Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisVividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality. Driven by a sense of total disconnection, the narrator embarks on a journey from northern Italy to Sicily, the home he has not seen in some fifteen years. Through the conversations of the islanders and a reunion with his mother, he gradually begins to feel reconnected. But to what kind of world? Written during Mussolini's time in power, Conversations in Sicily is one of the great novels of anti-fascism.Trade ReviewSuperbly written ... Vittorini's unique prose laps against one in repetitious wavelets, alive to the rhythm and significance of language in a way more common to poetry than to prose.Praised in the past by writers like Ernest Hemingway and Italo Calvino, this new translation by Alane Mason restores a paint-fresh vividness to a classic novel, too-little known in the English speaking world. -- Wayne BurrowsVittorini is one of the very best . . . I care very much about his ability to bring rain with him when he comes, if the earth is dry and that is what you need. -- Ernest HemingwayIt is very hard to give any adequate sense of [its] power, rendered in lucid, supple lines of almost Homeric simplicity whose cadences are faithfully captured in this excellent new translation * * Guardian * *An extraordinary book ... For anyone interested in memory and place, the loss of the past and the attempt to recover it in words, this book will be rewarding ... giving the reader an experience that is vividly new, yet strangely familiar -- Kirsty Gunn

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Book SynopsisArjun travels to a small town to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend's husband, uncovering corruption and danger. The story explores themes of love jihad and legal manipulation in modern India.

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Book SynopsisChina is ageing. Its shrinking households, overworked and overstretched, struggle to carry the burden of care for their elderly. Retired Beijing judge Uncle Xiao is one among millions of old-timers who face a hopeless choice: accept a lonely decline, or chase dubious ‘miracle cures’.Then into his life steps Miss Zhong, a young rural nurse with her own share of problems. The two have little in common, but as time delivers tragedies they learn that family can take many forms. Will this unlikely pair weather life’s storms together, and will Xiao find warmth in his sunset years?

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Book SynopsisChess world champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean liner to Buenos Aires. Dull-witted in all but chess, he entertains himself on board by allowing others to challenge him in the game, before beating each of them and taking their money. But there is another passenger with a passion for chess: Dr B, previously driven to insanity during Nazi imprisonment by the chess games in his imagination. But in agreeing to take on Czentovic, what price will Dr B ultimately pay? A moving portrait of one man's madness, The Royal Game: a chess story is a searing examination of the power of the mind and the evil it can do.Trade Review'Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game. Never mind that you may have never moved a pawn to King four; the story will grip you.' - Economist'The novella is one of Zweig's most horrifying investigations into monomania and at the same time a parable of the dangers inherent in engaging with Nazism.' - Ruth Franklin'A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig; the games our minds play.' - Candia McWilliam

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Book SynopsisOf all the brief lives I’ve inhabited, humans are definitely the most interesting. Poetry and painting, literature and drama, song and dance; there’s nothing they can’t do.As I fell into this young creature named Ding Yi, a life filled with hardship, love and betrayal unfolded before me.I’ll try to make this account as entertaining as possible, but please bear with me – it was several lifetimes ago.My Travels in Ding Yi is an epic novel told from the perspective of a nomadic spirit named Shi who inhabits a Chinese boy living in the second half of the 20th century. Shi describes coming of age during the Cultural Revolution in language that dips and soars from crude to lyrical, often in a single breath. Unpredictable and engrossing, this contemporary classic of Chinese fiction was first published in 2006 and is now available in English for the first time.

