed to learn her star pupil has not reported for duty, and is believed to be missing.BRIEFCASE"We need to know what he's going to ask." On the eve of a routine debate, Political Liaison Tsuge learns a wronged politician is preparing his revenge. He must now quickly dig up dirt to silence him.Prefecture D continues Hideo Yokoyama's exploration of the themes of obsession, saving face, office politics and inter-departmental conflicts. Placing everyday characters between a rock and a hard place and then dialling up the pressure, he blends and balances the very Japanese with the very accessible, to spectacular effect.Trade ReviewHe's a master. * New York Times Book Review *Very different . . . to almost anything out there. * Observer *Yokoyama possesses that elusive trait of a first-rate novelist: the ability to grab readers' interest and never let go. * Washington Post *An education about Japan. -- David PeaceAddictive. * The Times *
£10.44
Canongate Books Shipwrecks
Book SynopsisIntroduced by David MitchellIn a coastal village in medieval Japan, a young boy called Isaku battles to keep his family alive against the odds. With his father gone, Isaku is forced to grow up well before his time. He must learn how to catch fish, how to distil salt, and about all the mysteries of the vast churning sea, not least the legend of O-fune-sama, of ships wrecked offshore providing the village with unexpected bounty. When a ship founders on the rocks, Isaku and the villagers rejoice. Long have they prayed for the sea's gifts. But the cargo is not at all the blessing they had hoped for. At first mystifying, then terrifying, something dark is coming ashore and it's about to change their lives forever.Trade ReviewExquisitely paced * * Sunday Times * *Haunting * * Guardian * *A haunting and beautifully rendered tale of enduring optimism * * Herald * *Has all the turbulent power of the sea * * Scotsman * *Set against [a] tapestry of near-nihilistic misery, Yoshimura's chiaroscuro touches of hope and love hint at something more profound * * Times Literary Supplement * *
£9.49
Canongate Books The Discovery Of Slowness
Book SynopsisNadolny's masterpiece, The Discovery of Slowness tells the incredible story of Sir John Franklin, a sailor and explorer who battled the frozen Arctic wastes and paved the way for the discovery of the Northwest Passage. Ridiculed for his slowness in his youth, Franklin's quiet calm later helps him to become an icon of adventure.A classic of contemporary German literature, The Discovery of Slowness is not only a riveting account of a remarkable life but also a profound and thought-provoking meditation on time.Trade ReviewThis is both a wonderful historical novel and a spell-binding individual portrait . . . This is a marvellous translation of a masterly work * * Observer * *Nadolny brilliantly sets the narrative pace to the rhythms of the frozen landscape, and to the slowness which is bred by hunger -- ROBERT MACFARLANETime, action and vision - a magical hat-trick and one that this translation pays faithful tribute to, capturing grand adventures like a detailed painting * * Scotsman * *Sten Nadolny shipped us into beautiful, fatal Arctic wastes with his spellbinding novels -- BOYD TONKINSlow movements of emotion and plot pull the reader expertly in, and the book with its self-consciously ponderous charm, offers all the pleasures of the best historical fiction * * Daily Telegraph * *
£9.49
Canongate Books Apricot Jam and Other Stories
Book SynopsisIn this, his atmospheric final work of fiction, the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich introduces an unforgettable set of characters whose day-to-day lives are transformed under the pressures of Soviet rule. These stories confirm Solzhenitsyn's position alongside Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Gogol as one of Russia's great writers.Trade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of his time * * Guardian * *A remarkable human being, a visionary, a crusader in the simplest sense, who was steered in his writing, as in his actions, by a deep sense of justice * * Daily Telegraph * *What was forgotten was how great a writer Solzhenitsyn was. But now we are reminded with these nine short stories written shortly after his return to Russia and published posthumously in an excellent translation . . . The more experimental 'binary' or two-part tales, which dominate this collection, share the qualities of Solzhenitsyn's finest prose: its precision and visual clarity; the subtle irony and humour of its tone; its moral truth; and the skilful crafting and shaping of the story for emotional effect * * The Times * *Read these stories for a reminder of an extraordinary life, for the range of the interests they encompass and for a pugnacious moral energy that even the octogenarian writer was hard pressed to tame * * Guardian * *In terms of the effect he has had on history, Solzhenitsyn is the dominant writer of [the twentieth] century -- David Remnick * * New Yorker * *Described by scholars as ranking alongside his best work . . . one of the publishing events of the autumn * * Observer * *In probing the relationship between action and belief during times of crisis, Solzhenitsyn is unsurpassed * * The Times * *A great book . . . absolutely terrific -- John CareyWith its unapologetic moralising and blunt irony, Apricot Jam is a perfect introduction to the stories in this volume. The binary method is essentially a satirical device, designed to capture the doubleness - and double-facedness - of Russian life under communism * * New Statesman * *As fresh as masterpieces such as Cancer Ward or Matryona's Home -- Victor Sebestyen * * Sunday Times * *
£9.49
Profile Books Ltd The Memory Monster
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE WINGATE PRIZE 2022 A HISTORY TODAY BEST HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 'A brilliant short novel that serves as a brave, sharp-toothed brief against letting the past devour the present' The New York Times 'Excels in its readiness to court controversy without surrendering nuance, and in place of moralising it offers questioning that's as necessary as it is unsettling.' Observer Written as a report to the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, the unnamed narrator of The Memory Monster recounts his own undoing. Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination, guiding tours through the death camps. The job becomes a mission, and then a dangerous obsession. With great perspicuity and the bitterest black humour, The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honour the suffering of our forebears without becoming consumed by it?Trade ReviewA brilliant short novel that serves as a brave, sharp-toothed brief against letting the past devour the present * The New York Times *A brilliant, challenging, and uncompromising novel * Jewish Currents *A bracing corrective to the recent literary fashion for Holocaust kitsch. It takes a fearless and astringent look at the use and abuse of Holocaust memory and emerges with answers every bit as challenging and uncomfortable as this topic demands -- William SutcliffeSarid's incisive critique of Holocaust memorialization, the corruption within it, and the perverse forms of nationalism it can engender is courageous.... Anything but moralistic, it leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions about the complex politics of Holocaust memorialization and its many layers of irony ... Nuanced and subtle at every level * LA Review of Books *The short but powerful novel raises the question of how far we let the horrors of the past infiltrate our present-day lives.... The Memory Monster is not an easy book to read but its message is important