Fiction in translation
The New York Review of Books, Inc Blood Dark
Book SynopsisSet during World War I, this monumental philosophical novel about human despair inspired Albert Camus'' own writing and prefigured the greater existential movement.Blood Dark tells the story of a brilliant philosopher trapped in a provincial town and of his spiraling descent into self-destruction. Cripure, as his students call him—the name a mocking contraction of Critique of Pure Reason—despises his colleagues, despairs of his charges, and is at odds with his family. The year is 1917, and the slaughter of the First World War goes on and on, with French soldiers not only dying in droves but also beginning to rise up in protest. Still haunted by the memory of the wife who left him long ago, Cripure turns his fury and scathing wit on everyone around him. Before he knows it, a trivial dispute with a complacently patriotic colleague has embroiled him in a duel.
£18.90
Quercus Publishing Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything
Book SynopsisIt is summer 1990, only months after the border dividing Germany has dissolved. Maria, nearly seventeen, moves in with her boyfriend on his family farm. A chance encounter with enigmatic loner Henner, a neighbouring farmer, quickly develops into a passionate relationship. But Maria soon finds that Henner can be as brutal as he is tender - his love reveals itself through both animal violence and unexpected sensitivity. Maria builds a fantasy of their future life together, but her expectations differ dramatically from those of Henner himself, until it seems their story can only end in tragedy. Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything is a bold and impressive debut in which love and violence, conflict and longing, are inextricably entwined.Trade Review'A candid tale of raw passion, whose essence and timelessness shines through the spare prose' Süddeutsche Zeitung. * Süddeutsche Zeitung *'A wonderful novel; a magnificent love story' Le Monde. * Le Monde *'Daniela Krien is not afraid. Not of language, either. Which shines in this novel ... A novel that portrays so much turmoil so thoughtfully that the spellbound reader abandons themselves to it' Gabriele von Arnim, Die Zeit. * Die Zeit *'One can almost physically feel the sensuality evoked by Daniela Krien's simple and emotionally precise language. A love story of extraordinary intensity, and a brilliant account of the demise of the D.D.R.' Brigitte. * Brigitte *'This deceptively elegant story reveals great emotional and cultural upheaval' Kirkus Reviews. * Kirkus Reviews *
£15.16
Steerforth Press Spark
Book SynopsisHilarious, strange and moving in equal measure - a Japanese multi-million-copy smash hit about the struggles of a pair of young manzai stand-up comediansTokunaga is a young comedian struggling to make a name for himself when he is taken under the wing of Kamiya, who is either a crazy genius or perhaps just crazy. Kamiya's indestructible confidence inspires Tokunaga, but it also makes him doubt the limits of his own talent, and dedication to Manzai comedy.Spark is a story about art and friendship, about countless bizarre drunken conversations and how far it's acceptable to go for a laugh. A novel about comedy that's as moving and thoughtful as it is funny, it's already been a sensation in Japan.
£12.09
Pushkin Press Of Sunshine and Bedbugs: Essential Stories
Book SynopsisIsaac Babel honed one of the most distinctive styles in all Russian literature. Brashly conversational one moment, dreamily lyrical the next, his stories exult in the richness of everyday speech and sensual pleasure only to be shaken by brutal jolts of violence. These stories take us from the underworld of Babel's native Odessa, city of gangsters and lowlives, of drunken brawls and bleeding sunsets, to the terror and absurdity of life as a soldier in the Polish-Soviet War. Selected and translated by the prize-winning Boris Dralyuk, this collection captures the irreverence, passion and coarse beauty of Babel's singular voice.Trade Review'Compact, irreverent, enigmatic, savage and tender... it is impossible to look at the world the same way after reading Babel... one of the enduring jewels of 20th-century Russian literature' - Financial Times'Fractured, jarring, beautiful, alive to humour... they have the ring of contemporaneity, and probably always will' - Guardian'Unforgettable stories, lyrical and earthy' - Irish Times'Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic' - James Wood'Elegiac, but not in the usual sense: Babel's is an ebullient elegy, filled with violence, sex, and life' - LA Review of BooksTable of ContentsTable of Contents Translator’s Preface Guy de Maupassant (Part I) Childhood and Youth The Story of My Dovecote First Love In the Basement The Awakening Di Grasso (Part II) Gangsters and “Old Odessans” The King How It Was Done in Odessa Lyubka the Cossack Father Justice in Quotes The End of the Almshouse (Part III) Red Cavalry Crossing the Zbrucz The Catholic Church in Novograd A Letter Pan Apolek The Italian Sun Gedali My First Goose The Rebbe The Tachanka Doctrine The Death of Dolgushov The Life Story of Pavlichenko, Matvei Rodionych Salt The Rebbe’s Son Argamak
£12.00
Hesperus Press Ltd The Flood
Book Synopsis
£13.46
Paths International Ltd Fish by Candlelight
Book SynopsisThis set of poems is a well-crafted display of current children's poetry combining beautiful words, fantastic pictures and lovely sounds. It emphasises the world's beauty and opens the imagination of children appreciating the world and the stars beyond.This book provides a wonderful insight into poems for children that will appeal to parents, teachers and children from around the world.