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Book SynopsisA fairy tale run amok, The Taiga Syndrome follows an unnamed Ex-Detective as she searches for a couple that has fled to the far reaches of the Earth. A betrayed husband is convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife wants him to track her down - that she wants to be found. He hires the Ex-Detective, who sets out with a translator into a snowy, hostile forest where strange things happen and translation serves to betray both sense and the senses. The stories of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood haunt the Ex-Detective's quest. As she enters a territory overrun with the primitive excesses of capitalism - accumulation and expulsion, corruption and cruelty -the lessons of her journey unfold: that sometimes leaving everything behind is the only thing left to do.Trade Review`One of Mexico's greatest living writers, and we are just barely beginning to catch up to what she has to offer... I'm excited.' Jonathan Lethem----`The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza is a dark, daring contemporary fable with echoes from the past. Small, short, covered in gray, it sparkles on the page and dazzles the mind.' Sjon----'A suspenseful fable [that] defies traditional narrative.' Anna Aslanyan, The Guardian ----'Through her powerful command of language, she eases the reader into her nightmarish Fairytale.' Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times ----`An explosive writer yet to be fully accounted for in English.' Lina Meruane----`Cristina Rivera Garza does not respect what is expected of a writer, of a novel, of language. She is an agitator.' Yuri Herrera----`The contemporary Latin American detective novel is a form that uses the individual's rollicking quest as a means of resistance against repressive structures and the violences they engender. Cristina Rivera Garza's The Taiga Syndrome, in this stellar translation by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana, gives English-language readers a lyrically luminous take on the genre while not skimping on its adventurous antics. If The Taiga Syndrome is a book of illness, it's also about exile, disappearance, borders, love, language and translation, desire, capitalism and its discontents, fairy tales, and what it means to be possessed by the madness of others and the madness of ourselves. The murmurs that haunt the detective in the novel evoke the history of Mexican fiction, most notably Juan Rulfo. But this is not a religious state of purgatory. It's more like Apocalypse Now fused with the worlds of Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. In other words, there is no one writing novels as phantasmagorically exquisite as Cristina Rivera Garza's. The Taiga Syndrome, which is both quietly poetic and narratively unhinged, is a crucial addition to her distinguished oeuvre.' Daniel Borzutzky----`Innovative Mexican author Rivera Garza's dazzling speculative noir novel is narrated by a woman hired to find a man's missing second wife... As she tracks the mysterious couple over snow-covered trails in the boreal forest, the universe becomes eerie and unpredictable. She encounters a feral boy, a ferocious wolf, earthy villagers and wild lumberjacks. Rivera Garza invokes Hansel and Gretel as she spins her marvellous, atmospheric tale.' Jane Ciabattari, BBC.com, `The 10 Best Books of 2018'----`This novel, in a translation by Levine and Kana, is taut, lyrical, and strange, and it fits right in with Dorothy, A Publishing Project's commitment to work that challenges what genres and forms can do. Like the best speculative fiction, it follows the sinuous paths of its own logic but gives the reader plenty of room to play. Fans of fairy tales and detective stories, Kathryn Davis and Idra Novey, will all find something to love. An eerie, slippery gem of a book.' Kirkus Reviews, starred review----`As lyrical as a poem ("Look at this: your knees. They are used for kneeling upon reality, also for crawling, terrified. You use them to sit on a lotus flower and say goodbye to the immensity") and as fantastic as a fairy tale, Rivera Garza's gorgeous, propulsive novel will haunt readers long after it's finished.' Publishers Weekly, starred review----`A Lynchian noir from one of Mexico's best novelists tracks a missing couple in a ravaged no-man's-land, weaving a mystery out of fairy tales, disaster capitalism, and shadowy afflictions.' Vulture ----`Readers of this book will encounter one of the most fiercely original literary voices from Latin America.' Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Los Angeles Review of Books----`Mystery, sci-fi, Socratic dialogue, retelling of `Hansel and Gretel': The Taiga Syndrome is a delightful shape-shifter of a novel.' Jonathan Woollen, Politics & Prose----`This insanely creepy & brilliant book by the incomparable Cristina Rivera Garza will keep you awake at night. Garza is a master of atmosphere. A detective novel directed by David Lynch & narrated by Bolano.' Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore---- `Wood, snow, blood: old stories. The witch in the forest, the breadcrumb trail, the grandmother-skinned wolf - everybody's here, in this wild little book, breath steaming humid in the cold air.' Sarah McCarry, Tor.com----`Rivera Garza belongs to the tradition of iconoclastic writers who question why our world has to be the way it is. This is the sort of powerful inquiry that often brings art to its most immersive, rewarding, and generative place. Read her books and explore your own taiga.' Veronica Scott Esposito, Literary Hub----`In plain, lyrical language, [Rivera] Garza drapes a poetic hush over the narrative, creating an unsettling fable-like world. It's a mystery that creeps, with careful, steady steps.' Laura Adamczyk, The A.V. Club ---- `So far so noir, except that this summary, along with every other summary I've seen in reviews and copy for The Taiga Syndrome, fails to give an accurate impression of the experience of reading the book. First, the story is nonlinear, not in a Memento kind of way but in a You-realize-time-is-an-illusion-don't-you? one. What there is in the way of plot - and there is plot here - is dominated by an obsession with language.' Ploughshares----`Diaphanously translated by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana, this deceivingly spare, noir fairy tale can be read (devoured) at a sitting, but the subconscious wounds it (in)exacts may fester in one's non-fiction ever after.' Minor Literature(s)----`Come for the satisfying sense of utter disorientation, stay for the gangly homunculus that bursts out of the woman's mouth in the middle of the night.' Literary Hub, `Four Haunting Books for the Halloween Season'----`[Rivera] Garza doesn't stop with fairy tales, however; she inverts traditional tropes from any number of genres to great effect. The subject of the mystery is not the crime or even the victim, but the detective. The unreliable narrator reports on her own unreliability.' Shelf Awareness

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Book SynopsisBanipal 71 Salutes Ihsan Abdel Kouddous commemorates two great Arab authors and introduces new literature in translation, plus reviews and photo report. We say “Farewell” to the inimitable Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef, “the last communist”, who passed away on 13 June. In a special feature we salute the prolific Egyptian writer Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (1919–1990), whose stories and novels were adapted into dozens of films, but hardly translated into English. With articles and translations from three of his works, Hassouna Mosbahi writes: “It would be no exaggeration to equate Abdel Kouddous’ daring and braveness with that of great writers from the West who challenged all forms of censorship imposed on subjects related to love and sexuality”. Translations and reviews of two new novels: Cinderellas of Muscat by Huda Hamed (Oman), and Things I left Behind by Shada Mustafa (Palestine) Poems from Gaza poet Mosab Abu Toha, founder of the Edward Said Public Library in Gaza A travelling tale, The Calligrapher of Kufa, from Mohammed al-Sharekh

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Book SynopsisInside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbor – an attractive married woman and mother – while Polo dreams about quitting his gruelling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme. Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society – fractured by issues of race, class and violence – and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.Trade Review‘Fernanda Melchor explores violence and inequity in this brutal novel. She does it with dazzling technical prowess, a perfect pitch for orality, and a neurosurgeon’s precision for cruelty. Paradais is a short inexorable descent into Hell.’ — Mariana Enríquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire‘Melchor evokes the stories of Flannery O’Connor, or, more recently, Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. Impressive.’ — Julian Lucas, New York Times‘With a nimble command of the novel’s technical resources and an uncanny grasp of the irrational forces at work in society, [Paradais and Hurricane Season] navigate a reality riven by violence, race, class, and sex. And they establish Melchor, who was born in 1982, as the latest of Faulkner’s Latin American inheritors, and among the most formidable.’ — Juan Gabriel Vásquez, New Yorker‘Fernanda Melchor has a powerful voice, and by powerful I mean unsparing, devastating, the voice of someone who writes with rage, and has the skill to pull it off.’ — Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream‘A masterpiece of concision ... Paradais is a labyrinthine monologue on the banal violence of a modern-day teenager.’ — Virginie Despentes, author of Vernon Subutex ‘Melchor uses shock to lay bare issues of classism, misogyny, and the ravages of child abuse. Her prose, ably translated by Hughes, is dizzying but effective; it’s as if she’s holding the reader’s head and daring them to look away from the social problems she brings to light. This might be a deeply disconcerting novel, but it’s also a brave one. A fever dream that's as hard to read as it is brilliant.’ — Kirkus