to hear * The Times of Israel *While countless writers have asked the question of where, or if, humanity can be found within the profoundly inhumane, Sarid incisively shows how preoccupation and obsession with the inhumane can take a toll on one's own humanity... A bold, masterful exploration of the banality of evil and the nature of revenge, controversial no matter how it is read * Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review *Sarid boldly highlights the risks of "harnessing [ourselves] to the memory chariot" and of how remembrance can calcify our views, in this complex, rewarding story of a man brought low by good intentions -- John Self * Guardian Best Translated Fiction Picks 2022 *Taboo-breaking, anguished ... Sarid's irony-inflected narrative illuminates how the monstrous legacy of the Shoah can devour integrity, ethics and self-respect in individuals and nations alike * Jewish Chronicle *Intelligent and powerful... anything but complacent * Times Literary Supplement *A brave and brilliant short novel translated to great deadpan effect ... Sarid is an exciting writer ... The Memory Monster is clever, funny, disturbing and tragic * Litro magazine *Unflinching ... a provocative exploration of Holocaust memory in a moment of generational shift -- Rhys Griffiths * History Today *
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Roundabout of Death
Book SynopsisA powerful and beautiful Syrian novel set in Aleppo during the early days of the civil war that followed the Arab Spring. 'Beautiful... brings to a wider audience one of the best Syrian novelists of his generation' TLS 'A sublime distillation of one of the tragedies of the early twenty-first century' Independent 'Masterful... Kaleidoscopic: personal and collective, serendipitous and fatalistic' Los Angeles Times Jumaa is a schoolteacher in Aleppo. He observes and lives through the literal disintegration of his beautiful native city. Through his eyes, in a mixture of first and third person narration, we experience the razing of entire neighbourhoods, the apparently random dropping of barrel bombs, the bewildering variety of militias and government security forces loyal to Assad, the arbitrary cruelties and the complicated journeys that people have to make simply to cross the city. Roundabout of Death offers powerful witness to the violence that obliterated the ancient city's rich layers of history, its neighbourhoods and medieval and Ottoman landmarks. Aleppo was home to Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, Christians and other sects. The war tore those communities apart and made their city a wasteland.Trade ReviewA masterful distillation of one of the great tragedies of the twenty-first century, as stripped of artifice and sentimentality as it is undergirded with insight and empathy. Roundabout of Death is essential reading -- Dan Mayland, author of The Doctor of AleppoA brilliant, kaleidoscopic and claustrophobic portrayal of the Syrian civil war. Khartash's spare prose eloquently conveys horrors that require no rhetorical elevation. This is a fine book that deserves a wide readership, both on its own merits and because the Syrian disaster is by no means over -- Jonathan Spyer, author of Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq WarsSome books stand as monuments to wars from which they arise. This is one of those books -- Elliot Ackerman, author of Green on Blue and Waiting for EdenA heartwrenching and shocking work of historical fiction, Faysal Khartash's Roundabout of Death focuses on the human cost of Syria's civil war... The novel follows Jumaa, an unemployed Arabic teacher who struggles to live peacefully in a dangerous city... A powerful novel that takes a humane view of Syria's devastation' * Foreword Reviews *Bleakly arresting... Readers are ushered into a landscape that feels surreal but couldn't be more horrifically factual... Heartbreaking in its matter-of-factness, Khartash's work delivers a clear sense of life amid war in his book's brief span' * Library Journal (starred review) *The strength of Roundabout of Death lies in its credibility, and in a specificity that defies detail. The BBC has declared the war in Syria to be the most documented in history, but no one can generalize from records of documentation alone. What we are left with in this novel is the geography of Aleppo [...] as much a character as Dublin is for James Joyce * The Arts Fuse *To read a novel, presumably partly autobiographical, written by a Syrian author living in Aleppo amidst the city's destruction is a moving experience... I feel I've been to Syria and got a glimpse of what it's like to be living there as an ordinary person – and that is an incredible gift' * Five Books *Khartash draws a protagonist who seeks only peace amid the bombs and explosions around him. Roundabout of Death is a book for those searching for new perspectives on an ongoing tragedy that continues to impact the lives of many people today * artmejournal *News reports and images have exposed the horrors of the Syrian crisis: millions of refugees, bombing and chemical weapons. But this powerful novel makes the grim reality of survival through the fierce fighting in Aleppo truly comprehensible -- Itamar Rabinovich, co-author of Syrian Requiem: The Civil War and Its AftermathKhartash's sparse and harrowing English-language debut offers an account of life in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War... Readers will find this fragmented tale of war-torn Aleppo and its displaced intellectuals chilling and insightful' * Publishers Weekly *A remarkable book, a vivid testimonial to the horrors of the Syrian civil war -- Robert F. Worth, author of A Rage for Order: The Middle East in TurmoilMasterful... Kaleidoscopic: personal and collective, serendipitous and fatalistic, marked by a bitter irony that can't help flirting with despair... What Khartash is tracking is the precariousness of memory – and identity' * Los Angeles Times *Beautiful... Faysal Khartash's English-language debut brings to a wider audience one of the best Syrian novelists of his generation and one of the most exciting writers to emerge from the region since the Arab Spring' * TLS *A searing, soaring firsthand account of the ravages war can produce * Dorset Living *A sublime distillation of one of the tragedies of the early 21st century * Independent, 4 stars *Short but deeply powerful novel... A searing, soaring firsthand account of the ravages war can produce * Tyne Valley Living *A haunting elegy to a devastated city * Mail on Sunday *
£8.99
Transworld Publishers Ltd The Island of Mists and Miracles
Book SynopsisSometimes the truth lies in the things you cannot see. In 1830 a young novice called Catherine Labouré was granted a vision of the Virgin Mary. Nearly 200 years later, Sister Anne is also waiting for a sign. Which is why she accepts a mission to go to a tiny community on an island just off the coast of Brittany. Her only companion there is a sceptical, chain-smoking older nun who just wants to be left in peace. On the island she meets Hugo, the son of a devout family who prefers to look for the meaning of life amid the stars; Madenn, a grandmother whose daughter was killed in a crash and who finds meaning in routine; Isaac, Madenn's grandson, an otherworldly teenager who doesn't fit in but who befriends Hugo, and Julia, a sickly child. If anyone needs a miracle, it is her. But it is not Sister Anne who receives a vision. Instead it is Isaac who is found on a promontary, transfixed, unable to utter more than the words 'I see'. The event soon becomes headline news and the world descends on the small island, opening old wounds and unleashing a chain of events none of them could have foreseen.
