Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisPerfect for fans of Neal Stephenson and Peter F. Hamilton: the blockbuster conclusion to the international sci-fi thriller by German's Number One thriller writer.It's 2025, and the Chinese and the Americans are going head to head on the Moon for helium-3, the rare mineral which will solve all the Earth's energy needs. But not everyone is happy.Billionaire Julian Orley's space-elevator revolutionised space travel; now he's taking a group of international movers and shakers on the trip of a lifetime: to the first-ever hotel on the Moon, hoping to woo them into investing in the future of humanity.But not all of Orly's guests are humanitarians: at least one is pursuing his own dark plot - and now there's a time limit. And how is this linked with the cyber-detective Owen Jericho, the dissident hacker Yoyo, oil magnate Gerald Palstein - and the mysterious organisation called Hydra, who have their own - not very charitable - plans for the universe?Trade ReviewEnthralling and visionary * Thomas Reiter, Astronaut *Full of excitement and danger. [A] complex and well-woven thriller [that] combines a thoughtful vision of the future with relics of the present and creates an atmosphere both alien and familiar * Library Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe first part in an epic historical trilogy - The Estonian answer to Wolf Hall - by the nation's greatest modern writer Jaan Kross's trilogy dramatises the life of the renowned Livonian Chronicler Balthasar Russow, whose greatest work described the effects of the Livonian War on the peasantry of what is now Estonia. Like Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, Russow is a diamond in the rough, a thoroughly modern man in an Early Modern world, rising from humble origins to greatness through wit and learning alone. As Livonia is used as a political football by the warring powers of Russia, Sweden, Poland and Lithuania, he continues to climb the greasy pole of power and influence. Even as a boy, Russow has the happy knack of being in the right place and saying the right thing at the right time. He is equally at home acting as friend and confidante to his ambitious patron and as champion for his humble rural relatives. Can anything halt his vertiginous rise? Like most young men he is prey to temptations of the flesh . . .Trade ReviewHe's a marvellous novelist - his scope and depth make him a world writer - and they should just hurry up and give him the Nobel -- Doris Lessing.He deserved a Nobel prize and would probably have got it had he written in any other language but Estonian -- Neil Taylor * Guardian. *He's almost alone in writing in the older European tradition of the large-scale historical novel. I'd argue that Kross is heir to the 'great' Russo-European 19th century novelists; his fiction has Tolstoyan sweep. On reading him, moreover, we rediscover that Estonia was always resolutely in Europe and not some obscure outpost this side of the Urals -- Fiona Sampson.No stranger to oppression himself, Kross writes about it with a poignancy devoid of anger -- Adam Zamoyski.

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Lisbon, late-1940s. The inhabitants of an old apartment block are struggling to make ends meet. There’s the elderly shoemaker and his wife who take in a solitary young lodger; the woman who sells herself for money and jewellery; the cultivated family come down in the world; and the beautiful typist whose boss can’t keep his eyes off her.Poisonous relationships, happy marriages, jealousy, gossip and love – Skylight brings together the joys and grief of ordinary people. One of his earliest novels, it provides an entry into Saramago’s universe but was lost for decades and published, as per his wishes, after his death.

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Book SynopsisAuxilio Lacouture is trapped.For twelve days she hides alone in a lavatory on the fourth floor of her university. Staring at the floor, she begins a heartfelt and feverish tale: she is the Mother of Mexican poetry.A highly charged first-person semi-hallucinatory novella, Amulet is a potent stream of consciousness through which the poets of Mexico rage and swirl. Filled with wild, dark literary prophecies, heroic poets, mad poets, artists choked by the brilliance of youth', Auxilio's passionate narration both heartbreaking and lyrical is suffused with the essence of Roberto Bolaño's art.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS''Encapsulates the violence and tragedy of recent Latin American history'' The TimesRoberto Bolaño redefined the form of the novel in his masterpiece 2666; with the hallucinatory narrative of Amulet, he reimagines what literature can become' New Statesman

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Book Synopsis A poignant story of three young adults trying to make a future for themselves in war-torn Damascus Syria - a country at war. Amal, Hammoudi and Youssef are young and ambitious, the face of modern Syria. But when civil war tears through their homeland, they are left with a horrifying choice: risk death by staying in the country they love, or flee in search of a new life elsewhere? From one of Germany's most talented literary voices comes this intricately woven story of brutality, loss, and how hope can shine through when darkness feels overwhelming.Trade Review‘Grjasnowa’s measured undemonstrative writing style (the book is beautifully translated from German by Katy Derbyshire) is central to the novel’s success... A significant literary and moral success.’ * Big Issue *‘There are few authors writing in German as sensuously and vividly as Grjasnowa.’ * KulturSpiegel *‘Grjasnowa provides a close-as-skin understanding of what it's like to suffer bombardment, torture, and dislocation while remaining human and hopeful... Highly recommended.’ * Library Journal, Reading Around the World: 12 Top Spring Titles for the Library Market *‘An important and painful book.’ * Deutschlandradio Kultur *‘Olga Grjasnowa's sentences crack like a whip.’ * Süddeutsche Zeitung *‘It is wonderful that there are writers like Grjasnowa who can write brilliantly and decisively about the real world.’ * Brigitte *‘A dark, tragic story with the resilient light of humanity shining through it... It truly spoke to my soul.’ * Marjorie's World of Books, blog review *‘Olga Grjasnowa writes from the nerve center of her generation.’ * Die Zeit *‘Grajsnowa’s extraordinary novel offers an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with one of the great tragedies of our time - to remember what that nation once was, why and how the conflict began and what it has led to…Grajsnowa’s measured undemonstrative writing style (the book is beautifully translated from German by Katy Derbyshire) is central to the novel’s success…The reader isn’t patronised or manipulated, and the emotional impact is all the greater. Characters come and go and live and die as the novel heads for its masterly, shattering denouement. A significant literary and moral success.’ * Big Issue *‘A truly gifted writer...[who] has a very bright future ahead of her.’ * Yahoo! Voices *