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Book SynopsisA powerful, unsettling portrait of ordinary family life in Cuba, Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s debut novel The Fallen is a masterful portrayal of a society in free fall. Diego, the son, is disillusioned and bitter about the limited freedoms his country offers him. Mariana, the mother, is unwell and forced to relinquish her control over the home to her daughter, Maria, who has left school and is working as a chambermaid in one of the state-owned tourist hotels. The father, Armando, is a committed revolutionary who is sickened by the corruption he perceives all around him. In meticulously charting the disintegration of a family, The Fallen offers a poignant reflection on contemporary Cuba and the clash of the ardent idealism of the old guard with the jaded pragmatism of the young.Trade Review‘A beautiful and painful novel that demonstrates the power of fiction to pursue the unutterable.’ — Alejandro Zambra, author of Multiple Choice‘The Fallen is the story of a family; not a romanticized saga, but a tale of unconditional love and friendship. Through careful and subtle prose, the strain and suffering in every voice emerges loud and clear. Carlos Manuel Álvarez has painted a powerful, burning image of illness, isolation and harrowing rancour.’ — Laila Obeidat, the London Magazine‘Álvarez does a neat job in this very short but nutritious novel of establishing the personalities of his characters firmly enough that it comes as a real shock when he upends our expectations of how they might behave.’ — Jake Kerridge, the Telegraph‘A war foretold that never takes place. A death foretold that never takes place. And in the middle of this is the inevitable collapse of a family and a country. The Fallen is a subtle, intelligent and profoundly moving novel which sketches, in elegant and thoughtful prose, a rarely seen Cuban landscape.’ — Alia Trabucco Zerán, author of The Remainder‘In chapters which alternate between the perspectives of the four family members, Álvarez slowly and cleverly builds up a picture of a family unit on the brink of collapse.’ — Roger Cox, The Scotsman‘The best in Latin American literature is here: with the precocious skill of someone who is a paragon of narrative resources and sensitivity, Carlos Manuel Álvarez vividly portrays the only identity that really matters: not national, but human. The Fallen is a museum of solitude and of the cracks separating our inner world from the one we live in and from those with whom we coexist.’ — Emiliano Monge, author of Among the Lost

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Book SynopsisTHE LAST BOOK FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SHADOW OF THE WIND'Zafón is a master of the atmospheric' Financial TimesTrade ReviewAs well as allusions to the Forgotten Books novels themselves, there's everywhere evidence of the storytelling skill and intoxicating tropes - Faustian pacts, fateful meetings, labyrinthine architecture and nested stories - that made Zafon such a phenomenon. -- Stephanie Cross * DAILY MAIL *The Dickens of Barcelona... A flamboyant farewell from a grand contemporary writer. * Sydney Morning Herald *Ruiz Zafón's many fans are sure to find his collection of short stories both familiarly satisfying and poignant . . . Readers will once again luxuriate in his florid descriptions of his hometown of Barcelona that bring to life that magical and mysterious city . . . [they] will encounter new characters but also find familiar names, offering fresh perspectives on fictional lives we already know so well * Washington Post *A posthumous parting gift from Ruiz Zafón to his millions of fans . . . with much-loved places and characters making fleeting reappearances, it's a fitting coda to his life and world * Observer *Mysterious, imbued with a sense of menace, and told with the warmth, wit, and humor of Zafón's inimitable voice . . . the stories contained within this posthumous collection summon up the mesmerizing magic of their brilliant creator and invite us to come dream along with him * Book Riot *PRAISE FOR CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON AND THE CEMETERY OF FORGOTTEN BOOKS'The real deal: one gorgeous read' Stephen King'Will change your life. An instant classic' Daily Telegraph'A book lover's dream' The Times'Marvellous' Sunday Times'A hymn of praise to all the joys of reading' Independent'Gripping and instantly atmospheric' Mail on Sunday'Irresistibly readable' Guardian'Diabolically good' Elle

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Book SynopsisThe most famous anti-war novel ever written.In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ''glorious war''. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young ''unknown soldier'' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.''Remarque''s evocation of the horrors of modern warfare has lost none of its force'' The TimesTRANSLATED BY BRIAN MURDOCHThis series of war novels from Vintage Classics presents eight powerful stories about the horror and waste of war - each a passionate plea to prevent its repetition.