£9.49
Pushkin Press The Spectre of Alexander Wolf
Book Synopsis'A tantalising mystery... a mesmerising work of literature' Antony Beevor 'Truly troubling, a weird meditation on death, war and sex' Paris Review A superb early postmodern classic by one of Nabokov's fellow émigré writers, rediscovered after more than half a century A man comes across a short story which recounts in minute detail his killing of a soldier, long ago - from the victim's point of view. It's a story that should not exist, and whose author can only be a dead man. So begins the strange quest for its elusive writer: 'Alexander Wolf'. A singular classic, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf is a psychological thriller and existential inquiry into guilt and redemption, coincidence and fate, love and death. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Gaito Gazdanov (1903-1971) joined the White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from the 1920s onwards, he eventually became a nocturnal taxi-driver and quickly gained prominence on the literary scene as a novelist, essayist, critic and short-story writer, and was greatly acclaimed by Maxim Gorky, among others.Trade Review"Like Nabokov at his best, Gazdanov teases his reader to trace the sometimes parallel yet often intersecting narrative layers, reminding us again that to read literature means, in many ways, to lose one’s mind." - Andrew Marzoni, Rain Taxi Review of Books"Gaito Gazdanov’s elegantly crafted Proustian novel delves into the eternal ideas of life, death, and identity." - World Literature Today"A masterpiece of modern literature... I haven't read such a humanely fine and moving novel about the great twentieth century Ice Age of the Soul in a long time." - Iris Radisch, Die Zeit"Gaito Gazdanov's compelling, clear, extremely civilised language breaks the resistance of even the most reluctant reader and most obstinate iPhone-addict. ... We decadent Westerners, who are finally allowed to read Gazdanov ... love his contemporary narratory style - because it's now action, now reflection, and at the end there is always a perfect, but uncontrived, solution as in an HBO-series. ... Gazdanov teaches us - with each line of his beautiful, sad, ambivalent prose that always drifts into the essayistic - to love our beautiful, broken, neurotic lives." - Maxim Biller, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung"Fantastic, clever, precise and so thrilling, and at the same time modern in a cool way ... The Spectre of Alexander Wolf is a novel which can change your life. If you're prepared for the trip." - Georg Diez, Kultur SPIEGEL"A stroke of luck for the reader ... a novel which, on few pages, in scenes which one cannot quickly forget, deals with forlornness, enjoyment, distraction, with love, death and coincidence - all that, which makes the human life beautiful and unbearable ... A vase flies, shots ring out: and there we stand, in our hands the book of an author whose name we didn't know until now. Already it's a favourite book." - Jens Bisky, Süddeutsche Zeitung"How each of us forms his memories is the theme of this novel. Rarely has one read about it as elegantly, as deeply and despite everything so comfortingly as here." - Tilman Spreckelsen, Frankfurter Allgemeine"The Spectre of Alexander Wolf becomes a study of the soul in the zone of death, written with a fine criminological sense, churning us up, gripping, exciting.', Andreas Puff-Trojan, Die Welt'Of course, you sense yourself that you are very talented. And I want to add that you are talented in your own, very special way. I can say this with some justification, because I have read not only An Evening with Claire, but also some of your short stories." - Maxim Gorky"What saved Gazdanov as a person was Gazdanov the writer, who in his art transformed the unbearable reality of his life, his time and the society in which he lived - not into a falsified, tacky image or into a philistine dream of a wonderful life, but into a metaphysical scream, which, because of its intensity and its sincerity, sounds into the deepest reaches of the human soul and moves and satisfies us through the power of its expression. In this sense Gazdanov's artistic style grants the 'wonderful life' the shape of reality, of life, as it should be and as it only exists in art." - Laszlo Dienes"If Proust had been a Russian taxi driver in Paris in the 1930s..." - L’Express"A work of great potency ... it punches very much above its weight, and I have a hunch that what's in it will stay with you for the rest of your life." - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian"A mystery ... multilayered ... this is an original at work." - George Szirtes, The Times"Quick-paced, taut prose ... rendered beautifully in Karetnyk's accomplished new translation." - Ivan Juritz, Independent on Sunday"Elegantly eerie ... devastatingly atmospheric ... cool, wonderfully fraught." - Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times"A mesmerising work of literature." - Antony Beevor"It's as if the roman policier has been filtered through Dostoevsky... a finely wrought novel, tense and enigmatic, just waiting to be discovered by a filmmaker ... The narrator relates his tale in gorgeously cadenced long sentences ... like those of Proust ... Gazdanov owes a debt from the grave to his translator Bryan Karetnyk." - Lesley Chamberlain, TLS"Coincidence, fate, guilt, redemption, love, death and melodrama are thrillingly interwoven with irresistible style and elegance." - Val Hennessy, Daily Mail"Extraordinarily good." - Oliver Bullough, Literary Review"Truly troubling, a weird meditation on death, war, and sex... Bryan Karetnyk's new translation makes you believe in the power of the original." - Lorin Stein, Paris Review"A thrilling literary mystery... Gadzanov is a modernist master." - Mary O’Donoghue, Irish Times"Gazdanov's elegantly eerie 1940s novel about an emigre journalist's ongoing trauma is tightly constructed and fast-moving... wonderfully rich in "cosmic catastrophes." - Eileen Battersby, Irish Times"The Spectre of Alexander Wolf is a compulsive read, playful yet sinister, meandering yet impressively trim, old-world and modern. It is to Pushkin Press's great credit that this gorgeously restored relic, from an age when books could be spectral and slip elusively through your fingers, has been revived from untimely oblivion." - Daniel Levine, The Millions"Splendidly translated... a mini-masterpiece." - Star Tribune"Gazdanov's work is the perfect fusion of the Russian tradition and French innovation." - LRB
£9.49
Pushkin Press The Beauties: Essential Stories
Book SynopsisThe essential edition of the greatest stories by the Russian master of the form Chekhov was without doubt one of the greatest observers of human nature in all its untidy complexity. His short stories, written throughout his life and newly translated for this essential collection, are exquisite masterpieces in miniature. Here are tales offering a glimpse of beauty, the memory of a mistaken kiss, daydreams of adultery, a lifetime of marital neglect, the frailty of life, the inevitability of death, and the hilarious pomposity of ordinary men and women. They range from the lighthearted comic tales of his early years to some of the most achingly profound stories ever composed.Trade Review“This beautifully produced selection of the stories from Pushkin Press (in a new translation by Nicolas Pasternak Slater) is an ideal way to discover Chekhov.” —The Times (UK) “Mysterious and mesmerizing, these stories stay enshrined in the memory.” —The Daily Mail “Near-perfect fiction, newly translated.” —Evening Standard “The uncontestable father of the modern short story . . . his stories are some of the best that have ever been written.” —The Guardian “The language is subtle and lovely, full of a regretful tenderness.” —Sunday Express “Chekhov's genius lies in the way he manages to convey with such apparent effortlessness a profound sense of the mystery of beauty, and of the sadness of those who observe and think . . . a masterpiece of minimalism” —Phillip Pullman “The greatest short story writer who has ever lived” —Raymond Carver“In Chekhov literature seems to break its wand like Prospero, renouncing the magic of artifice, ceremony and idealization, and facing us, for the first time, with a reflection of ourselves in our unadorned ordinariness as well as our unfathomable strangeness.” —James Ladsun
£9.49
Pushkin Press Second Best
Book SynopsisHundreds of actors were auditioned, but only two remained. This novel tells the story of the boy who wasn't chosen. It's 1999. Martin Hill is ten years old, crazy about Arsenal and has a minor crush on a girl named Betty. Then he makes it to the final two in the casting for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In the end, the other boy is picked for the role of a lifetime. A devastated Martin tries to move on with his life. But how can he escape his failure, especially when it's the most famous film series in the world?Foenkinos's smash-hit Second Best is a playful, poignant story about fate, loss and forging one's own path in an age of never-ending comparison.