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Book SynopsisThe Only Child is a shockingly unnerving psychological thriller from bestselling Korean author Mi-ae Seo ‘An eerie, electrifying read.’ Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box ‘A chilling, nuanced examination of today’s and tomorrow’s serial killers and the families who spawned them, The Only Child is a valuable addition to the growing list of Korean crime fiction.’ LA Times ‘Fans of Mindhunter and Silence of the Lambs will love this dark, cognitive duel between psychologist and serial killer.’ Jonathan Trigell, author of Boy A Criminal psychologist Seonkyeong has two new people in her life. A serial killer whose gruesome murders shook the world but who has steadfastly remained silent. Until now. A young, innocent looking stepdaughter from her husband’s previous marriage, who unexpectedly turns up at the door after the sudden death of her grandparents. Both are unsettling. Both are deeply troubled. And both seem to want something from her. Can she work out just who is the victim in all of this? Before it’s too late... Trade Review'Wholly absorbing, but without any pandering on the author's part, so that the language, the style, and the mood grow about you, as you slip deeper into the story and realize, quite suddenly, you are immersed. An eerie, electrifying read.' * Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box *'A chilling, nuanced examination of today’s and tomorrow’s serial killers and the families who spawned them, The Only Child is a valuable addition to the growing list of Korean crime fiction available to American audiences.' * LA Times *'In this twisted web of coincidence, criminal psychologist Seonkyeong untangles the pasts and motivations of two new acquaintances...as both become increasingly menacing presences in her life.' -- Vanity Fair'Fans of Mindhunter and Silence of the Lambs will love this dark, cognitive duel between psychologist and serial killer.' * Jonathan Trigell, author of Boy A *'This is one creepy book. Come for the serial killers, criminal profilers and spooky children, stay for the twisting character studies and insight into domestic trauma. But check all the locks first.' * Thomas Mullen, author of Darktown *'For fans of Mindhunter, Mi-Ae Seo’s novel The Only Child feels like true crime but is a tour de force of twisty fiction with a shocking ending you won’t be able to stop thinking about. Family secrets abound in this fine novel of psychological suspense.' * Alma Katsu, author of The Deep and The Hunger *'An addictive and shocking psychological thriller... There is a twist here that has to be read to be believed.' -- Refinery29'Korean author Seo’s U.S. debut is a dark dive into the mind-set of serial killers... Fans of Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs, and Zoje Stage’s Baby Teeth will find this admirable.' * Library Journal *‘While much of crime fiction features a parade of children in danger, what about those novels featuring children who are the danger? For those looking to be terrified by sociopathic youths, or those just looking for an all-round nailbiter of a thriller, we recommend The Only Child, in which a behavioural psychologist who studies serial killers becomes the caretaker of a very, very, creepy little girl.’ * CrimeReads best of International Crime Fiction *'With cold precision, Seo creates a chilling and engrossing profile of a next-generation serial killer.' * Kirkus *'The story moves along swiftly; you quickly develop sympathy for the main characters [...] The ending scenes are real page-turners and the final twist was totally unexpected. A gripping psychological thriller which looks at the experiences which make a serial killer, and asks if it's possible to reverse that damage.' * Promoting Crime Fiction *'Korean author Seo makes her debut with a creepy psychological thriller ... Seo stealthily spins an ever-tightening narrative web setting up a doubly shocking climax. It’s a measure of Seo’s skill that she manages to find flashes of humanity in a ruthless murderer. Fans of Netflix’s Mindhunter should feel right at home.' * Publishers Weekly *'This novel feels perfect for fans of the authors Natsuo Kirino and Kanae Minato, plus the films Silence of the Lambs and The Bad Seed. The Korean author’s debut explores nurture vs nature and dark criminal minds as a young and optimistic criminal psychologist is called upon to talk to a convicted killer. It's a great slow-burn read filled with suspense.' * Novel Suspects *'I absolutely loved this debut thriller...expertly plotted, fantastic characters, an absolute pleasure to read... This has a really good chance of being one of my top crime thriller reads this year!' * Independent Book Reviews *'Never in my history of reading thrillers have I ever been invested in the development and safety of every character including the villain...This novel is written with such poise and restraint that I was left all the more speechless in the end.' * Something Bookish *

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Book Synopsis'One of the greatest novels of the Second World War' The Times. 'A remarkable find' Antony Beevor. 'A masterpiece' Mail on Sunday. Stalingrad, November 1942. Lieutenant Breuer dreams of returning home for Christmas. But he and his fellow German soldiers will spend winter in a frozen hell – as snow, ice and relentless Soviet assaults reduce the once-mighty Sixth Army to a diseased and starving rabble. Breakout at Stalingrad is a stark and terrifying portrait of the horrors of war, and a profoundly humane depiction of comradeship in adversity. The book itself has an extraordinary story behind it. Its author fought at Stalingrad and was imprisoned by the Soviets. In captivity, he wrote a novel based on his experiences, which the Soviets confiscated before releasing him. Gerlach resorted to hypnosis to remember his narrative, and in 1957 it was published as The Forsaken Army. Fifty-five years later Carsten Gansel, an academic, came across the original manuscript of Gerlach's novel in a Moscow archive. This first translation into English of Breakout at Stalingrad includes the story of Gansel's sensational discovery.Trade ReviewOne of the greatest novels of the Second World War * The Times *Gerlach's truly magnificent novel [...] is a devastating account of the appalling privations suffered by the German army, left to their fate by the foundering, over-stretched Fatherland. A masterpiece * Mail on Sunday *A remarkable find -- Antony Beevor[It] is so deftly handled and well constructed... It is astonishing that [this] is Gerlach's first attempt at fiction' * The Sunday Times *This excellent book will shine a light on the horrors of the Eastern Front for a new generation of English-speaking readers... An absolute gem of a book' * Soldier magazine *[Written with] raw, vivid immediacy, which piles up compelling images and episodes... It is an exceptional, powerful and moving work' * Sunday Times *Anyone who wants an idea of what Stalingrad was really like should read this book... Gerlach records the lives and feelings of soldiers of all ranks' * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung *

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Book Synopsis‘I’m going back to what I was twenty years ago. I’m riding across a terrain of buried curiosity, the adrenaline is starting to flow again, and the old obsessions are coming back: I want to start doing cocaine every day, I want to run after every female who passes, I want to smell the smells of Italy again, I want my old life back. It’s a bit late for all that, I know, but who gives a fuck? I want to die stark naked, drowned in a well of Ballantine’s, surrounded by whores. All this I want, suddenly, I want it very much indeed. But I hide it well.’This is the story of Tony Pagoda, a hero of our time, a man of incredible energies and appetites with a dark secret in his past and a unique perspective on the world.1980s Italy is Tony’s oyster. A charismatic singer, he is talented and successful, up to his neck in money, drugs and women, enjoying an extravagant lifestyle in Naples and Capri. But when life gets complicated, Tony decides it’s time for a change. While on tour, he disappears to Brazil and an existence free from excess, where all he has to worry about are the herculean cockroaches. But after eighteen years of humid Amazonian exile, somebody is willing to sign a giant cheque to bring Tony back to Italy. How will he face the temptations of his old habits and the new century? A huge bestseller in Italy, Everybody's Right is an extraordinary debut novel from the award-winning film director Paolo Sorrentino. It is a book about Italy and a book about the modern world; a book about Tony and a book about all of us. Through Tony’s irresistible voice Sorrentino illustrates his imaginative power and his incredible gifts for drama and satire.Trade ReviewFrequently funny writing... The story speeds along with a fast-moving, Raymond Chandler type plot, although it finishes with a shocking tenderness * Daily Mail *[A] visceral first-person account and fantastically unreliable narration brilliantly capturing the brand of modern-day Italy that Berlusconi exported… A novel of bleak gallows humour * GQ *Flooded with neat aphorisms and winning vignettes…it works as a cock-eyed state-of-the-nation address after the years of Berlusconification… A blackly comic birl through a life of excess, regret and reflection * Glasgow Sunday Herald *A furious, ironic, idiosyncratic, unexpurgated torrent, capturing Italian modernity * Kirkus *Sorrentino uses this novel to deal with Italy's unstoppable descent into today's dazed, corrupted and tragically foolish reality...[in] exceptionally adventurous language * La Repubblica *

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Book SynopsisTense, chilling' MARIANA ENRIQUEZ''Lays bare intergenerational horror, feminine rage and the taking back of power'' STYLIST''Incredible'' FINANCIAL TIMESThe house breathes.The house contains bodies and secrets.The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes.Nobody ever leaves.The house was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can't leave.They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy from a local wealthy family draws unwanted press attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice.Layla Martínez's eerie debut novel Woodwo

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Book SynopsisA wounded solider vanishes into notoriety.A nose is found in a loaf of bread.Places - like the Nevesky Prospect - are not what they seem. Nikolai Gogol was one of the nineteenth century's greatest and most influential Russian writers, a realist whose witty and acerbic observations and his taste for the absurd give his writing its strange, comic voice. Selected from the work of Constance Garnett, one of Gogol's earliest translators, this edition presents a new, exclusive collection of Gogol's short fiction, selected and lightly revised by Natasha Randall. Contextualized by Randall's preface, and full of the wit of Garenett's work, this edition is the perfect introduction to Gogol, and a must for the enthusiast.