£17.05
Paths International Ltd Children Counting Stars
Book SynopsisThe poems selected for this collection are dreams of childhood, stories of childhood, and fantasies of childhood. The scenes in the poems are memories of childhood. It emphasises the world's beauty and opens the imagination of children appreciating the world and the stars beyond.This book provides a wonderful insight into poems for children that will appeal to parents, teachers and children from around the world.
£17.05
Paths International Ltd Children Counting Stars
Book SynopsisThe poems selected for this collection are dreams of childhood, stories of childhood, and fantasies of childhood. The scenes in the poems are memories of childhood. It emphasises the world's beauty and opens the imagination of children appreciating the world and the stars beyond.This book provides a wonderful insight into poems for children that will appeal to parents, teachers and children from around the world.
£14.20
Carcanet Press Ltd Satyrica
Book SynopsisPetronius lived during the reign of the notorious emperor Nero, a writer in a decadent empire, and in Frederic Raphael he finds a translator who brings his words vividly alive. Petronius' Rome is not the noble civilisation of classical ideals; his Romans are lascivious, amoral and stylish, inhabiting a louche world of ostentatious, nouveau riche extravagance and flirtation with the seductive menace of the Roman underclass. In Raphael's hands, the "Satyrica" becomes a modern novel, Petronius a contemporary. Freed of the weight of classical decorum, the "Satyrica" is racily subversive, scandalously entertaining. This work, writes Raphael, has always been excluded from the curriculum: it offers no improving pieties. Petronius' - and Raphael's - ancient Rome is recognisably the city of Pasolini and Fellini as much as of Virgil.
£19.16
Comma Press Swallow Summer
Book SynopsisTwo music producers pack up their studio – along with their dreams of ever making it in the industry – after too many bands fail to pay their bills… A woman takes up an invitation to visit an ex-lover in Arizona, only to find his apartment is no bigger than a motel room… A former drama student runs into an old classmate from ten years before, hardly recognising the timid creature he’s become… Each character in Larissa Boehning’s debut collection experiences a moment where they’re forced to confront how differently things turned out, how quickly ambitions were shelved, or how easily people change. Former colleagues meet up to reminisce about the failed agency they used to work for; brothers-in-law find themselves co-habiting long after the one person they had in common passed away; fellow performers watch as their careers slowly drift in opposite directions. Boehning’s stories offer a rich store of metaphors for this abandonment: the downed tools of a deserted East German factory, lying exactly where they were dropped the day Communism fell; the old, collected cameras of a late father that seem to stare, wide-eyed, at the world he left behind. And yet, underpinning this abandonment, there is also great resilience. Like the cat spotted by a demolition worker in the penultimate story that sits, unflinching, as its home is bulldozed around it, certain spirits abide.Trade Review'Just as her stories seem made up of random incidents yoked casually together by place or time, so, too, does their very telling appear contingent, uncertain. It’s as though she has created her own literature of non sequiturs, stops and starts - yet each detail... is rivetingly real and mysterious, mimesis and metaphor both... These quiet, idiosyncratic stories are highly articulate even in their silences.' - Dundee University Review of the Arts
£11.77
Haus Publishing Life is Good
Book SynopsisMax has been married to Tina for twenty-five years. She is the love of his life but now he must come to terms with the fact she is to spend weeks away on a work assignment; away, for the first time, from their home, their children and their life together. Her absence might only be temporary but leaves a huge gap. Left contemplating life and with the little bar of which he is the proprietor, Max turns to the regulars who hang out there. When the stuffed bull's head that has hung above the bar for years goes missing Max is forced to act. This latest novel by Alex Capus is a hymn to trust, friendship and love, and is told with his trademark humour.