£10.44
Zaffre Geiger: The most gripping thriller debut since I
Book Synopsis'A fast-paced thriller . . . An impressive debut' - FINANCIAL TIMESThe incredible thriller about a codeword, an extraordinary murder - and the detective who must solve both to stop a deadly plot fifty years in the making. Geiger is the perfect read for fans of I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.__________________The landline rings as Agneta is waving off her grandchildren. Just one word comes out of the receiver: 'Geiger'. For decades, Agneta has always known that this moment would come, but she is shaken. She knows what it means.Retrieving her weapon from its hiding place, she attaches the silencer and creeps up behind her husband before pressing the barrel to his temple.Then she squeezes the trigger and disappears - leaving behind her wallet and keys.The extraordinary murder is not Sara Nowak's case. But she was once close to those affected and, defying regulations, she joins the investigation. What Sara doesn't know is that the mysterious codeword is just the first piece in the puzzle of an intricate and devastating plot fifty years in the making . . .Praise for Geiger:'Exciting, extremely clever, incredible. An instant classic' - TOM MARCUS, author of SOLDIER SPY'An astonishing, assured and terrifying debut . . . Remarkable' - DAVID YOUNG, author of STASI CHILD'Tense enough that your muscles will ache by the end' - HELEN FIELDS, author of PERFECT REMAINS'An intriguing masterpiece that keeps you guessing right to the end' - Jo, Netgalley Reviewer*Translated from Swedish by Ian Giles*Trade ReviewA fast-paced thriller . . . An impressive debut * FINANCIAL TIMES *An astonishing, assured and terrifying debut. Many books have pretensions to be the next Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but Geiger actually delivers - reaching that level and beyond. Remarkable. * DAVID YOUNG, award-winning author of STASI CHILD *Exciting, extremely clever, incredible. An instant classic * TOM MARCUS, bestselling author of SOLDIER SPY *The very definition of a thriller. Plotting as good as Lee Child, pacing as good as Harlan Coben but with a completely original voice. Absolutely brilliant * HELEN FIELDS, author of PERFECT REMAINS *If a fiendishly twisting tale floats your spy thriller boat, then the electrifying Geiger is guaranteed to spark a reading frenzy as Skördeman slowly and intriguingly reveals some hidden and disturbing truths, and ramps up the tension to breaking point * LANCASHIRE POST *Expect a blockbuster movie * SAGA MAGAZINE *
£11.69
Canongate Books Euphoria
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE BERNARD SHAW PRIZEA woman's life, erupting with brilliance and promise, is fissured by betrayal and the pressures of duty. What had once seemed a pastoral family idyll has become a trap, and she struggles between being the wife and mother she is bound to be and wanting to do and be so much more.The woman in question is Sylvia Plath in the final year of her life. As Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes unravels through the heady days of their first summer in Devon together, Sylvia turns increasingly to writing to express her pain and loss, yet also her resilience and power. She has decided to die, but the art she creates in her final weeks will set her name, and the world, ablaze.Trade ReviewAn audacious, gripping novel . . . a book for our times * * Guardian * *Euphoria is about the fissures between motherhood, love and creativity but is also a celebration of Plath's power * * Evening Standard * *Compelling and visceral * * Irish Examiner * *A novel about the conflicted emotional underbelly of female experience - including childbirth, desire, envy, rage, insecurity, ambition . . . Brave * * Times Literary Supplement * *A sensitive and artistic account of a woman attempting to write herself out of oblivion . . . not a book about death, it is a book about art, more specifically, female art, and its resilience and endurance * * Sunday Business Post * *Compelling * * BBC History Magazine * *Imagines the hopes, fears, dreams and memoirs of [Plath's] final months, as well as the growing tensions between the worlds of creativity and domesticity. Based on archival research but explicitly a work of fiction, Elin Cullhed's book aims to focus not on Plath's death but instead on the complexities and contradictions of her life * * History Revealed * *
£15.29
Vintage Publishing The Sleeping Voice
Book SynopsisDulce Chacón's book has had an immense success in Spain, no doubt because the novelist speaks with a just and powerful voice, and because she has allowed women - the most anonymous, the most suppressed, the most silenced - to speak out" Le MondeIt is 1939. In the Ventas prison in Madrid a group of women have been incarcerated. Their crime is to have supported or fought on the Republican side in Spain's cruel and devastating Civil War. Chief among them are Hortensia, who fought with the militia and is pregnant by her husband Felipe - a man still at large and fighting against Franco's dictatorship - and who lives with the knowledge that she will be shot after she gives birth; sixteen-year-old Elvira, who tried to leave Spain with her mother, but was arrested by the Falangists while she was boarding their ship; Tomasa, whose husband, four sons and daughter-in-law were thrown off a bridge; and Pepita, Hortensia's sister, who from outside the prison acts as messenger between her and her husband.Dulce Chacón's deeply moving novel is based on the actual testimonies of a number of women who survived the Spanish Civil War, and suffered imprisonment under the France regime, as well as on accounts of others who died fighting for freedom. A bestseller in Spain, where it was voted 'Book of the year', The Sleeping Voice is remarkable for its combination of dramatic intensity and historical authenticity.Trade Review'Dulce Chacón's book has had an immense success in Spain, no doubtbecause the novelist speaks with a just and powerful voice, and becauseshe has allowed women - the most anonymous, the most suppressed, themost silenced - to speak out.' Martine Silber, Le Monde
£15.29
Granta Books Four Soldiers
Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2019 'I am astonished by Four Soldiers. I have never read anything like it, yet it is one of those books you feel must always have existed, a classic of writing about the human condition... A small miracle' Hilary Mantel 1919. The Russian Civil War. It is the harsh dead of winter, as four soldiers set up camp in a forest somewhere near the Romanian front line. There is a lull in the fighting, so their days are filled with precious hours of freedom, enjoying the tranquillity of a nearby pond and trying to forget their terrifying nightmares, all the while talking, smoking and waiting. Waiting for spring to come, waiting for their battalion to move on, waiting for the inevitable resumption of violence. Tightly focused and simply told, this is a story of friendship and the fragments of happiness that can illuminate the darkness of war.
£8.54
Granta Books My Enemy's Cherry Tree
Book SynopsisA man who has come from nothing, from poverty and loss, finds himself a beautiful wife, his dream love. When she vanishes without a trace, he sets up a small café in her favourite spot on the edge of the South China Sea, hoping she'll return. Instead, he is confronted by the man he suspects may be responsible for everything he has suffered: Luo Yiming, a prominent businessman and philanthropist who holds the small town in his sway. In the few moments the two men spend together, Luo is driven mad. So begins a story of desire and betrayal set against the tumultuous first decade of Taiwan's 21st Century. The recipient of all three of Taiwan's major literary prizes, My Enemy's Cherry Tree is a story of love, money and coercion, in which two men who have sought to acquire something unattainable, instead lose something irreplaceable.