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Book SynopsisA FINANCIAL TIMES 'BEST BOOK OF THE WEEK' CHOICE A sharp, breath-taking exploration of love and relationships. Pietro and Teresa’s love affair is tempestuous and passionate. After yet another terrible argument, she gets an idea: they should tell each other something they’ve never told another person, something they’re too ashamed to tell anyone. In this way, Teresa thinks, they will remain intimately connected forever. A few days after sharing their shameful secrets, they break up. Not long after, Pietro meets Nadia, falls in love, and proposes. But the shadow of the secret he confessed to Teresa haunts him, and Teresa herself periodically reappears, standing at the crossroads of every major moment in his life. Or is it he who seeks her out? Trust asks how much we are willing to bend to show the world our best side, knowing full well that when we are at our most vulnerable we are also at our most dangerous.Trade Review"Trust unfolds with all the tension of a thriller despite much of the action taking place in the mind of the protagonist." * Big Issue North *

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Book SynopsisAn impassioned novel on the consequences of sexual exploitation and the dead ends of forgiveness 13-year-old Cléo lives a drab existence with her parents in a suburb of Paris. Her life changes when she is offered the chance to obtain a scholarship – issued by a mysterious Foundation - to realise her dream and become a modern jazz dancer. But there is more to the Foundation and their suave representative than meets the eye. Soon Cléo finds a trap has closed in on her, and she’s fallen prey to a sinister system in which she’ll eventually become complicit. Over 30 years later, a cache of images surfaces on the internet and exposes the Foundation’s exploitative, hidden purposes. The police put out a call for witnesses, and Cléo, now with a successful career as a dancer behind her, comes to realise the past has come back to haunt her. As her sense of self diffracts into multiple, contrasting images, there’s no way out but to confront her double burden as victim and predator.Trade Review“The deep relevance and the nuanced portrayal of the myriad effects of abuse on their lives are skilfully done…. Layered and disquieting.” * Kirkus Reviews *“This of-the-moment novel that scrutinises how working-class girls’ ambition to be dancers or excel at sport is used to manipulate them for abuse by wealthy men. That the procuring of these girls is done by a woman makes this novel especially pertinent. But there is, to the author’s great credit, no hint of sensationalism in the presentation of this exploitation.” * Irish Times *“Lafon has done a wonderful job of depicting the structures that enable sexual violence, and its traumatic aftermath on the victims: the shame, the disgust, and the need for forgiveness.” * Asymptote Journal *“Expertly crafted in an immersive, captivating story.” * Buzz Magazine *“The great strength of Reeling is the way Lafon weaves together social failures that, on the surface, seem quite disparate.” * LA Review of Books *“A brilliantly written and unsettling novel about those who have power and those who don’t - be it through age, social standing or money. Lola’s writing is never sentimental, but is so powerful in ensuring understand exactly how these events have shaped Cléo’s life and that the issues of power and consent are never clearly defined. I absolutely loved it.” * Years of Reading Selfishly *"A harrowing, painful story, draped in beautifully melancholy writing.” * Les Échos Week-End *“A beautiful, intense novel.” * Madame Figaro *“A fiercely feminist novel... compulsively readable too.” * The New Yorker on The Little Communist that Never Smiled *“A thought-provoking, surprisingly touching story about a little girl who shook up the world.” * The Big Issue on The Little Communist that Never Smiled *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2019 AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER When Gilbert wakes one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him, he flees - immediately and inexplicably - for Tokyo, where he meets a fellow lost soul: Yosa, a young Japanese student clutching a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide. Together, Gilbert and Yosa set off on a pilgrimage to see the pine islands of Matsushima, one looking for the perfect end to his life, the other for a fresh start. Playful and profound, The Pine Islands is a beautiful tale of friendship, transformation and acceptance in modern Japan.Trade ReviewMiraculous ... Poschmann has all the air of uncovered greatness -- John Self * Guardian *A remarkably tender exploration of modern life ... Poschmann reveals the still beauty to be found in life beneath a mask of black humour. -- Mia Colleran * Irish Times *A blackly funny novel, in which the rhythms of modern life slowly give way to the restorative poetry of the natural world. -- Claire Allfree * Daily Mail *If you've ever wondered how a writer of imagination and wit might blend Murakami-style mysticism with black-humoured realism, this diverting novel will tell you everything you need to know. * Big Issue *Funny, strange and sad ... a refreshing book for the curious reader * Herald *Really fascinating ... on the face of it a simple story with a sort of surreality to it, a playfulness as well ... interesting, left-field ... we absolutely loved it ... a comic confrontation with mortality -- Bettany Hughes, chair of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize judgesAbsurdly delightful * Straits Times *A masterpiece * Die Zeit *Clever, poetic, funny * Tagesspiegel *A dazzling little novel * Süddeutsche Zeitung *Profoundly serene, flawlessly beautiful * TAZ *Ravishingly funny * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung *Simply wonderful * Stern *

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Book Synopsis'What a great novel, its language and storytelling so light but also raw and lyrical. A tremendous writer. Read this book' ADRIAAN VAN DIS. Alan Noland discovers his father's memoirs and learns the truth about the violent man he despised. In this unsparing family history, Alan distils his father's life in the Dutch East Indies into one furious utterance. He reads about his work as an interpreter during the war with Japan, his life as an assassin, and his decision to murder Indonesians in the service of the Dutch without any conscience. How he fled to the Netherlands to escape being executed as a traitor and met Alan's mother soon after. As he reads his father's story Alan begins to understand how war transformed his father into the monster he knew. Birney exposes a crucial chapter in Dutch and European history that was deliberately concealed behind the ideological facade of postwar optimism. Readers of this superb novel will find that it reverberates long afterwards in their memory.Trade ReviewA masterly novel about the violence of colonialism, the war of decolonisation, the repatriation of the collaborators and the consequences all of this has had on the families of those involved * De Groener Amsterdammer *Birney mercilessly exposes a crucial part of Dutch history. This masterful novel will echo in the minds of its readers * De Volkskrant *What a great novel, its language and storytelling so light but also raw and lyrical. A tremendous writer. Read this book -- Adriaan van Dis, author of My Father's War and BetrayalA work of unbridled, incensed storytelling: an assault on the lazy assumptions of parochial, colonial history and a personal quest for redemption * South China Morning Post *

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Book SynopsisSet in the Canadian forest, Feral is a feminist eco-thriller, a passionate love story and an ode to nature's ferocious beauty.Raphaëlle, a forty-year-old forest warden, has been estranged from her family for many years. She lives with her beloved dog, Coyote, in a caravan deep in the Canadian woods. Fiercely independent and cut off from civilisation, she is always armed, protecting herself from bears, coyotes and lynxes who she in turn defends from sadistic, overzealous poachers.Soon after Raphaëlle discovers animal footprints outside her cabin, her dog vanishes and is eventually found severely injured. And then it is not long before Raphaëlle herself becomes the prey of the forest's ultimate predator, which is not animal, but man.Trade Review'A gripping thriller and an ode to nature's preservation' -- Corinne Renou-Nativel, Croix'A breath-taking story' -- Laëtitia Favro, Livres Hebdo

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Book SynopsisSalomé was bullied for years and no one did a single thing to help her. One day she finally snapped. Now at just sixteen years old, she's being held in a secure unit for young offenders Salomé's counsellor, the man whose good opinion is key to her release, is best known for his racist gaffes on reality TV. Her father has recently been diagnosed with liver cancer and her elder sister Miriam's main preoccupation is to get out of their small, close-minded village as soon as possible. Both at home and in the unit, things are unbearably tense. Salomé finds it hard to keep her temper and harder still to think about the crime she is charged with committing. But as time passes, she finds new strength to delve into the reasons for her rage and arrive at her own understanding of punishment, penitence and the paradoxical demands made on her existence as a Black woman. Raw and unsentimental, Confrontations is a powerful depiction of racism and resilience from one of the Netherlands' most exciting new literary voices.Trade ReviewConfrontations unpicks the stitches of a young life prematurely defined by violence. Crime, punishment, privilege and racism are explored with the unsentimental, stark precision of a poet's pen. Simone Atangana Bekono is one to watch. -- Alice Slater, author of Death of a BooksellerOne of the best debuts I've read in years. Atangana Bekono's raw scenes are written with enormous tenderness." Do you see it now?" she asks you. And leaves you with a broken heart -- Hanna Bervoets, author of We Had to Remove This PostA tightly wound, forcefully lyrical debut novel by an award-winning Dutch poet ... A psychological mystery whose solution resides in self-discovery. * Kirkus *Confrontations is a moving study of how quietly pivotal events build over time to fuel rage. Simone Atangana Bekono immerses us in the different worlds Salome navigates, gripping us through the character's distinctive voice. There is a tender stubbornness she possesses, and it sealed my attention from the start. I sighed with Salome, laughed with her, dreamt with her, was frustrated for her. This novel will compel you to reconsider what rehabilitation means, and will follow you beyond the final page. -- Theresa Lola, author of In Search of EquilibriumConfrontations tackles heavy subject matter with nuance and empathy, following its complicated protagonist as she grapples with trauma and her sense of self. -- Jeremiah Emmanuel, author of Dreaming in a NightmareA sensitive, moving, and insightful story about an incarcerated teenage girl coming to terms with her social identity, self-understanding, and dreams. The writing captures, believably, the thoughts of a young person facing the devastation of her confinement and what led up to it. Oscillating between unfiltered expression and philosophical realization, and with moments of utter beauty, Bekono captures the anguish of degradation, the desperation of rage, and the loneliness of Salomé's experience at the margins of two cultures. -- Erin I. Kelly, Pulitzer Prize Winning co-author of Chasing Me to My GraveIn the pages of Simone Atangana Bekono's daring, beautifully-written and incredibly observant novel, Confrontations, you'll meet the main character, Salomé, who pays a high price for standing up for herself and the people she loves. Each of Bekono's characters are drawn with so much acuity and honesty. I love this page turner and the colorful cast of characters who populate it. -- De’Shawn Charles Winslow, author of Decent People and In West Mills