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Book SynopsisA dazzling novella from a rising star of Indonesian literature that explores what it means to be a woman — whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever it is in history and time. In today’s Jakarta, an unnamed man tells the story of his lifelong friend Nastiti, and what happened on the day she vanished. In the Dutch East Indies’ Semarang, a young Indo-Dutch girl, Rukmini, is captured by the Japanese military and is forced into prostitution. Years later, Arini travels to the Netherlands to share her mother’s dark past with a researcher. After the American occupation of Japan in WWII ends, a former war photographer revisits his memories of Hanako, the wife of a traumatised ex-Imperial soldier, but can’t escape his own darkness. And in present-day Osaka, a young Indonesian woman, Dara, haunted by her past and struggling to conceive, becomes obsessed with a Japanese porn star. Through these interconnected narratives, in stunning prose, Dias Novita Wuri explores generational legacies, lost loves, the damage that war does to men, and the damage that men do to women.Trade Review‘The ground beneath the reader is constantly shifting … Birth Canal jumps in time and moves between places of security and insecurity, hiding and transit, literal and metaphorical light and dark … In the end, this extraordinarily accomplished and profound novel, translated from Indonesian by the author, is about how difficult love can be, and how precious.’ -- Linda Jaivin * The Saturday Paper *‘Indonesian author Dias Novita Wuri is a rising literary star. Her novella Birth Canal writhes with talent compressed into a forceful and beguiling suite of interconnected stories … Wuri’s gift for metaphor is matched by a supple and sidewinding narrative construction that follows women across time and place.’ * The Sydney Morning Herald *‘Birth Canal was written with a dripping golden pen. Captivating and devastating, the stories of these women are told with truth and love.’ -- Laura McPhee-Browne, author of Cherry Beach and Little Plum‘[Dias Novita Wuri] confronts the reader with the realisation that often it’s too easy for us to simply look away. [Birth Canal] consists of expertly and beautifully crafted interconnected stories, its narrative jumping back and forward in time as echoes in a chamber where no trauma ever goes away entirely, but rather returns in another configuration … the spare dialogue allows stillness and solidarity to seep in through the violence.’ -- Angelique Kasmara * Listener *‘Impressive.’ * Tony's Reading List *‘[N]othing short of genius … For such a short work, it contains multitudes. Expertly translated by the author Birth Canal reveals the triumphs and tribulations of several generations of Indonesian women, each dealing with their own personal struggles with their lovers, humanity, and the course of world events.’ * Driftless Area Review *‘Crossing multiple timelines and cities in Indonesia and Japan to establish the links among its six female protagonists, this compact yet far-reaching novel endeavours to make visible both the female body and the structure of storytelling by using the idea of the birth canal as a site of conflicts and thwarted possibilities. Failed conception — stillbirth, miscarriage, filicide, abortion and suicide — thus represents both an acknowledgment of female trauma and a form of political protest. In exploring women’s sexuality, mental health, reproductive choice, and domestic violence, this gifted Indonesian author deftly explores topics that impact women in a Muslim-majority country.’ -- Thúy Ðinh, book critic and editor-at-large of Asymptote

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Book SynopsisPublished for the first time in English, the sweeping debut novel set in bohemian Paris, by the author of international bestseller The Eighth Life. In 1953, a teenage girl, Jeanne Saré, jumps in front of a train at the Gare du Nord station. She leaves behind writings that to some are unreadable, but to others tell universal, unspoken truths about the lives and struggles of women. When published in the 1970s, her work triggers a rash of copycat suicides. It is hastily withdrawn from sale and eventually forgotten about. Then, in 2004, two women from opposite corners of the globe — Amsterdam and Sydney — rediscover Jeanne Saré’s book and set out to discover who the author was and what happened to her. Women across the ages have attached their own stories to Saré’s, often with devastating results, but the truth about her may be even stranger than the fictions they have invented.Trade Review‘Haratischvili's lyrical prose and mastery of tone shine … Her mosaic of broken souls and elusive mystery offer many rewards for patient readers, culminating in a provocative statement on art's capacity to both shatter and redeem.’ -- Chris Reed * NZ Booklovers *‘You can see in this novel the fledgling novelist testing the reader and I can see her magnificent book Eighth Life emerging from the embers of Juja.’ -- Rosalind Ephram * Burway Books *Praise for The Eighth Life: ‘Something rather extraordinary happened. The world fell away and I fell, wholly, happily, into the book ... My breath caught in my throat, tears nestled in my lashes ... devastatingly brilliant.’ -- Wendell Steavenson * The New York Times Book Review *Praise for The Eighth Life: ‘The Eighth Life … is a lavish banquet of family stories that can, for all their sorrows, be devoured with gluttonous delight. Nino Haratischvili’s characters … come to exuberant life. Her huge novel … shows a double face, its crushing pain and loss nonetheless conveyed with an artful storyteller’s sheer joy in her craft.’ -- Boyd Tonkin * The Financial Times *Praise for The Eighth Life: ‘A harrowing, heartening, and utterly engrossing epic novel … astonishing … A subtle and compelling translation by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin should make this as great a literary phenomenon in English as it has been in German.’ -- Maya Jaggi * The Guardian *Praise for My Soul Twin: ‘A passionate novel.’ -- Matthew Janney * The Guardian *Praise for My Soul Twin: ‘The novel’s sexual voltage buoys you through its twists and turns.’ -- Anthony Cummins * The Observer *

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Book SynopsisThe future is no more, and eternity has begun. It's 1986 and a nuclear reactor has exploded in Chernobyl. Syvert Løyning returns home from military service to live with his mother and brother on the outskirts of a town in Southern Norway. One night, he dreams of his late father, and can't shake him from his mind. Searching through his father's belongings for clues and connections, he finds a cache of letters that lead to the Soviet Union. In present-day Russia, Alevtina is trying to balance work and family. She has always sought the answers to life's big questions, but is preoccupied with care of her young son. Her friend Vasilisa offers some nourishment: she is writing a book about an ancient feature of Russian culture, the belief in eternal life. Meantime, Alevtina is heading towards a meeting that will redraw the contours of her world. A searching and humane novel, The Wolves of Eternity is an intimate journey into the experiences of a half-brother and half-sister in their two