£11.69
Alma Books Ltd The Village
Book SynopsisThe Village, Ivan Bunin's first full-length novel, is a bleak and uncompromising portrayal of rural life in south-west Russia. Set at the time of the 1905 Revolution and centring on episodes in the lives of a landowner and his self-educated peasant brother, the book follows characters sunk so far below the average of intelligence as to be scarcely human. A triumph of bitter realism, Bunin's cruel, lyrical prose reveals the pettiness, violence and ignorance of life on the land, foreshadowing the turbulences of Russia in the twentieth century.Trade ReviewLike Chekhov, Bunin matches the most elegant, economical prose to the coarsest and most profligate characters. * TLS * I do not know any other writer whose external world is so closely tied to another, whose sensations are more exact and indispensable, and whose world is more genuine and also more unexpected. -- Andre Gide
£8.54
Alma Books Ltd Pleasures and Days
Book SynopsisProust's only other work of fiction published in his lifetime apart from the monumental novel cycle 'In Search of Lost Time, Pleasures and Days' takes the reader on a journey through the high-society circles of fin-de-siecle Paris, presenting the lives, loves and attitudes of a host of unforgettable characters.Trade ReviewPleasure and Days yields the earliest blooms from [Proust's] emerging, lifelong fascination with the labyrinths of snobbery and sexuality in Parisian high society. * The Independent *
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd Childhood Memories and Other Stories: First
Book SynopsisGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of one of the most poignant and enduringly popular novels of the twentieth century, left only a few other pieces of fiction when he died prematurely at the age of sixty. Childhood Memories and Other Stories, here presented in a new translation by Stephen Parkin and including previously deleted passages and the unpublished fragment ‘Torretta’, collects all of Lampedusa’s extant shorter fiction and provides a revealing glimpse into the writer’s workshop and the background to the composition of his masterpiece. From the atmospheric recollections of the Palazzo Lampedusa and the Palazzo Filangeri Cutò at the turn of the twentieth century in ‘Childhood Memories’ to the delightful fable ‘The Siren’, from the gently humorous, bittersweet tones of ‘Joy and the Law’ to ‘The Blind Kittens’ – the first chapter of what was intended to be a sequel to The Leopard – this volume showcases Lampedusa’s unparalleled observational powers and narrative skills.Trade ReviewThis is a bundle of his short fiction and (the pearl) his memories of his childhood in a lost world of almost unimaginable privilege and beauty. * The Times *Handsome book... Parkin's translation does justice to Lampedusa's elegant, elaborate prose… The prose flows with the allegro and cadences of a Mozart piano composition. * TLS *[The Siren] is an enigmatic, tantalizing and haunting tale of rare beauty which glints like a finely cut diamond. * TLS *Lampedusa wrote two masterpieces and this, as bizarre as it sounds, is the other one. * The Telegraph *A man with the deep soul of an Old European, who was wise and witty. * The Lady *
£8.54
Alma Books Ltd The Kiss and Other Stories: New Translation
Book SynopsisWhile at a party organized by the local landowner for the officers of his brigade, the shy and awkward Ryabovich is suddenly kissed by an unknown woman in a dark room. This unexpected, electrifying encounter, which he relives in his mind day after day, marks a turning point for Ryabovich, showing him that everything in life – joy, sorrow, hope – is equally pointless and subject to chance. One of Chekhov’s most admired stories, ‘The Kiss’ is joined in this volume by six other celebrated tales in a new translation by Hugh Aplin: ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’, ‘Ward Six’, ‘The Black Monk’, ‘The House with a Mezzanine’, ‘The Bishop’ and ‘Peasants’ – making this an indispensable collection for those wanting to discover Chekhov at his creative best.Trade ReviewWhat writers influenced me as a young man? Chekhov! As a dramatist? Chekhov! As a story writer? Chekhov! -- Tennessee Williams The virtue of this story is its completeness, its summoning of human feelings perfectly matched to the events that produce them. * The Independent *Table of ContentsTHIS VOLUME INCLUDES: The Lady with the Little Dog The Kiss Ward Number Six The Black Monk The House with the Mezzanine The Peasants
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd Moral Fables
Book SynopsisAlongside his monumental Zibaldone (Notebooks) and the poems collected in Canti, which make him one of Italy’s greatest and best-loved poets, Giacomo Leopardi penned a number of fictional pieces, mostly in the form of gently humorous dialogues, in which he dealt with philosophical ideas and many of the metaphysical questions that preoccupied his restless spirit. First published in 1827 and here presented in a new translation by J.G. Nichols along with Thoughts, Leopardi’s own selected pearls of wisdom and gems of social observation, Moral Fables will enchant both those who are familiar with and those who are new to the works of Italy’s last great polymath.
£9.49
Alma Books Ltd Death on Credit
Book SynopsisWhen Céline’s first novel, Journey to the End of the Night was first published in 1932, it created an instant scandal, being extravagantly praised by its supporters and savagely attacked by its horrified opponents. Four years later came the sequel, Death on Credit. Both were a new kind of novel, frank about the author’s thoughts and actions in ways that readers had never encountered, ultra-realistic – and full of incidents that could not possibly be true to life – and characters that stretched the imagination. In Death on Credit, Ferdinand Bardamu, Céline’s alter ego, is a doctor in Paris, treating the poor who seldom pay him but who take every advantage of his availability. The action is not continuous but goes back in time to earlier memories and often moves into fantasy, especially in Bardamu’s sexual escapades; the style becomes deliberately rougher and sentences disintegrate to catch the flavour of the teeming world of everyday Parisian tragedies, the struggle to make a living, illness, venereal disease, the sordid stories of families whose destiny is governed by their own stupidity, malice, lust and greed. This fascinating book by one of the greatest twentieth-century novelists is an unforgettable experience for the reader.Trade ReviewThe most blackly humorous and disenchanted voice in all of French literature. * London Review of Books *
£9.49
Alma Books Ltd The Duel
Book SynopsisThe notorious adventurer and seducer Giacomo Casanova tells of his travels – on the run from the authorities of his native Venice – around northern Europe, poking fun at the ruling classes he encounters there, before focusing on a pivotal incident that occurs in Warsaw. Insulted by a Polish count over an Italian ballerina, Casanova finds himself forced to challenge his rival to a duel, and the sequence of events and their aftermath are described with gusto by the narrator. A rollicking autobiographical account by one of the most iconic figures of eighteenth-century Europe, The Duel is presented here with an extract about the same event from Casanova’s memoirs, written fifteen years later.Trade ReviewThe remarkable thing about Giacomo Casanova is that not only did he have a bewilderingly eventful life, not only was he a thinker of wide reading and great shrewdness, but he also knew how to tell a tale as well as the cleverest of novelists. -- Tim Parks
£5.99
Alma Books Ltd Three Years: New Translation