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Book SynopsisA glimpse into the world of young people, modern nomads, roving in search of a new and promising life.The Moon in Foil traces the stories of Petra, Natália, Anka, Mika, Juliana, and Jackie as they go out into the world in search of a better life—or maybe just a different one. In post-communist Europe, they have the freedom to study and work in places their parents couldn’t even have visited—Paris, London, Helsinki, and Budapest. But the reality of that “freedom,” they soon discover, is often nothing more than tedious work and poor living conditions. From close looks at the work of a housekeeper at a French hotel, a bartender at an Irish pub, a snowboarding instructor in Slovakia in the winter and an office worker in London in the summer, and a programmer in Helsinki, to explorations of larger topics such as marriage, divorce, and relationships, Zuska Kepplová’s novel is a millennials’ odyssey—a search for the self by the post–Cold War generation.Table of ContentsPetra, ParisAnka, LondonMika, HelsinkiNatália, ParisJuliana, BudapestTrianon–Delta

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Book SynopsisThe terrifying new psychological thriller by internationally bestselling phenomenon Sebastian Fitzek. Walk Me Home is Fitzek's most enthralling work to date. The Walk Me Home telephone helpline service has proved indispensable. Staffed by volunteers, it provides a reassuring voice at the end of the phone, helping to protect lone women as they walk home at night. Jules has only been working for Walk Me Home for a short time and has never had to deal with a truly life-threatening situation. But that all changes one Saturday night when Klara calls. The young woman is terrified. She thinks she is being followed by a man. A man from her past. A man who drew a date in blood on her bedroom wall. And that day dawns in less than two hours... For Klara – and Jules – the stakes have never been higher. Will either of them ever make it home again? Reviewers on Sebastian Fitzek: 'Fitzek's thrillers are breathtaking, full of wild twists' Harlan Coben 'Fitzek is without question one of the crime world's most evocative storytellers' Karin SlaughterTrade ReviewPRAISE FOR SEBASTIAN FITZEK: 'Fitzek's thrillers are breathtaking, full of wild twists.' Harlan Coben. 'Sebastian Fitzek is without question one of the crime world's most evocative storytellers.' Karin Slaughter. 'Sebastian Fitzek is simply amazing. I truly hope that one day I will be able to create suspense and plot twists in the way only Sebastian can. A true Master of his craft.' Chris Carter. 'Spine-chilling... Masterful... Brilliant.' The Times. 'Dazzling.' * Sunday Times *

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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 yearning for 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, 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 * *

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Book SynopsisCollected here are Gogol's finest tales - stories which combine the wide-eyed, credulous imagination of the peasant with the sardonic social criticism of the city dweller - allowing readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way of Dostoevsky and Kakfa. All of Gogol's most memorable creations are here: the minor official who misplaces his nose, the downtrodden clerk whose life is changed by the acquisition of a splendid new overcoat, the wily madman who becomes convinced that a dog can tell him everything he needs to know. The wholly unique blend of satire and realism that Gogol crafted established his reputation as one of the most daring and inventive writers of his time.

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Book SynopsisFour Meals is the extraordinary story of Zayde, his enigmatic mother Judith and her three lovers.When Judith arrives in a small, rural village in Palestine in the early 1930s, three men compete for her attention: Globerman, the cunning, coarse cattle-dealer who loves women, money and flesh; Jacob, owner of hundreds of canaries and host to the four meals which lend the book its narrative structure; and Moshe, a widowed farmer obsessed with his dead wife and his lost braid of hair which his mother cut off in childhood.During the four meals, which take place intermittently over several decades, Zayde slowly comes to understand why these three men consider him their son and why all three participate in raising him.Trade ReviewIt's as though the Song of Solomon had been rewritten by Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . a master class in the storyteller's art. * * Daily Telegraph * *Shalev's novel, plump with incident and character, is structured around the four meals that Jacob, a candidate father, prepares for Zayde, but in between Shalev brings on side dishes of interlocking stories that keep the reader sated. * * Guardian * *This is a literary novel that succeeds in being neither incomprehensible nor humourless. The author writes with a light touch and an eye for amusing quirks of character. * * The Historical Novels Review * *This delicious novel . . . has been wonderfully translated. -- Penny Perrick * * The Times * *

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Book Synopsis'She came in like a shadow. She slid and bore herself into my eye, between my eyelids which blinked against the dust.' She is Maud Gonne, the muse of writer William Butler Yeats. Yeats here returns as a ghost, after having been buried in France in 1939 in the cemetery of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, to be returned to Ireland a decade later. He emerges from his grave to recount his thwarted love with Maud, a story that merges with that of the independence movement of Ireland, of which they were both emblematic actors. Yeats' ghost has suddenly arisen because diplomatic documents long kept secret have resurfaced, casting doubt on the contents of the coffin brought back into Ireland for a state funeral. Where did the poet's body go? Does he still hover, as he wrote, 'somewhere above the clouds'? What remains of our loves and our deaths, if not their poetry? Besserie's exciting new novel follows on from Yell, Sam, If You Still Can (Le Tiers Temps), translated by Cliona Ni Riordain. In Maylis Besserie's second novel, she turns her attention from Samuel Beckett to another iconic Irish writer, W. B. Yeats. The connection between France in Ireland is once again explored in the context of art, culture and the days at the end of life.Trade Review'Scattered Love is a haunting and immersive read, written with the kind of lyricality and depth of tone appropriate for a novel infused with the presence of Yeats. Besserie is almost painterly in the way she employs words, drawing her readers deep into the story she's telling. This is a poem of a novel; the perfect vehicle for capturing Yeats in all his rich complexity.' JAN CARSON 'Maylis Besserie's beautiful novel casts a brilliant light on life and love and death and what remains of us ... The elegant prose and fluid translation have a balming, soothing quality. It is strange and fascinating to read Yeats's sublimely ventriloquised voice, and Madeleine's quest is absorbing, comedic, touching and true. The magic of Yeats has new life here.' DONAL RYAN 'A truly beautiful literary novel from a wonderful storyteller.' JOSEPH O'CONNOR

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2019 A brilliant collection of fictions in the vein of Roald Dahl, Etgar Keret and Amy Hempel. These are stories of what the world looks like from a child's pure but sometimes vengeful or muddled perspective. These are stories of life in a war zone, life peppered by surreal mistakes, tragic accidents and painful encounters. These are stories of fantasist matadors, lost limbs and perplexed voyeurs. This is a collection about sex, death and the all-important skill of making life into a joke. These are unexpected stories by a very fresh voice. These stories are unforgettable.