£15.00
Parthian Books Goldfish memory
Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to have a connection with someone? Everyday you see tens and hundreds of faces and overhear countless conversations. Everyday you pass people by - on the street. In the office. In the car. In cafes and bars. Down the corridors of department stores and hotel rooms. But what makes one person a stranger, and another a friend, an accomplice, even a lover? A traveler shuts himself up in his hotel room, with no-one but room service to talk to; a teenager stalks her long-lost father; a journalist interviews a great poet with a dark past; a woman pursues a doomed liaison with an anonymous man she meets once a month at the casino; a bar lady locked in with the regulars at night...These are just some of the tales exploring the mysterious and random side of human relationships. From the winner of the prestigious Robert Walser First Novel Award and Switzerland's Schiller Foundation Writers Prize, Goldfish Memory is the first translation of Monique Schwitter's form-breaking work. With a contemporary style that's cool, quick and funny, this collection is a refreshing new voice, not to be missed.Trade Review"With intelligence and compassion, Schwitter portrays the sorry contradictions and sad inconsistencies of what it is to be human; the shoulds, coulds, woulds, what ifs and might have beens that litter our beautiful, flawed lives. Here is humanity stripped bare. It is in turn both discomfiting and strangely reassuring. The writing is stretched taut by the emotions and multiple layers it contains. The characters might be mad, sad, paranoid and delusional, but the clipped, incisive writing is stringently unsentimental. Eluned Gramich's wondrously imperceptible translation of Schwitter's German deserves more than a footnote or a brief aside... Not once did I feel the translation announce itself in an awkward sentence, an odd turn of phrase, a lazy word choice or even a misplaced comma. This, I think, is rare. Gramich has stepped into Schwitter's mind, just as Schwitter steps into the minds of her characters. It makes for a stylish dual debut." (New Welsh Review) "One of the most delightful [works] that our literature has brought forth in recent times." (Zurich Tages-Anzeiger) "In her prose style, Monique Schwitter succeeds in creating masterworks of the short form." (Klaus Zeyringer, Der Standard) "The fatalist power of these stories is enormous." (Michael Braun, Basler Zeitung) "This extraordinary book throws the reader against a wall." (Helmut Schodel, Suddeutsche Zeitung)
£16.10
Archipelago Books Ready To Burst
Book Synopsis
£14.24
Archipelago Books An Untouched House
Book SynopsisA brooding meditation on violence by a classic post-war Dutch writer who has drawn comparisons to Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. An Untouched House is a mesmerising, dark meditation on the legacy of war. An interloper and opportunist makes a grand house his own in the chaos of a war-torn countryside, only to find himself involved with occupying forces and enraged locals.Trade ReviewOne of Ian McEwan’s “most underrated books” "Two contrasting energies galvanize Hermans’s fictions. The wry invitation to find symbols and deeper meanings is balanced by a wealth of detail and meticulously described action, all rapidly delivered, convincingly concrete, and psychologically persuasive . . . Hermans knows life intimately and that his knowledge is devastating." —Tim Parks, New York Review of Books "What’s most interesting, and what connects this novel with [Hermans's] others set in wartime—A Guardian Angel Recalls and The Darkroom of Damocles—are questions of identity, authenticity, and duplicity. As these novels chart the ways in which warfare can deform and degrade us, they measure the gap between their characters’ true inner selves and the false identities they assume: the roles they play and the lies they tell. And all three books monitor the terrifying ease with which that gap can narrow." —Francine Prose, Harper's "Profoundly unsettling . . . haunt[s] the mind for long afterwards." —The Sunday Times, A Book of the Year "Those who do simply open and read will find themselves immersed in a nightmare miniature where philosophical musing gives seamless way to beautiful but unyielding cruelty . . . this newer translation by David Colmer seems to better capture the unsettling horror." —Ben Murphy, Full Stop "Although An Untouched House is brief, it is worth pacing oneself and absorbing its remarkable density. Hermans’ is the architect of a masterful story—concise but expansive in vision...a lucid, exhilarating account." —Peyton Harvey, Zyzzyva "Hermans’s novella is a bleak depiction of the absurdity of war, which knows no winners." —Felix Haas, World Literature Today "A shocking Dutch classic . . . remarkable . . . It takes an hour or two to read, but An Untouched House is the kind of book that stays with you forever." —The Guardian "From the opening pages, the translator David Colmer brilliantly evokes the laconic tone of a narrator who proves intelligent, resourceful and increasingly deranged . . . By any light, this eloquent marvel teases, bewilders and unnerves." —Times Literary Supplement "This novella is a fascinating portrait of a solipsistic mind, a scrupulous rendering of the erosion of human empathy that resonates in these uncivil times." —Christopher Byrd, Vulture ‘I was struck by the compressed farce and horror in the 1951 Dutch novella An Untouched House.’ —Sam Leith, choosing An Untouched House as a Spectator Book of the Year "Taut . . . dark, thrillerish." —New Statesman "As disturbing and powerful as anything by Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut." —Michel Faber "Hermans is as alarming as a snake in the bread bin . . . hugely entertaining." —The Scotsman