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Book SynopsisAn ingenious and highly atmospheric classic whodunit from Japan's master of crime. Amid the rubble of post-war Tokyo, inside the grand Tsubaki house, a once-noble family is in mourning. The old viscount Tsubaki, a brooding, troubled composer, has been found dead. When the family gather for a divination to conjure the spirit of their departed patriarch, death visits the house once more, and the brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi is called in to investigate. But before he can get to the truth Kindaichi must uncover the Tsubakis' most disturbing secrets, while the gruesome murders continue... PRAISE FOR SEISHI YOKOMIZO 'The diabolically twisted plotted is top-notch' New York Times Readers will delight in the blind turns, red herrings and dubious alibis... Ingenious and compelling' Economist 'Plenty of golden age ingredients... with a truly ingenious solution' Guardian, Best New Crime NovelsTrade Review“Yokomizo at his absolute best... From the ominous opening through the brilliant final reveal, [he] ably blends suspense and fair-play detection... A classic of the genre.” --Publishers Weekly, starred review“Another fiendishly complex mystery from the master of locked room murders... Atmospheric, chilling, and structurally complex.” --CrimeReads

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

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Book SynopsisA sweeping tale of life and death, set in the Syrian capital at the turn of the twentieth century from the International prize winning author of Death is Hard Work and In Praise of Hatred.A soulful and perfectly unsentimental writer. Hisham MatarDecember, 1907: one morning after a night of drunken carousing in the city, Hanna and his friend Zakariya return home to their village near Aleppoonly to discover a scene of tragedy. A devastating flood has levelled their homes, shops and places of worship, and their neighbours, families and children are nearly all dead. Their lives will never be the same.Tracing Hanna's life before and after the floodwhen he embarks on a search for the meaning of lifeNo One Prayed Over Their Graves is a portrait of a wider society on the verge of great change; from the provincial village to the burgeoning modernity of the city, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews live and work

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Book Synopsis''Compulsively readable'' New York Times''Utterly original'' Alberto ManguelIn the small and the insignificant - that''s where life hides, that''s where it builds its nest.Our unnamed narrator is not well. He suffers from attacks of ''pathological empathy'', which cause him to wander unbidden into other people''s memories. He moves from recollection to recollection - from a Bulgarian country fair in 1925, where he meets a Minotaur, to inside the mind of a slug, as it is swallowed by his own Grandfather.Part family history, part coming-of-age story, part meditation on life in Communist Europe, The Physics of Sorrow is a dazzlingly inventive, mind-expanding novel from one of Europe''s most important writers.TRANSLATED FROM THE BULGARIAN BY ANGELA RODEL

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Book SynopsisIcelandic detective Elma faces mortal danger as she investigates the death of a young man in a mysterious Akranes house fire, and a Dutch au pair’s perfect placement turns deadly … The breathtaking third instalment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series. ***WINNER of the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger*** ‘Her best, boldest work to date: a mystery both merciless and compassionate, subtly eerie yet flat-out frightening, featuring a detective as complicated as Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole. This is virtuoso suspense writing’ A J Finn ‘Chilling and addictive, with a completely unexpected twist … I loved it’ Shari Lapena ‘Another beautifully written novel from one of the rising stars of Nordic Noir’ Victoria Selman _________________________ The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two. A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to. As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide… ____________________________ ‘A creepily compelling Icelandic mystery that had me hooked from page one. Night Shadows will make you want to sleep with the lights on’ Heidi Amsinck ‘I loved everything about this book: the characters, the setting, the storyline, an intricately woven cast … this book had me utterly gripped!’ J M Hewitt ‘With the third release in the Forbidden Iceland series, Eva Björg establishes herself as not just one of the brightest names in Icelandic crime fiction, but in crime fiction full stop. Night Shadows is an absolute must-read!’ Nordic Watchlist ‘The author writes so beautifully you are immediately immersed in the chilly surrounds … a genuinely excellent novel’ Liz Loves Books ‘One of the most compelling contemporary writers of crime fiction and psychological suspense’ Duncan Beattie,Fiction from Afar Praise for the Forbidden Iceland series: ‘Fans of Nordic Noir will love this’ Ann Cleeves ‘Elma is a fantastic heroine’ Sunday Times ‘Complex, gripping and moving’ The Times ‘An exciting and harrowing tale’ Ragnar Jónasson ‘Eerie and chilling. I loved every word!’ Lesley Kara ‘Not only a full-fat mystery, but also a chilling demonstration of how monsters are made’ The Times ‘Beautifully written, spine-tingling and disturbing … a thrilling new voice in Icelandic crime fiction’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir ‘As chilling and atmospheric as an Icelandic winter’ Lisa Gray ‘An unsettling and exciting read with a couple of neat red herrings to throw the reader off the scent’ NB Magazine ‘Chilling and troubling … reminiscent of Jorn Lier Horst‘s Norwegian procedurals. This is a book that makes an impact’ Crime Fiction Lover ‘Elma is a memorably complex character’ Financial Times ‘The twist comes out of the blue … enthralling’ Tap The Line Magazine For fans of Ragnar Jonasson, Camilla Lackberg, Ruth Rendell, Gillian McAllister and Shari Lapen