Book SynopsisOn a visit to a provincial town to see his sister Nina who is suffering from cancer, Alexei Laptev, who works for his father’s Moscow haberdashery business, falls in love with Yulia, the daughter of her doctor, and proposes to her. Although she does not reciprocate his feelings, she agrees to marry him and live with him in the capital, where the couple’s relationship is marred by tensions: Yulia is filled with regrets about her choice and boredom with her new existence, while Alexei is nagged by the suspicion that she married him for his money alone. However, as time passes and misfortune strikes, they both learn to reassess all of their assumptions. Chekhov’s second longest prose work after The Steppe, Three Years is, in the author’s own words, “a novel of Moscow life” and an examination of its merchant classes. A powerful story of redemption and the nuances of human relationships, the novella helped cement Chekhov’s reputation as a major figure in Russian literature.Trade ReviewWhat writers influenced me as a young man? Chekhov! As a dramatist? Chekhov! As a story writer? Chekhov! -- Tennessee Williams
£5.99
Alma Books Ltd The Sandman: Annotated Edition – Also includes an
Book SynopsisNathanael remains haunted by his childhood fear that the lawyer Coppelius, a strange night-time visitor who used to come to his house to conduct alchemical experiments with his father – the latter dying as a consequence of one of these sessions – was none other than the Sandman, a mythical figure who was said to steal the eyes of children who refused to go to sleep. When a mysterious Italian salesman comes to town, Nathanael’s suspicions are reawakened, pushing him to the brink of madness as extraordinary events unfold. First published in 1816, this classic of German Gothic fiction has enthralled generations ever since, and has spawned countless interpretations by critics intrigued by its powerful symbolism. Sigmund Freud famously examined the novella in relation to his concept of the “Uncanny”, and an extract from this analysis is included in this volume.Trade ReviewE.T.A. Hoffmann belongs to the eternal guild of poets and visionaries who take revenge on the life that is tormenting them by showing it examples of forms more colourful and diverse than reality can manage to convey. - Stefan ZweigTable of ContentsThis edition contains a note on the text, notes and an extract from Sigmund Freud's The Uncanny
£6.99
Canongate Books Shadow
Book SynopsisGerda Persson has lain dead for three days. Her life seems to have been quite ordinary. Until the freezer in her home is opened. It is full of books, neatly stacked and wrapped in clingfilm, a thick layer of ice covering them - all by the same prize-winning author, all with handwritten dedications to Gerda.What story do these books have to tell? And what is their connection to a young boy found abandoned in an amusement park? Shadow is an utterly compelling novel of dark family secrets, murder and betrayal, which will keep you gripped until its final thrilling revelations.Trade ReviewAlvtegen's chilling novels are head and shoulders above most of the Scandi crew and...remind one forcefully of the early Barbara Vine novels. ... [Shadow] won't make you feel good about humankind, but it will keep you reading under the duvet during the small hours. -- Carla McKay * * The Daily Mail * *A truly irresistible read. * * Skånska Dagbladet * *Karin Alvtegen has become one of the greatest in the genre referred to as the psychological thriller . . . Shadow is . . . an excellent novel, suspenseful and intelligent and exceptionally well written. * * Eskilstuna-Kuriren * *Shadow is a classic Alvtegen novel - but with 'extra everything' . . . Like in her previous novels, Alvtegen moves aptly and confidently between odd characters and 'normal people', ordinary, everyday situations and disastrous moments . . . Once you've been properly sucked into the story, you are lost. * * Östgöta-Correspondenten * *Karin Alvtegen in brilliant shape . . . I read without stopping and with mounting excitement to see how Karin Alvtegen will tie it all together in the end. As the pro she is, she manages to to do just that, and the story builds up towards its dramatic and entirely unexpected denouement . . . Karin Alvtegen's new novel offers nearly four hundred pages of pure suspense. * * Jönköpings-Posten * *
£8.54
Comma Press The Sea Cloak
Book SynopsisThe Sea Cloak is a collection of 11 stories by the author, journalist, and campaigner, Nayrouz Qarmout. Drawing from her own experiences growing up in a Syrian refugee camp, as well as her current life in Gaza, these stories stitch together a patchwork of different perspectives into what it means to be a woman in Palestine today. Whether following the daily struggles of orphaned children fighting to survive in the rubble of recent bombardments, or mapping the complex, cultural tensions between different generations of refugees in wider Gazan society, these stories offer rare insights into one of the most talked about, but least understood cities in the Middle East. Taken together, the collection affords us a local perspective on a global story, and it does so thanks to a cast of (predominantly female) characters whose vantage point is rooted, firmly, in that most cherished of things, the home. Translated from the Arabic by Perween Richards.Trade Review'All the arts are close to us because they allow us to recontextualise, to understand where we are, what we are, who we are. The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout re-contextualises things so we really understand the world from the point of view we always knew was there.' - Ali Smith; 'Explosive, resonant images are conjured in Qarmout's confident, arresting voice.' - The Guardian
£10.44
Granta Magazine Granta 159: What Do You See?
Book Synopsis
£13.49
Tilted Axis Press No Presents Please: Mumbai Stories
Book SynopsisNo Presents Please is a vivid evocation of city life, exploring the sub-locales and spatial identities of Mumbai and the struggles of small-town migrants.Jayant Kaikini’s gaze takes in the people living on the margins – a bus driver who, when denied annual leave, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit’s end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. From Irani cafes to chawls, old cinema halls to local trains, the author seeks out and illuminates moments and feelings of existential anxiety, pathos and tenderness. In these sixteen prize-winning stories, cracks in the curtains of the ordinary open up to possibilities that might not have existed, but for this city, which surprises with its epiphanies, fantasies and ambitions.
£9.49
And Other Stories The Remainder: Shortlisted for the 2019 Man
Book SynopsisSantiago, Chile. The city is covered in ash. Three children of ex-militants are facing a past they can neither remember nor forget. Felipe sees dead bodies on every corner of the city, counting them up in an obsessive quest to square these figures with the official death toll. He is searching for the perfect zero, a life with no remainder. Iquela and Paloma, too, are searching for a way to live on. When the body of Paloma's mother is lost in transit, the three take a hearse and a bottle of pisco up the cordillera for a road trip with a difference.Intense, intelligent, and extraordinarily sensitive to the shape and weight of words, this remarkable debut presents a new way to count the cost of a pain that stretches across generations.Trade Review`The Remainder controls a remarkable range of registers (it is, by turns, lyrical, elegiac, sensual, funny, tragic) ... The author of The Remainder, like her characters, is obsessed with words, those `cracks in language' that house our particular ways of understanding things; thanks, among other things, to the meticulous, obsessive attention to detail of her language, this novel is sure to endure.' Edmundo Paz Soldan, author and professor of Latin American literature at Cornell University`A triumphant debut.' Antonio Skarmeta, El Mercurio ---- `The Remainder redefines the political novel ... The voices in The Remainder are some of the most powerful to have come out of Latin America in the last year.' Barbara Perez, `Granta en Espanol, 5 years later',Instrucciones de Uso ---- `A Chilean road trip reveals new ways to think about historical memory.' Alba Lara, Iowa