£12.34
Archipelago Books Message From The Shadows: Selected Stories
Book SynopsisMessage From the Shadows is a new collection featuring Antonio Tabucchi's finest short stories, spanning the breadth of his career. These playful tales explore Tabucchi's signature themes, from his inventive, lyrical meditations on language, art, and philosophy, to his fascination with the passage of time, and the mystery of storytelling.Trade Review"The 22 elegant short stories in this posthumous collection highlight the international perspective, melancholy tone, humor, and compassion of Italian author Tabucchi ... Tabucchi’s intelligence and humane perspective shine throughout this thoughtful, noteworthy volume." —Publishers Weekly, starred review"A career-spanning story collection from Tabucchi ... exploring the liminal spaces between dream and waking, fact and fiction. ... A fine tribute to a writer defined by his singular command of mood and mystery." — Kirkus Reviews"Tabucchi's prose creates a deep, heart-wrenching nostalgia and constantly evokes the pain of recognizing the speed of life's passing which everyone knows but few have the strength to accept... wonderfully thought-provoking and beautiful."-- Alan Cheuse, NPR's All Things Considered (for The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico)"Tabucchi's work has an almost palpable sympathy for the oppressed."--The New York Times "Tabucchi is a master of the form in imagination, beauty, scope, and scale even at the tiniest calibration." –Kerri Arsenault, Lit Hub"One could call him a great literary defender of the oppressed and marginalized (political prisoners or revolutionaries are among his stock figures), but he does not so much defend them, in the moralistic, paternalistic sense, as allow them a voice... Tabucchi delights in the metatheatricality of writing: more often than not the narrators in this collection are conscious of their role as storytellers, and are writing or speaking as if to a silent companion – a position that is filled by the reader. As a result, even the tamer stories feel on the verges of reality." — Samuel Graydon, Times Literary Supplement"A surprising tranquility pervades the stories, and it's to Tabucchi's great credit that they never feel muted...The melancholy tunes that fill the pages of Message from the Shadows are enigmas of longing, signals woven in the air that fade and disappear and leave only hunger in their wake...Tabucchi's generally incantatory prose here assumes a heightened air of ritual; the power of inexpressible sorrow becomes a dark vortex, vaguely barbaric in its strength." — The Threepenny Review"Tabucchi's stories — translated from Italian by Martha Cooley, Frances Frenaye, Elizabeth Harris, Tim Parks, Antonio Romani, and Janice M. Thresher, and published posthumously — drip with longing and, too, with a dreamlike quality that is tempting to characterize as magical realism. In these stories, the world as we know it and its author's "shadow world" are often indistinguishable — to the reader's great benefit. " — ThrillistPraise for Antonio Tabucchi:"The book has a mercurial, dream-like quality that is stunning in its subtlety. Never heavy-handed, this quiet novel is as beautiful and profound as a landscape painting."--Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore for For IsabelTo find one's way through For Isabel is certainly not easy, but it is rewarding, and its joyful confusion always rests firmly on the edge of genius, ready to be found.-- Samuel Graydon, The Times Literary Supplement"[For Isabel is] more than the story of a missing girl; it is history recalled as though in a dream, hovering briefly, through the combination of Tabucchi's elegiac prose and Harris's lucid translation, over life and death."-- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "An essential testament to Tabucchi's talent, a masterwork written with diligence and care... The novel is an epitome of Tabucchi's work, an account of exotic travels and blossoming, abstruse identities, a dreamlike and ironic limbo... Literary alchemy."-- Javier Aparicio Maydeu, El Pais for For Isabel"What a strange and wonderful book this is! If, like me, you are interested in shipwrecks, whales, the Azores and the unique way in which only literature can bring a location to life, and if you like the unclassifiable, small works by authors such as Michael Ondaatje and Italo Calvino -- then have I got the book for you ... Wildly inventive."-- Minneapolis Star-Tribune for The Women of Porto Pim
£14.24
University of Massachusetts Press Leaving Pico: A Novel
Book SynopsisIn the insular Portuguese fishing community of Provincetown, Josie Carvalho's life has been shaped by the annual influx of summer tourists and his great aunt's fervent, if idiosyncratic, Catholicism. The counterweight to these forces has always been Josie's relationship with his grandfather John Joseph, a drunk, clam-poaching old man who is nevertheless a sly and masterful storyteller.After a stranger starts dating Josie's mother and upsets the family's equilibrium, John Joseph heals the rift with the colorful and adventurous stories of their ancestor, Francisco Carvalho, a Portuguese explorer who just may have beaten Columbus to the New World. With the guidance of these obscure but inspired tales, Josie begins to find new ways of understanding his family and the outside world. This new edition of Leaving Pico makes Frank X. Gaspar's award-winning coming-of-age novel accessible to a new generation of readers.
£16.10
Logos Verlag Berlin Rezeption Der Deutschsprachigen Literatur in Der
Book Synopsis
£66.50