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Book SynopsisA cult classic of Italian literature, published in English for the first time, with an afterword by André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name.'A masterpiece' - Le Figaro'Dazzling in every detail' - ElleIn the late 1960s, Leo Gazzara leads a precarious life in Rome. He spends his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between hotels, bars, uninspiring jobs, romantic entanglements and the homes of his rich friends. Leo drifts, aimless and alone.But on the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna. All night they drive the city in Leo’s run-down Alfa Romeo, talking and talking. They eat brioche for breakfast, drink through the dawn, drive to the sea and back. A whirlwind beginning. What follows is the story of the year Leo fell in love and lost everything.Intense, romantic, witty and devastating, Last Summer in the City is a forgotten classic of Italian literature which offers an intoxicating portrait of two lonely people, pushing and pulling each other away and back again.'The most beautiful love story of the year' - Il GiornaleTrade ReviewThe true quality of this novel is the way it enlightens, with a desperate clearness, a relationship between a man and a city, that is, between crowd and loneliness -- Natalia GinzburgThe most beautiful love story of the year * Il Giornale *A masterpiece * Le Figaro *Dazzling in every detail * Elle *[A] sublime text, of extraordinary languid beauty and sadness * Sud Ouest *Calligarich’s time capsule of love and existential drift in a lost Rome, translated into sparkling prose by Curtis, is ripe for a rediscovery * New York Times Book Review *A sad, seductive declaration of love for Rome * Il Messaggero *A short, gorgeous, moving and magnificent story of love and solitude -- Il Sole 24 OreThis book, at once painful and ironic, remains a small gem * La Repubblica *A heartrending marvel * L’Echo *Charming, decadent, and emotionally ruthless . . . equal parts Fitzgerald and Antonioni . . . It's wonderful to have this devastating gem at large in the world again -- Andrew Martin, author of Cool for AmericaDeeply haunting . . . A marvel of a novel * Booklist *Calligarich’s rendering turns la dolce vita into something more akin to Camus’s L’Etranger in a contemporary-ish urban setting. Out of print for years, this welcome new translation is elegiac and heart-rending * Vogue, Best Books to Read This Summer 2021 *The account of a lost generation in Rome in the early 1970s (possibly the children of the children of Hemingway’s lost generation) carries the weight of both family history and generational saga * Kirkus *Evocative . . . Calligarich conjures Italy’s piazzas, parties, beaches, and bars with a mood reminiscent of A Movable Feast . . . the feeling that Leo is alone in the world is poignantly conveyed * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisTHE SMASH-HIT HITLER SATIRE - MORE THAN 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD"A brilliant book" RUSSELL KANE "Brilliant and hilarious" KEN FOLLETT A box-office-hit film now available on NETFLIXA two-part BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation directed by and starring David Threlfall (Shameless)Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition - to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights. Look Who's Back stunned and then thrilled 1.5 million German readers with its fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects. Naive yet insightful, repellent yet strangely sympathetic, the revived Hitler unquestionably has a spring in his step.Translated from German by Jamie BullochTrade ReviewBe warned. This book is funny. Very funny -- Rebecca K Morrison * Independent *Worryingly believable (time travelling despots aside) and unsettling. But also very funny -- Nathan FilerA brilliant book -- Russell KaneBrilliant and hilarious -- Ken FollettIncredible . . . Very funny -- Alastair CampbellLaugh-out-loud funny . . . An uproarious, disturbing book that will resonate long after you turn the final page * Daily Express *Both funny and frightening . . . A powerful and important book * Independent on Sunday *Peculiar, provocative and very funny . . . It makes you laugh and forces you to think * Irish Independent *Wonderfully inventive, very funny and superbly written * We Love This Book *The Hitler of Look Who's Back has aged not a whit: his fascist views are intact, and he is as foul-tempered and misanthropic as ever * Sunday Times *There's no question that the novel has hit upon the key paradox of our modern obsession with Hitler * Observer *The jokes are very funny . . . rollicking, enjoyable * Financial Times *A satire on the cult of personality . . . nicely played * Monocle *This uproariously funny satire will have you in stitches * Shortlist *'An uproarious, disturbing book that will resonate long after you turn the final page' Caroline Jowett, Daily Express. * Daily Express *'Be warned. This book is funny. Very funny' Rebecca Morrison, Independent. * Rebecca Morrison, Independent *'Both funny and frightening, this is a subtle, historical study of the commanding nature of the fanatical demagogue, as well as a savage critique of contemporary western culture. It is a powerful and important book' Sue Gaisford, Independent. * Independent *

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Book SynopsisWhat makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? Asle, an ageing painter and widower who lives alone on the southwest coast of Norway, is reminiscing about his life. His only friends are his neighbour, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers – two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life, both grappling with existential questions about death, love, light and shadow, faith and hopelessness. Jon Fosse’s Septology is a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience – incantatory, hypnotic, and utterly unique.Trade Review‘Jon Fosse is a major European writer.’ — Karl Ove Knausgaard‘Fosse has written a strange mystical moebius strip of a novel, in which an artist struggles with faith and loneliness, and watches himself, or versions of himself, fall away into the lower depths. The social world seems distant and foggy in this profound, existential narrative.’ — Hari Kunzru, author of White Tears‘I hesitate to compare the experience of reading these works to the act of meditation. But that is the closest I can come to describing how something in the critical self is shed in the process of reading Fosse, only to be replaced by something more primal. A mood. An atmosphere. The sound of words moving on a page.’ — Ruth Margalit, New York Review of Books‘Septology feels momentous.’ — Catherine Taylor, Guardian‘Having read the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse’s Septology, an extraordinary seven-novel sequence about an old man’s recursive reckoning with the braided realities of God, art, identity, family life and human life itself, I’ve come into awe and reverence myself for idiosyncratic forms of immense metaphysical fortitude.’ — Randy Boyagoda, New York Times‘Time soon loses its meaning, or at least some of its hold over us. Picking up Septology after a while is like slipping back into a gently flowing river, your body buoyed by the current of ‘and’s, ‘yes’s and ‘I think’s. Memories, everyday observations, prayer, spectres of lives not lived – these all bleed into one seamless whole…The effect is subtle and cumulative. Any attempt to isolate and analyse it collapses its magic, like a kind of literary quantum phenomenon.’ — Frazer McDiarmid, Oxford Review of Books‘The narrative keeps circling, inching slowly, as interior monologues sometimes do, and the way a painting might gradually appear from a cumulation of small brushstrokes.The effect is meditative, devotional, like the rhythm of the Christian liturgy…The reader may sometimes feel weary with the amount of words here too. But there is generosity. And persistence, like in the rituals of worship and devotion, is rewarded.’ — Nick Mattiske, Insights