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Book SynopsisA major work by one of France’s most important authors of the twentieth century, London Bridge is a riotous novel about the London underworld during the First World War. Picking up where its predecessor Guignol’s Band left off, Céline’s narrator recounts his disastrous partnership with an eccentric Frenchman intent on financing a trip to Tibet by winning a gas-mask competition; his uneasy relationship with London’s pimps and whores and their common nemesis, Inspector Matthew of Scotland Yard; and, most scandalous of all, his affair with a colonel’s daughter. Written in Céline’s trademark style – a headlong rush of slang, brusque observation and quirky lyricism, delivered in machine-gun bursts of prose and ellipses – London Bridge recreates the dark days during the Great War with sordid verisimilitude and desperate hilarity.Trade ReviewWriting as alive as speech. -- Simone de BeauvoirIf the French demand bad behaviour from their novelists, they got more than they bargained for with the antisemitic Céline. But they were also getting the prose stylist of the century. -- Tibor Fischer * The Guardian *The most blackly humorous and disenchanted voice in all of French literature… * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisWhen it is discovered that the reigning world chess champion, Mirko Czentovic, is on board a cruiser heading for Buenos Aires, a fellow passenger challenges him to a game. Czentovic easily defeats him, but during the rematch a mysterious Austrian, Dr B., intervenes and, to the surprise of everyone, helps the underdog obtain a draw. When, the next day, Dr B. confides in a compatriot travelling on the same ship and decides to reveal the harrowing secret behind his formidable chess knowledge, a chilling tale of imprisonment and psychological torment unfolds. Stefan Zweig’s last and most famous story, ‘A Game of Chess’ was written in exile in Brazil and explores its author’s anxieties about the situation in Europe following the rise of the Nazi regime. The tale is presented here in a brand-new translation, along with three of the master storyteller’s most acclaimed novellas: Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman, The Invisible Collection and Incident on Lake Geneva.Trade ReviewPerhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game. * The Economist *A perfect introduction to Zweig. * The Jewish Chronicle *It is somehow progressively thrilling, yet consistently still and calculated. With barely a note out of tune, this is a short story masterclass. * The Big Issue *Although these four stories are in many ways very different, they all share a theme of single-minded behaviour, are underpinned by social and political commentary, full of symbolism and are rich in metaphor and allegory. This ensures that they really do feel timeless – true modern-day parables. * Nudge Books *

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Book SynopsisOn the eve of the Crimean War, the young, headstrong Yelena, the daughter of aristocratic Russian parents, falls in love with a revolutionary from Bulgaria named Insarov. Facing the wrath and disapproval of her family, Yelena abandons her home to follow Insarov to Bulgaria. Their fateful match sets in motion a series of tragic events which challenge notions of love, revolution and idealism. A highly controversial work upon its original publication, Ivan Turgenev’s On the Eve is now recognized as one of the masterpieces of Russian literature and an essential document of the upheaval that dominated Russian society in the years prior to the Crimean War. Turgenev’s restrained, nuanced prose is rendered beautifully in Michael Pursglove’s new translation.Trade ReviewA deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies of the Russia of the fifties. -- Edward Garnett

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Book SynopsisAs the young Zinaida and her sweetheart, the student Nemovetsky, stroll through the idyllic Russian countryside, their memories, dreams and thoughts about life and the future mingle in the evening breeze. But when night falls, they hasten to retrace their steps back to town through a small wood, where they are accosted by three threatening drunkards, who knock Nemovetsky unconscious and start to chase the girl through the underwood. When the young student comes round, he is confronted with the horror of what has just happened. Haunting, disquieting, shocking, `The Abyss' - one of the most powerful short stories ever written - is accompanied in this volume by fifteen other stories, never translated into English before by Andreyev, including `Silence', `The Thief' and `Lazarus, some of them never translated before into English. Together, they provide a clear account of the lasting legacy of Russia's foremost man of letters of the early twentieth century.Trade ReviewIf there has ever been a Russian writer who mirrored his or her own creation completely, it was surely Leonid Andreyev. Haunting, disturbing, disquieting... dark, passionate, pompous, discordant, controversial - whichever word of power you choose, it is likely to describe both Andreyev and his writing. -- Vlad Zhenevsky * Weird Fiction Review *Table of ContentsContains: Bargamot and Garaska, A Grand Slam, Silence, Once upon a Time, There Lived, A Robbery in the Offing, The Abyss, Ben Tobit, Phantoms, The Thief, Lazarus, A Son of Man, Incaution, Peace, Ipatov, The Return, The Flight.

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Book SynopsisThe story of young Henry, who struggles to fulfil his ambitions to become a successful painter and is torn between the gentle Anna and the proud and sensual Judith, is one of the most outstanding and personal Bildungsroman writ¬ten in the German language. Composed between 1846 and 1855, Keller’s poetic, semi-autobiographical novel draws on the author’s own youth, artistic studies and development as a man, as well as providing a comprehensive portrait of his country and his times. Green Henry is one of the most important novels in European literature, and undoubtedly the greatest work of fiction by a Swiss writer.

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Book SynopsisIt is New Year’s Eve, and Nellie, the pretty daughter of a landowning general, is sitting in her room looking in the mirror. Although she is tired and her eyes are half closed, she is spellbound as the reflection in the looking glass dissolves into a sea of grey mist, in which she starts to discern the beloved features of her fiancé. As in a diorama, the scene keeps changing, and to the early snapshots of joyful marital life succeed other, more sinister images of care, sickness and bereavement, casting a long shadow onto the girl’s future. With ‘The Looking Glass’ Chekhov captured the very essence of the Russian soul. This short story, along with the others included in this collection, demonstrates why he is considered the absolute master of the genre.

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Book SynopsisPresented in a new translation by Roger Cockrell, The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants was originally conceived as a play and first published in 1859, shortly after the author's release from forced military service. Gogolian in style and tone, and waspish in its description of the villainous Opiskin, it is a sustained exercise in caricatural cruelty and a comedic tour de force. The young Sergei is summoned from St Petersburg by his uncle, the retired colonel Yegor Rostanev, to the remote country estate of Stepanchikovo. Rostanev's household, populated by a medley of remarkable characters, is dominated by the figure of Foma Opiskin, a devious, manipulative hanger-on who has everyone in thrall and plots to marry the colonel to the woman of his choice, Tatyana Ivanova. When Opiskin finds that his plans are being thwarted, a confrontation with Rostanev ensues, and all hell is let loose.