Literaria ---- `A fundamental book about what it means to mourn the past, about the remainders of a history that refuses to be forgotten. This is the debut we all wish we had written. A spirited, brave, urgent book, capable of weaving the political and the poetic.' Carlos Fonseca ---- `One of the best publications of 2015.' Patricia Espinosa, Las Ultimas Noticias ---- `[a] darkly comic road trip ... [Trabucco-Zeran's] spring-heeled prose moves lightly from lyrical to demotic, bawdy to elegiac.' The Spectator ---- 'intelligent and immersive ... elegaic' TLS ---- 'In a notable translation by Sophie Hughes, Zeran's lyricism and eye for detail shine on the page ... There is plenty to commend in the book's intentions, and in its elegiac ambitions.' The Irish Times ---- `[The Remainder] tells us ... everything about what it is like to grow up in the shadow of other people's unhappiness.' The Big Issue ---- `Striking ... rendered with impressive fluidity.' Katie Da Cunha Lewin,The White Review ---- `[a] darkly comic road trip ... [Trabucco-Zeran's] spring-heeled prose moves lightly from lyrical to demotic, bawdy to elegiac.' The Spectator ---- 'intelligent and immersive ... elegaic' TLS ----'In a notable translation by Sophie Hughes, Zeran's lyricism and eye for detail shine on the page ... There is plenty to commend in the book's intentions, and in its elegiac ambitions.' The Irish Times ---- `[The Remainder] tells us ... everything about what it is like to grow up in the shadow of other people's unhappiness.' The Big Issue ---- `Sharp and colourful, contrasting well with her characters' furious attempts to come to terms with the past ... The Remainder is well translated, stimulating and grapples skilfully with a complex subject.' Michael Eaude, Literary Review----`Thanatofiction at its best and a debut that leaves the reader wanting more.' Kirkus Reviews
£10.00
Fitzcarraldo Editions A New Name — WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN
Book SynopsisAsle is an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway. In nearby Bjørgvin another Asle, also a painter, is lying in the hospital, consumed by alcoholism. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers – two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions. In this final instalment of Jon Fosse’s Septology, the major prose work by ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ (Le Monde), we follow the lives of the two Asles as younger adults in flashbacks: the narrator meets his lifelong love, Ales; joins the Catholic Church; and makes a living by trying to paint away all the pictures stuck in his mind. A New Name: Septology VI-VII is a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience – incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique.Trade Review‘Fosse’s portrait of memory remarkably refuses. It will not be other than: indelible as paint, trivial as nail clippings, wound like damp string. This book reaches out of its frame like a hand.’ — Jesse Ball, author of Census‘Jon Fosse is a major European writer.’ — Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle‘Fosse intuitively — and with great artistry — conveys ... a sense of wonder at the unfathomable miracle of life, even in its bleakest and loneliest moments. In this fine conclusion to Septology, the religious subtexts of the project’s companion pieces at last draw into focus. The link between Asle’s art and his faith finds subtle expression in the parallels between the haunting oil painting of two crossed lines, which the narrator contemplates at the beginning of each section, and the cross made with anointing oil as he is accepted into the Catholic faith.... As the final pages draw to their profound and breath-snatching close, Septology also attains that original ambition: it imbues the very enigma of life, which can seem at times so terrifyingly dark, with a light that is almost beatific.’ — Bryan Karetnyk, Financial Times‘The entire septet seems to take place in a state of limbo...Though Fosse has largely done away with punctuation altogether, opting instead for sudden line breaks, his dense, sinuous prose is never convoluted, and its effect is mesmerizing.’ — Johanna Elster Hanson, TLS
£11.69
HopeRoad Publishing Ltd Putham House
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
FUM D'ESTAMPA PRESS Final Judgements
Book SynopsisThe pinnacle of Fuster’s essay writing, Final Judgements is a book of aphorisms that, used to teach moral and/or philosophical truths, reveal things that are relevant to the universal human experience. As Adam Gopnick of The New Yorker puts it, “the aphorism is, in its algebraic abbreviation, a micro-model of empirical inquiry.” And Fuster uses the aphoristic tradition, less to establish truths than to undermine them, to question the conceits contained in the established truism. Despite the seriousness of its subject matter, however, this book is laugh-out-loud funny, Fuster’s wit revealing that the best aphorisms are based in stripping language of its artifice and revealing its contradictions, and the cumulative effect is a quintessentially Mediterranean kind of playfulness.Trade Review‘Joan Fuster is one of Catalan literature’s most enduring voices. His sense of humour and insight into the human condition is inspiring.’ -Jordi Llavina, author of London Under Snow and Poetry & Prose ‘Catalan language’s most important essayist of the 20th century and a key figure in the culture and recent history of the Valencian region.’ -Mètode magazine ‘Without doubt, Fuster should be placed up there with Erasmus, Rabelais, Montaigne, Voltaire, Mann and Bertrand Russell.’ -Josep Ballester, Visat
£10.44
Charco Press Tidal Waters
Book SynopsisAn epistolary, fictional account of one woman moving towards happiness in the black community of Colombia?s Pacific coast.After a long absence, Vel has come home to Chocó ? to the Afro-Colombian community, to her family, to the sea. This is where the Pacific meets the Caribbean, where she?s establishing herself anew. And the record she keeps is a series of letters to a friend, clarifying for herself where she stands, as she describes that homecoming to another. Vel works to build a literary centre, writing career, and festival with and for the people there. But her return to Chocó is also a claim-staking of her decision to pursue happiness now; an account of her immersion in the towns and rivers and forests she came from; and a redefinition of her relationship to sex and love in real time. And Tidal Waters is a vision of how creating something (for your community, for yourself) is a way of reading and writing your way into a known place and a new self.
£10.79
Aspal Press Limited Tales from the Italian South
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Twisted Spoon Press The Tigress
£10.92
Quercus Publishing Death and the Devil
Book SynopsisIt's the year 1260 and the great cathedral - the most ambitious building in all of Christendom - is rising above the streets of Cologne. Far below its soaring spires and flying buttresses, an assassin of unnatural talent surveys his new hunting ground. More shadow than man, the assassin is quick to take his first life. But there is a witness to his crime: a flame-haired thief known as Jacob the Fox. Justly terrified by the black-clad spectre, Jacob runs for his life, convinced that he's pursued by the Angel of Death itself. For all his street-smart cunning, the wily Fox cannot shake off the assassin - a cruel, efficient murderer who favours a pistol-grip crossbow as his weapon of choice. Fate, injury and desperation lead Jacob to seek help from a beautiful clothes dyer, her drunken rascal of a father, and her learned uncle, a man of God who loves a battle of wits almost as much as he loves a bottle of wine. With the threat of an untimely death at the end of a crossbow bolt never far way, Jacob's unlikely cabal find themselves faced with a conspiracy born of an unquenchable thirst for revenge, a conspiracy that threatens to tear Cologne apart and stain the city with blood.