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Book Synopsis'And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns'While hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a solitary shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzéard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness.Ten years later, after surviving the First World War, he visits the shepherd again. A young forest is slowly spreading over the valley - Elzéard has continued his work. Year after year the narrator returns to see the miracle being created: a verdant, green landscape that is testament to one man's creative instinct. miracle he is gradually creating: a verdant, green landscape that is a testament to one man's creative instinct.'I love the humanity of this story and how one man's efforts can change the future for so many' Michael Morpurgo, IndependentVINTAGE EARTH is a series of books that reveals our ever-changing relationship with the environment. These are stories old and young, set in worlds real or imagined, that allow us to explore our connection to the natural world. Transformative, wild, surprising and essential, these novels take on the most urgent story of our times.Trade Review • "One of the greatest writers of our generation." --Andre Mairaux • "Giono: he's a god. I rank him with Chateaubriand and Proust." --Jean d'Ormesson • "In Giono's work what every sensitive, full-blooded individual ought to be able to recognise at once is 'the song of the world." --Henry Miller

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Book SynopsisTurgenev’s final novel, Virgin Soil traces the destinies of several middle-class revolutionaries who seek to “go to the people” by working on the land and instilling democratic ideas in the countryside’s locals. They include the daydreaming impoverished young tutor Nezhdanov – employed by the liberal councillor Sipyagin and his vain and beautiful wife Valentina – the naive young radical Maryanna and the progressive factory manager Solomin. Their liaisons, intrigues and conspiracies, set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia, form the matter of Turgenev’s most ambitious and elaborate work, which cemented the author’s place in the West as Russia’s foremost novelist while at the same time proving controversial at home – culminating in the arrest of fifty-two real-life revolutionaries barely a month after it was published.Trade ReviewTurgenev to me is the greatest writer there ever was. -- Ernest Hemingway

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Book SynopsisIn the Twilight, the third collection of short stories compiled by Anton Chekhov himself, was his first major success and won him the prestigious Pushkin Prize when it was published in 1888. This volume represents a clear milestone in the writer’s passage from the youthful Antosha Chekhonte, author of slight comic sketches, to the mature master of the short-story genre. This edition presents the sixteen tales of the original collection – ranging from well-known and acknowledged gems such as ‘Agafya’ and ‘On the Road’ to others which will be fresh even to many seasoned readers of Chekhov – in a brand-new translation by Hugh Aplin, providing an invaluable glimpse into a pivotal moment in the writer’s literary career.Trade ReviewWhat writers influenced me as a young man? Chekhov! As a dramatist? Chekhov! As a story writer? Chekhov! -- Tennessee WilliamsTable of ContentsContains: In the Twilight, Dreams, A Trivial Occurrence, A Bad Business, At Home, The Witch, Verochka, In Court, A Restless Guest, The Requiem, On the Road, Misfortune, An Event, Agafya, Enemies, A Nightmare, On Easter Eve