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016Clarisse Rivière's life is shaped by a refusal to admit to her husband Richard and to her daughter Ladivine that her mother is a poor black housekeeper. Instead, weighed down by guilt, she pretends to be an orphan, visiting her mother in secret and telling no-one of her real identity as Malinka, daughter of Ladivine Sylla. In time, her lies turn against her. Richard leaves Clarisse, frustrated by the unbridgeable, indecipherable gulf between them. Clarisse is devastated, but finds solace in a new man, Freddy Moliger, who is let into the secret about her mother, and is even introduced to her. But Ladivine, her daughter, who is now married herself, cannot shake a bad feeling about her mother's new lover, convinced that he can bring only chaos and pain into her life. When she is proved right, in the most tragic circumstances, the only comfort the family can turn to requires a leap of faith beyond any they could have imagined.Centred around three generations of women, whose seemingly cursed lineage is defined by the weight of origins, the pain of alienation and the legacy of shame, Ladivine is a beguiling story of secrets, lies, guilt and forgiveness by one of Europe's most unique literary voices.Translated from the French by Jordan StumpTrade ReviewA haunting, melancholy and immaculately translated novel, a thing of beauty for ugly times. -- Alex Preston * The Observer *A brave, unusual book -- Catherine Humble * Times Literary Supplement *A haunting, powerful new voice in French literature, providing an intriguing, beguiling experience for English readers. -- Mika Provata-Carlone * Bookanista *Ladivine is a wonder indeed ... like a saga that you never want to end because each page reveals new riches. -- Claire Devarrieux * Libération *A sumptuously written novel by a writer at the height of her powers. * Télérama *With its unique phrasing, slow, multi-layered, and each sentence an absolute necessity, Ladivine is a new delight -- Didier Jacob * BiblioObs *In this unique book, Marie NDiaye displays tough, brittle lives in majestic style. -- Maria Schottenius * Dagens Nyheter *This strangely hypnotic novel exudes anguish and loneliness. Marie NDiaye, writes profoundly disturbing novels in such riveting prose that one cannot look away. * Library Journal *Ladivine is a real jewel... impeccable craftsmanship, refined phrasing that swirls with description, and a bewitching story. All of the author's talents are on display here. -- Marianne Payot * Express *Marie NDiaye's new novel is magnificent. A mesmerising dive into the chaos in the lineage of three women. * LaLibreBelgique *A melancholy modern fable ... NDiaye reveals only as much reality as she wants to at any given moment-and therein lies her magic. * Kirkus Review *Sadness, regret, and insidious dread permeate every page of this beautifully crafted, relentless novel. * Publishers Weekly *With this novel, Marie NDiaye proves that she is a majestic storyteller and a deft weaver of literary universes. -- Tilman Krause * Die Welt *The real strengths of NDiaye are her ability to plumb the depths of a character's psychology and her cool but uncompromising dissection of their entire nature. -- Ulrike Baureithel * Der Freitag *NDiaye's manner of writing has often been compared to Proust ... Here she has created a world of mystery, dreams, and sensuality in a very controlled style. -- Adele King * World Literature Today *

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Book SynopsisWhen Giuseppe Mundula first sees Michele Angelo Chironi across the corridor of a Sardinian orphanage, the reserved blacksmith realises he has found the son and heir he never knew he needed. And when, a few years later, Michele himself looks down from a church rooftop and sees the beautiful Mercede, the quiet orphan realises he has found the woman he will marry. So begins Marcello Fois' magisterial domestic epic of the lives and loves of the Chironi family, as they struggle through war and fascism. Deftly endowing familial horrors with mythical resonance, Fois creates a Dantesque triptych that inscribes the history of twentieth-century Sardinia onto a single misbegotten household.Trade ReviewFois' descriptive prose is lavish, powerfully evoking time and place. It's as if nature is possessed of a richness of expression that humans have yet to acquire . . . Mazzarella's translation is flawless -- Jethro Souter * Independent *His poetic style is reminiscent of classics such as Manzoni's The Betrothed and Lampedusa's The Leopard -- David Platzer * Tablet *Written with a lyrical, poetic flair, it's an affecting tale of the brutal realities that make life so hard but also those things that make the struggle worthwhile. * Glasgow Herald *

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Book Synopsis'Lindqvist is Sweden's answer to Stephen King' Daily MirrorThey only stopped watching her for a couple of minutes. That was all it took. It was a beautiful winter's day. Anders, his wife and their feisty six-year-old, Maja, set out across the ice of the Swedish archipelago to visit the lighthouse. There was no one around, so they let her run on ahead. And she disappeared, seemingly into thin air, and was never found. Two years later, Anders is a broken alcoholic, his life ruined. He returns to the archipelago, the home of his childhood and his family. But all he finds are Maja's toys and through the haze of memory, loss and alcohol, he realizes that someone - or something - is trying to communicate with him. His return sets in motion a series of horrifying events which exposes a mysterious and troubling relationship between the inhabitants of the remote island and the sea.Trade Review'A magician of genre fiction' Independent. * Independent *'Emotionally forceful and superbly plotted' Big Issue. * Big Issue *'Lindqvist is Sweden's answer to Stephen King' Daily Mirror. * Daily Mirror *'This is a third consecutive masterpiece from an author who deserves to be as much a household name as Stephen King' SFX. * SFX *'a gripping portrayal of the devastating effect that the loss of a child can have on a parent' British Fantasy. * British Fantasy *'A very scary tale indeed' Financial Times. * Financial Times *'Eerily good' Marie Claire. * Marie Claire *'A magician of genre fiction' Independent. * Independent *

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Book SynopsisWritten over a period of more than half a century, Tolstoy’s enchanting short stories and novellas reflect every aspect of his developing art and outlook. Volume 1 of the Everyman Collected Shorter Fiction is dominated by the characteristic experiences of his early life as soldier, land-owner, husband and father, the life which shaped Anna Karenina and War and Peace. It also includes several short fables which point to his later preoccupation with the religious life.

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Book SynopsisPBS Recommended Translation for Spring 2013The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf is brought to life by American poet Meghan Purvis in a vigorous contemporary translation. Written across a range of poetic forms and voices, this rendering captures the thrust and gore of battle, the sinister fens and moorlands of Dark Age Denmark, and the treasures and glories of the mead-hall. But can the hero defeat his blood-thirsty foes, save the Geats from being wiped off the map, and claim his just rewards?Combining faithful translation with innovative re-workings and poems from alternative viewpoints, Purvis has created an exciting new interpretation of Beowulf – full of verve and the bristle of language.Meghan Purvis received her MA and PhD in Creative Writing from UEA. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Rialto, The Frogmore Papers and Magma. She won the 2011 Times Stephen Spender Prize for an excerpt from her translation of Beowulf; another poem was commended. She lives in Cambridge.

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Book SynopsisLong before he was the taco seller whose ‘Gringo Dog’ recipe made him famous throughout Mexico City, our hero was an aspiring artist: an artist, that is, till his would-be girlfriend was stolen by Diego Rivera, and his dreams snuffed out by his hypochondriac mother. Now our hero is resident in a retirement home, where fending off boredom is far more gruelling than making tacos. Plagued by the literary salon that bumps about his building’s lobby and haunted by the self-pitying ghost of a neglected artist, Villalobos’ old man can’t help but misbehave. He antagonises his neighbours, tortures American missionaries with passages from Adorno, flirts with the revolutionary greengrocer, and in short does everything that can be done to fend off the boredom of retirement and old age . . . while still holding a beer. A delicious take-down of pretensions to cultural posterity, I’ll Sell You a Dog is a comic novel whose absurd inventions, scurrilous antics and oddball characters are vintage Villalobos.Trade Review‘I'll Sell You A Dog is a reminder of how effortless literature should be to love. This unexpected ride through a character's second childhood, his building, neighbourhood and history is so magically twisted that it could be real. As ever Villalobos writes a peephole through politics and time, to simply watch us dance in all our lurid whimsy.' * DBC Pierre *‘Villalobos subjects the colourful and at times very funny plot to a rigorously, gracefully applied style, which never projects reality but rather, sentence by sentence, constructs a parallel reality upon it . . . Nothing is real and yet at the same time, everything is recognisable . . . Villalobos has found a tone and a rhythm all his own, unlike anything else in Mexican fiction today. He makes the reader laugh at the absurd and as he does so, he reveals the senselessness of the world.’ -- Fernando García Ramírez * Letras Libras *‘With this, his third novel, Villalobos is confirmed as the definition of new Mexican literature.’ -- Matías Néspolo * El Mundo *‘Villalobos’s farce spares no one. And with the laughter there emerges a compassion for people living marginal lives which positions the novel on the side of the unexpected and unknown, as the novel demands the imagination’s autonomy over reality, thus rebuking the conventions of fiction in a way that is as stimulating as the novel’s humour.’ -- Francisco Solano * El Pais *