£11.69
Dedalus Ltd The Dark Domain
Book Synopsis''...reading The Dark Domain by Stephan Grabinski is such a revelatory experience. Because here is a writer for whom supernatural horror is manifest precisely in modernity - in electricity, fire-stations, trains:the uncanny as the bad conscience of today. Sometimes Grabinski is known as the Polish Poe but this is misleading. Where Poe''s horror is agonised, a kind of extended shriek, Grabinski''s is cerebral, investigative. His protagonists are tortured and aghast, but not because they suffer at the caprice of Lovecraftian blind idiot gods: Grabinski''s universe is strange and its principles are perhaps not what we expect, but they are principles - rules- and it is in their exploration that the mystery lies. This is horror as rigour.''China Mieville in The Guardian
£8.99
Columbia University Press Longing and Other Stories
Book SynopsisJun’ichirō Tanizaki is one of the most prominent Japanese writers of the twentieth century. This book presents three powerful stories of family from the first decade of Tanizaki’s career. Written in different genres, they are united by a focus on mothers and sons and a concern for Japan’s traditional culture in the face of Westernization.Trade ReviewThough Tanizaki was prolific, by now most of his major works have found their way into English. That there are still delights to be uncovered, however, is confirmed by the arrival of Longing and Other Stories . . . the stories are satisfying in themselves and additionally pleasing for their hints of an emergent mastery. -- Brad Leithauser * Wall Street Journal *Tanizaki enthralls with sharp, human(e) observations. -- Terry Hong * Booklist *A kind of master class in voice . . . The world of literature is much richer now that Longing and Other Stories is available for English readers. -- Marissa Moss * New York Journal of Books *This is a beautiful and immaculate Japanese short story collection from one of Japan’s greatest writers. -- Willow Heath * Books and Bao *A fine and nicely varied little sampler of Tanizaki's early writing. -- M.A. Orthofer * Complete Review *These three early works by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki explore family bonds—the mother-son relationship in particular—using different angles and styles: dreamy and lyrical, painfully realistic, tragically fraught. In stories rendered with elegant precision by the veterans Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy, Tanizaki masterfully probes the complexities of the human heart. -- Juliet Winters Carpenter, translator of Minae Mizumura’s An I-NovelAmong the most original and insightful novelists of twentieth-century world literature, Tanizaki creates richly idiosyncratic characters embodying the paradoxes of modern life. As deftly translated by veteran Tanizaki specialists Chambers and McCarthy, his short fiction will fascinate and delight readers. -- Keiichiro Hirano, award-winning author of A ManChambers and McCarthy capture well distinctly different voices in these early Tanizaki stories exploring three modes of storytelling. Lyrical dream-memory, naturalistic fictionalized self-revelation, and ironic commentary on conventional social morality presage the author’s later writing. The afterword draws on the translators’ deep knowledge of Tanizaki’s work to enhance our understanding. -- Phyllis Lyons, translator of Tanizaki’s In Black and White: A NovelVivid yet hazy, nostalgic and soothing yet disturbing, Tanizaki’s tale of longing for the mother is made available in this beautiful translation, together with two other strikingly different “mother” narratives. This book expands and enriches the Tanizaki corpus in English. -- Tomoko Aoyama, author of Reading Food in Modern Japanese LiteratureIn all of these three very different stories we hear Tanizaki’s distinctive voice and enjoy the products of his overwrought imagination. This translation is a valuable addition to the canon. -- Lesley Downer * Times Literary Supplement *There’s a tremendous sense of loss shared by all three of the stories collected in this volume, with regret lurking close behind. Whether focusing on a dreamer wandering through a mythic landscape or a man becoming acutely aware of his own flaws, Tanizaki creates characters whose psychologies resonate and whose flaws are engaging. -- Tobias Carroll * Words Without Borders *A brilliantly efficient introduction to [Tanizaki’s] work. -- Anna Hollingsworth * Shiny New Books *Longing and Other Stories provides not only three thematically-linked stories to the canon, the afterword also adds an excellent resource of accessible scholarship and close-reading. -- Alison Fincher * Asian Review of Books *Such brilliant storytelling . . . Tanizaki’s luminous and lucid prose forces the reader into an existential dilemma faced by the author and his characters, one of children torn between the old world and the new. -- Ella Kelleher * Asia Media International *A heady accomplishment . . . Longing and Other Stories blends artful translation, gorgeous prose, and round, imperfect human people that are truly terrifying. -- Caren Gussoff Sumption * Locus Magazine *Tanizaki was a master of different styles and voices, a skill in evident display in these new translations by Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy . . . this short collection really runs the gamut of mother-son relationships, allowing these disparate stories to achieve something close to unity of theme. Authors often return to the same topic over the course of their careers but few have the breadth of talent to take such fresh approaches each time. -- Iain Maloney * Japan Times *The translators … have rendered the English seamlessly. Moreover, by taking all three stories from early in the author’s career, they give us a valuable window on to his development. They also showcase his inventiveness in tackling entirely different modes of narrative. -- Mark Robinson * Mekong Review *This is literature for the soul at its finest. * Asia Media International *Table of Contents1. Longing2. Sorrows of a Heretic3. The Story of an Unhappy MotherTranslators’ AfterwordAcknowledgments
£15.29
Oneworld Publications Zuleikha: The International Bestseller
Book Synopsis WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD, THE LEO TOLSTOY YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD AND THE BEST PROSE WORK OF THE YEAR AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 READ RUSSIA PRIZE RUNNER-UP FOR THE EBRD LITERATURE PRIZE, 2020 Zuleikha is the model of a dutiful wife. Biddible and meek, she has resigned herself to brutal treatment at the hands of her cruel husband and the carping of her despotic mother-in-law. While Russia reels in the aftermath of its recent revolution, life in her small Tatar village is relatively untouched. Or so it seems to Zuleikha, until the day her husband is executed by communist soldiers. Zuleikha is exiled to Siberia and forced to leave behind everything she knows. Yet in that harsh, desolate wilderness, she begins to build a new life for herself and discovers an inner strength she never knew she had. This is a supremely ambitious epic about one woman's determination, not only to survive, but to flourish in the face of the greatest adversity.Trade Review‘A powerful account of individual lives trapped in one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.’ * The Times *‘Yakhina’s prose can be exquisite, especially in sequences such as the one where Zuleikha watches prisoners escaping from the train… It is Zuleikha’s perspective and the way in which she adapts that capture our attention. The unexpected birth of a son.. and her transformation from a passive to a powerful protagonist is one of the joys of Yakhina’s work.’ * Financial Times *‘Written in a rich and highly visual prose... Zuleikha's story is one of injustice and pain, but also of a woman's emancipation and renewal.’ * Associated Press *‘As we watch its heroine’s existence devolve from an oppressive domestic servitude into something disastrously worse, Guzel Yakhina’s sprawling, ambitious first novel Zuleikha reminds us just how brutal the Soviet system was… Zuleikha does an admirable job of dramatizing a historical period rapidly receding into the forgotten past… Dramatic and eventful, Zuleikha sweeps us into a distant era.’ * New York Times Book Review *'Guzel Yakhina's novel hits the heart. It’s a powerful anthem for love and tenderness in hell.' * Ludmila Ulitskaya, author of The Big Green Tent * 'An intimate story of human endurance.' * The Calvert Journal *‘While many writers have attempted to comprehend Soviet history's darkest moment, Yakhina finds a way to make it new.’ * Russia Beyond the Headlines *'A forceful, award-winning and debate-sparking debut novel about life in the Gulag… The novel pulsates with tension...a big, bold and fascinating book.' * Supamodu *'It is 1930 in the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin's dekulakization programme has found its pace. Among the victims is a young Tatar family: the husband murdered, the wife exiled to Siberia. This is her story of survival and eventual triumph. Winner of the 2015 Russian Booker prize, this debut novel draws heavily on the first-person account of the author's grandmother, a Gulag survivor.' * The Millions, 'Most Anticipated Books of 2019' *‘This is a powerful Russian saga, giving an immense overview of life under communist rule... This author is a master at painting an image of the world as it was then.’ * Marjorie's World of Books, blog review *‘Zuleikha has an energy that is hard to resist.’ * Strong Words *'There’s something that Guzel Yakhina succeeds in transmitting with an amazing, sharp exactness: a woman’s attitude towards love. Not towards a subject of love, but towards love itself.' * Anna Narinskaya, literary critic *‘Yakhina's debut novel has shaken the Russian book world so deeply over its first three years of life that her second book topped the 2018 sales charts alongside international bestsellers by Dan Brown and Jojo Moyes... This tale of a woman who holds onto compassion while enduring atrocity also features cinematic narration and intricate plot construction.’ * Meduza, 2019's top Russia-Related Books *'Cinematic… The cast of characters is kaleidoscopic, from all walks of life and all drawn with a visual detail that makes them inhabit the page… Yakhina has a beautiful feel for the natural environment.' -- Rights in Russia
£10.44