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Book SynopsisAn investigative reporter sets out to uncover the truth about a mining company in Northern Finland, whose activities have caused an environmental disaster. Timely, atmospheric and chilling Nordic Noir from one of Finland’s finest writers… ‘Tuomainen writes beautifully’ Publishers Weekly ‘Clever, atmospheric and wonderfully imaginative’ Sunday Mirror ‘A simple story told with passion and elegant sadness’ The Times ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– A hitman. A journalist. A shattered family. A mine spewing toxic secrets that threaten to poison them all… In the dead of winter, investigative reporter Janne Vuori sets out to uncover the truth about a mining company, whose illegal activities have created an environmental disaster in a small town in Northern Finland. When the company’s executives begin to die in a string of mysterious accidents, and Janne’s personal life starts to unravel, past meets present in a catastrophic series of events that could cost him his life. A traumatic story of family, a study in corruption, and a shocking reminder that secrets from the past can return to haunt us, with deadly results, The Mine is a gripping, beautifully written, terrifying and explosive thriller by the King of Helsinki Noir. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ‘Dark, captivating and troubling’ Crime Fiction Lover ‘Beautifully executed … mesmerising’ Australian Crime 'Antti Tuomainen again creates a powerful book, set firmly within the boundaries of strong themes and unforgettable characters, with the huge dose of beautiful sensitive style, masterfully translated from Finnish by David Hackston' Crime Review 'You don’t expect to laugh when you’re reading about terrible crimes, but that’s what you’ll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen’s decidedly quirky thrillers' New York Times ’Antti Tuomainen is a wonderful writer, whose characters, plots and atmosphere are masterfully drawn’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir ‘One of the most compelling, emotionally satisfying and beautifully realised crime thrillers that I have encountered this year. The clarity and deceptively simple style of Tuomainen’s prose is utterly compelling’ Raven Crime ReadsTrade Review"thought-provoking." Publishers Weekly" "U.S. audiences should prepare to be every bit as enthralled as the Finns. . . . Readers attracted either to dystopian fiction or to Scandinavian crime will find gold here." Booklist starred review on The Healer"

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Book SynopsisWinner of a PEN Translates! grant. Selected as a 'book to look out for in 2017' by The Guardian and BuzzFeed Books. In these witty, postmodern stories, Yoon riffs on pop culture, experiments with punctuation, flirts with sci-fi and, in a metafictional twist, mocks his own position as omnipotent author. Highly literary, his narratives offer an oblique reflection of contemporary Bangkok life, exploring the bewildering disjunct and oft-hilarious contradictions of a modernity that is at odds with many traditional Thai ideas on relationships, family, school and work.Trade Review'Formally inventive, always surprising and often poignant, with the publication of this fluid and assured translation of The Sad Part Was, Prabda Yoon can take his place alongside the likes of Ben Lerner and Alejandro Zambra as a writer committed to demonstrating that there's life in the old fiction-dog yet.' - Adam Biles, author of Feeding Time --- 'An entrancing and distinctive collection. Yoon's limpid prose faces up to large, transcendental questions, all the while flickering with beautiful other-worldly images and flashes of deadpan humour.' - Mahesh Rao, author of One Point Two Billion

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Book SynopsisHom Yun's meticulously ordered life of reading books and drinking coffee receives a jolt when a mysterious cultural foundation unexpectedly agrees to fund his film proposal: a blend of fiction and documentary, a tone-poem constructed around a lyrical narrative, set around Scythian graves in the High Altai mountains. Desperate to be taken on as his assistant, the foundation's secretary follows him from their offices and begins a night of crossed wires, dislocation, and reality seen through glass, darkly. One of South Korea's most astonishingly sui generis authors, Bae Suah mixes the cerebral and the pungently physical, the mundane and the wildly surreal, in a characteristically potent blend.

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Book SynopsisA wife is suspended in a bird cage; a thirteenth-century visionary senses the foreskin of Christ on her tongue: Fleur Jaeggy's gothic imagination knows no limits. Whether telling of mystics, tormented families or famously private writers, Jaeggy's terse, telegraphic writing is always psychologically clear-eyed and deeply moving, always one step ahead, or to the side, of her readers' expectations. In this, her long-awaited return, we read of an 'eerie maleficent calm, a brutal calm', and recognise the timbre of a writer for whom a paradoxical world seethes with quiet violence.Trade Review'A wonderful, brilliant, savage writer.' Susan Sontag -------- 'Fleur Jaeggy's pen is an engraver's needle depicting roots, twigs, and branches of the tree of madness-extraordinary.' Joseph Brodsky -------- 'She has the enviable first glance for people and things, she harbors a mixture of distracted levity and authoritative wisdom.' Ingeborg Bachmann -------- 'Small-scale, intense, and impeccably focused.' New Yorker -------- 'Startling and original-so disturbing and so haunting.' Cathleen Schine, The New York Review Of Books----'Thank the gods and tip the devil for Fleur Jaeggy!' Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond

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Book SynopsisAs clear and relentless as the cold air, Love unfolds over one winter's evening. Single mother Vibeke and her son Jon have just moved to a small, remote town in the north of Norway. Tomorrow Jon will be nine. As Vibeke gets changed after work, Jon wonders what surprises his mother has prepared for him. He leaves the house certain she will make him a cake. But preoccupied with concerns of her own, she too ventures out. Inextricably linked yet desperately at odds, mother and son make their lonely ways through the unforgiving night. Beautifully translated into English by Martin Aitken, this edition is the twenty-eighth international publication of Love. Hanne Orstavik's astonishing grasp of human fragility and her economy of form power this acknowledged masterpiece of Norwegian literature.Trade Review`Love is Hanne Orstavik's strongest book.' Karl Ove Knausgaard ----'An achingly sad, unsentimental story . . . For a short novel that spans only a few hours in time . . . Orstavik brings us remarkably close to both her characters, shifting effortlessly between them in stark, lucid prose.' Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times----`[I]n Love, the closeness of the perspectives, the cramming of them together, as if the mother and son are one person, and yet clearly not, feels less about narrative, and more about the limitations of love. We think we know another person, we feel settled in another person, and yet, perhaps every other consciousness is entirely a mystery. That's the power of this particular book. The tiny emotional and atmospheric shifts are often barely perceptible, and yet they add up to much more.' Anita Felicelli, Los Angeles Review of Books ----`Orstavik's mastery of perspective and clean, crackling sentences prevent sentimentality or sensationalism from trailing this story of a woman and her accidentally untended child. Both of them long for love, but the desire lines of the book are beautifully crooked. Jon wants his mother, and to be let in out of the cold...the cold that seems a character throughout this excellent novel of near misses.' Claire Vaye Watkins, New York Times----`[A] haunting masterpiece... The deceptively simple novel is slow-burning, placing each character into situations associated with horror-entering an unfamiliar house, accepting a ride from a stranger-and the result is a magnificent tale.' Publishers Weekly, starred review ----`Prizewinning Norwegian Orstavik follows the parallel courses of a single mother and her 8-year-old son during a night that moves unrelentingly toward tragedy... A nightmarish sense of impending doom hangs over these carefully detailed, tightly controlled pages... icy cold to the core.' Kirkus Reviews ----`[A] creeping sense of unease is racheted up by the cool, lucid prose and how the paragraphs shift between mother and son, clarifying how close they should be and how close they aren't... Multi-award winner Orstavik offers an unsettling read that most will enjoy.' Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal ----`Love can change everything. And it does in this edgy, elegiac and beautifully written novel...What you think will happen doesn't-and what does breaks your heart.' Kerri Arsenault, Oprah.com ----`What was so striking to me about this slim novel was how quiet and circumspect it was given the emotional gut punch it delivered. `Deceptive' is right, sneaky even, and at the risk of falling into the trap of stereotyping Norwegian lit, the power of quietly mushrooming foreboding is strong with Orstavik. As I happen to be flying over the dark and snowy north of Norway as I write this, looking out my window at the icy fjords below, I feel the creep, even at 35,000 feet.' M. Bartley Seigel, Words Without Borders ---- `Love is a beautiful novella of beguiling simplicity, and Martin Aitken's translation has brought it over into an English that is both familiar and alien.' Erik Noonan, Asymptote Journal -----`Love is a deep and vibrantly alive novel... beautifully devastating... This is not your typical love story but rather the sharp-edged account of a boy whose need for attention from his heedless mother is heartfelt and full of yearning.' Lori Feathers, World Literature Today ----`Love is effectively atmospheric... neatly textured with its back and forths... A disturbing little read, nicely, darkly told.'Michael Orthofer, The Complete Review ----`In Hanne Orstavik's Love , the equilibrium between a tense, disquieting plot and a gently experimental binary structure sustain the reader's attention and awe from beginning to end. The aerial beauty of Martin Aitken's translation contributes to make the novel a successful rarity: a book that is at the same time a thriller and a dense literary object. "Perfect" may be the proper adjective to describe it.' National Book Foundation, 2018 Translated Literature Finalist ----`Praise from Booksellers': `Hanne Orstavik crafts an atmosphere of unease out of the ordinary. An old man giving a young boy a pair of skates, a man inviting a woman over for coffee, in Orstavik's hands these seemingly harmless moments become filled with an underlying sense of dread. Longing and loneliness fill these pages, while always there is a sense of the impossibility of real understanding and connection between people. Orstavik is a true observer of human nature and Love is her masterpiece.'Emily Ballaine, Green Apple Books on the Park ---- `Point of view works like a spot of living light in this slender book, with deft perspective shifts occurring between Vibeke, a hardworking, distracted mother, and Jon, her curious, lonely young son, on nearly every page. Mother and son are each on a separate journey, but the reader watches their whole shared life, as memories are folded expertly between breaths in Orstavik's urgent, visually vivid present tense--what a lovely shape. Nothing is wasted. And I'm astonished by the precision and poetry of Martin Aitken's translation from the Norwegian.' Gina Balibrera, Literati Bookstore ---- `Written with a precise elegance...builds to an ending as lonely as our characters. Beautiful and affecting, no word is wasted in this perfect winter read.' Kelsey Westenberg, Pilsen Community Books ----`[Q]uite simply, exceptional...If this book is an indication of Orstavik's talent, then translations of the rest of her work can't come soon enough... [Love] is a short, suspenseful winter's tale crafted in beautifully spare and precise prose. It can be read in a few hours but its singular effects haunt the reader for a long time afterward.' Malcolm Forbes, Star Tribune ----`Love's impeccable English translation by Martin Aitken reflects the economy and self-possession of Nordic prose. Its seamless narration, drawn in counterpoint, reverberates beyond the eerie landscape, lingering in the mind...Love, like love, yields its own gifts.' Fani Papageorgiou, Hyperallergic ----`[Love is] driven home for American readers thanks, in large part, to the translation, by Martin Aitkin. Aitkin's translation is economic, delicate, and pliant, making the narrative shifts between Vibeke and Jon seem effortless, dreamlike.' Brianne Baker, Entropy ---- `Wondrous, uncanny... an innovative yet unassuming structure... candid, glinting prose... This is the brilliance of Orstavik's technique: that we, as readers, can see how often Jon and Vibeke's thoughts converge, while they are each left blindly to await salvation.' Will Harrison, The Hudson Review ----`[Love] is a ruthless analysis of the formal structure of dread-and while the original is two decades old now, the English translation could not have arrived at a more appropriate moment.' Nicholas Dames, Public Books ---- `In this swift, elegantly constructed novel, Hanne Orstavik masterfully conveys a sense of entwined dread and longing that doesn't let up for a second. From the opening page to the powerfully moving finale, this tale of a mother and son is riveting. The characters' inner lives are illumined by a beautiful eeriness, and the translation's precision and clarity do justice to the novel's intensities. Read it: it'll bat around your brain for a long time afterward.' Martha Cooley ----`Love is hard, clear, merciless, and utterly compelling - a prism of the many daily ways we miss each other.'- Rebecca Dinerstein ---- `[Orstavik] gives nothing away for free, there is no overdriven emotion, no sentimentality nor pandering to her public. . . . But thanks to a language rich in its precision, with no loss of simplicity, it becomes an experience to follow her to her conclusion. One knows that one has read something substantial which one would not wish to be without.' Dagbladet ----`Love explores the insurmountable distance between people, the elementary impenetrability of them, and tells us about the difficulty of reading the signals of others. In short, dry sentences, Orstavik relates all the postponed, the possibilities that hang over our lives.'Avant-critiques ---- `Once in a while, there comes a book that takes you by surprise. An unassuming, low-key, seemingly ordinary novel which turns into an experience that makes you fully understand why you love reading so much. ... Orstavik's writing is impeccable, perfect, as haunting as the beauty of her homeland...[Love] will leave you speechless, the way a well-written novella has to do..this one of the most beautiful books I've read this year.' Amalia Gavea, The Opinionated Reader----`As is often the case, sobriety is the condition of emotion: Hanne Orstavik has perfectly put into practice this principle to offer a beautiful novel simple and subtle, meditative and moving.'A.N., L'Humanite ----`Orstavik invites the readers into her two characters' innermost thoughts, seamlessly switching back and forth between their perspectives- often within the same paragraph. Their stories unfold breathlessly close together on the page, suggesting the strong link between mother and son that Vibeke's actions betray.... a creeping sense of tragedy brews within the story...Though Love is only one hundred and twenty-five pages, its careful craft and beautiful details make it worth savoring-right to its haunting but inevitable conclusion.' Samantha Aper, Zyzzyva ----`What could be a simple family story is instead filled with foreboding and anxiety, showcasing the marvels and dangers pulsating just below the surface in our everyday lives. Longing and hopefulness fills these brief pages, leaving readers with a sense of wonder for the average: how a day can be so filled with newness and potential, with menace and tragedy.' Laura Farmer, The Gazette ---- `Hanne Orstavik's exquisite Love, so elemental in its materials and technique, embodies a profound recognition - namely that every search for clarity and connection must proceed through the full awareness of what constrains us.' Ron Slate, On The Seawall ----`From the first page, Orstavik's understated prose and sparse dialogue trace a relationship between mother and son that is as dry and powdery as Jon's failed snowballs. As the novel flits effortlessly between these two points of view, the reader is swept up in two separate egos, each on a muted quest for the human connections they are unable to accept from each other....Martin Aitken is to be applauded for so conscientiously bringing this soft-spoken, full-hearted novel into the English language.' The Arkansas International ----`Love is a book that uses sophisticated literary techniques to harrow readers and keep us in a state of trepidation (and confusion) on these points, right up until its final pages, breathlessly uncertain of the outcome.' - Abe Nemon, The Old Book Appreciator ---`The effect of Orstavik's narrative, alternating abruptly between Jon's story and that of his mother, is beautifully devastating. The prose (wonderfully translated) and pacing set a tone of foreboding tension and impending doom. A short, but very deep, and vibrantly alive novel.' Lori, Interabang Books ----`Love is a book that uses sophisticated literary techniques to harrow readers and keep us in a state of trepidation (and confusion) on these points, right up until its final pages, breathlessly uncertain of the outcome.'The Old Book Appreciator ----`Orstavik reminds us in this novel that love can be a dreadful thing too - when we love we trust, we assume all will be well continue as it always has. A child's love is unquestioning and innocently trusting. Orstavik understands the evil that lies in the betrayal of that - however accidental or merely thoughtless that betrayal is.' Heavenali ----`Vibeke...opens up so many difficult questions about love, about motherhood, about empathy, and also, potentially, what it means when we "like" a fictional character in a novel and when we "hate" them, and why we like some characters and not others, and whether we tend to dislike certain types of characters more than others, and what that might mean.'Strange Bookfellows ----`[Love is] a remarkable novel that will linger long after.'SF Gate ----`[T]here is an inescapable and escalating sense of anxiety as the story unfolds... In many ways Love seems to be taking place within a threshold, an in-between time, a twilight & dawnlight moment that may or may not be completely real... [A] dreamlike adventure... poised at the brink of a looming tragedy.' Michelle Bailat-Jones, Necessary Fiction ----`It is rare to read a novel where the mundane feels so thrilling...The emotional tension Hanne Orstavik created in Love is what makes this a standout read. Martin Aitken was able to provide a brilliant translation from the Norwegian and I can see myself dipping into this one again and again.'Michael, Knowledge Lost ----`As one reads this short but compelling novel, the absence of love, or of love expressed dominates every page.'Book Word

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