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Book Synopsis*BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE*'Laxness at his best: a reminder of the mad hilarity of the Icelandic sensibility. An endearing and unforgettable voice' Nicholas ShakespeareAbandoned as a baby, Alfgrimur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavik with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. There he shares the mid-loft with a motley bunch of eccentrics and philosophers who find refuge in the simple respect for their fellow men that is the ethos at the Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of Alfgrimur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Garoar Holm. Garoar encourages him to aim for the 'one true note', but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves?'It is a novel (a world) that transmits something of the wonder of life' Murray BailTrade ReviewLaxness is a poet who writes to the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot: he takes a Tolstoyan overview, he weaves in an Evelyn Waugh-like humour: it is not possible to be unimpressed * Daily Telegraph *This weird and wonderful novel, about the price you pay for 'the one true note', is Laxness at his best: a reminder of the mad hilarity of the Icelandic sensibility. An endearing and unforgettable voice * Nicholas Shakespeare *It is a novel (a world) that transmits something of the wonder of life, its strangeness, its goodness, ocassions for stubbornness, and the stoicism of people - people everywhere * Murray Bail *Laxness's view of a child's bounded universe has humour and a light touch * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe Witch is dead. After a group of children playing near the irrigation canals discover her decomposing corpse, the village of La Matosa is rife with rumours about how and why this murder occurred. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, Fernanda Melchor paints a moving portrait of lives governed by poverty and violence, machismo and misogyny, superstition and prejudice. Written with an infernal lyricism that is as affecting as it is enthralling, Hurricane Season, Melchor's first novel to appear in English, is a formidable portrait of Mexico and its demons, brilliantly translated by Sophie Hughes.Trade Review'Brutal, relentless, beautiful, fugal, Hurricane Season explores the violent mythologies of one Mexican village and reveals how they touch the global circuitry of capitalist greed. This is an inquiry into the sexual terrorism and terror of broken men. This is a work of both mystery and critique. Most recent fiction seems anaemic by comparison.' — Ben Lerner, author of The Topeka School‘Fernanda Melchor has a powerful voice, and by powerful I mean unsparing, devastating, the voice of someone who writes with rage, and has the skill to pull it off.’ — Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream‘This is the Mexico of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, where the extremes of evil create a pummeling, hyper-realistic effect. But the “elemental cry” of Ms. Melchor’s writing voice, a composite of anger and anguish, is entirely her own.’ — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal‘A brutal portrait of small-town claustrophobia, in which machismo is a prison and corruption isn’t just institutional but domestic, with families broken by incest and violence. Melchor’s long, snaking sentences make the book almost literally unputdownable, shifting our grasp of key events by continually creeping up on them from new angles. A formidable debut.’ — Anthony Cummins, Observer‘Hurricane Season is a Gulf Coast noir from four characters’ perspectives, each circling a murder more closely than the last. Melchor has an exceptional gift for ventriloquism, as does her translator, Sophie Hughes, who skillfully meets the challenge posed by a novel so rich in idiosyncratic voices. Melchor evokes the stories of Flannery O’Connor, or, more recently, Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. Impressive.’ — Julian Lucas, The New York Times‘Stomach-churning, molar-grinding, nightmare-inducing, and extraordinarily clear-eyed account of the ordinary horrors men inflict upon women. Melchor refuses to look away, refuses to indulge in fantasy or levity—even in the moments when the novel is laugh-out-loud funny. And lest the far-off reader think the horror is contained to the lives of others, Melchor repeatedly threads the reminders of the long reach of these crimes—and their causes—throughout the narrative.’ — Lucas Iberico Lozada, The Nation‘I found it impossible to look away. Hurricane Season unfurls with the pressure and propulsion of an unforeseen natural disaster, the full force of Melchor’s arresting voice captured in Sophie Hughes’ masterful translation.’ — Lucy Scholes, Financial Times‘A sprawling, heaving thing, and I loved it because I have no idea how Fernanda Melchor was able to write it. The prose has the quality of a storm.’ — Avni Doshi, Guardian Best Books of 2020‘Hurricane Season is, first and foremost, a horror story—its horror coming from rather than contrasting with the lyricism of Melchor’s prose [...] Melchor’s kaleidoscope keeps circling around the untold source of the horrors, and we are increasingly keen to unveil it. This is an effect of the structure of the novel as much as of its writing. Sophie Hughes’s translation renders the expansive, punishing spirit of Mexican slang so impressively that one wonders whether the harsher sounds of English in fact suit the novel better.’ — Emmanuel Ordóñez Angulo, New York Review of Books

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Book Synopsis‘Meet girls. Take drugs. Listen to music.’ In Rave, cult German novelist Rainald Goetz takes a headlong dive into nineties techno culture. From the cathartic release on the dance floor to the intense conversations in corners of nightclubs and the after-parties in the light of dawn, this exhilarating, fragmentary novel captures the feeling of debauchery from within. Dazzling and intimate, Rave is an unapologetic embrace of nightlife from an author unafraid to lose himself in the subject of his work.Trade Review‘Goetz’s writing is a kind of dancing. Each sentence, fragment, captures the essence of what it’s like to live inside the spaces of techno music. Thoughts come and go, and return louder, later in the text, with an urgent rhythm that makes the cumulative case for the transformative power of the dance floor. This is writing of and from the body, hot, sweaty, dazed, decadent, and ultimately life-affirming.’ — Julia Bell, author of The Dark Light ‘Rave matches [Bernhard] with its pitch-black humour and philosophical intensity. Questions of interiority, the external world, language and meaning are opened up within its circuit of pills and beats and clubs, like a genuinely meaningful drug trip.’ — Financial Times‘In Rave, Goetz makes an electrifying portrait of what happens when you dedicate your life to the night, to the bass and the rhythm, when you party nonstop and rave like there is no tomorrow. [...] What makes Rave so effective is that Goetz chronicles the tenor of rave culture’s endless cycle. The reader becomes part of the weekends of excessive indulgence, the “cracked” out week after, and the intrigues that linger. [...] I often felt a contact high reading Rave’ — Shane Anderson, Los Angeles Review of Books

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Book SynopsisCuban writer Ivan Cardenas Maturell meets a mysterious foreigner on a Havana beach who is always in the company of two Russian wolfhounds. Ivan quickly names him "the man who loved dogs". The man eventually confesses that he is actually Ramon Mercader, the man who killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940, and that he is now living in a secret exile in Cuba after being released from jail in Mexico. Moving seamlessly between Ivan's life in Cuba, Mercader's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Leonardo Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet. It is the story of revolutions fought and betrayed, the ways in which men's political convictions are continually tested and manipulated, and a powerful critique of the role of fear in consolidating political power.Trade Review"A stunning novel, chronicling the evisceration of the Communist dream and one of the most "ruthless, calculated and useless" crimes in history." Financial Times When this novel was published in Spanish, it received literary acclaim across Europe and rightly so, for it is a monumental work." Independent "Padura has entered the Latin American Modernist canon by writing a Russian novel with a Tolstoyan passion for historical trifles and Dostoyevskyan pleasure in examining the moral life of its characters" NY Times

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Book Synopsis'Absolutely breathtaking' Christy Lefteri, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo.We all have something to tell those we have lost . . .On a windy hill in Japan, in a garden overlooking the sea stands a disused phone box. For years, people have travelled to visit the phone box, to pick up the receiver and speak into the wind: to pass their messages to loved ones no longer with us.When Yui loses her mother and daughter in the tsunami, she is plunged into despair and wonders how she will ever carry on. One day she hears of the phone box, and decides to make her own pilgrimage there, to speak once more to the people she loved the most. But when you have lost everything, the right words can be the hardest thing to find . . .Then she meets Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of their loss. What happens next will warm your heart, even when it feels as though it is breaking...The Phone Box at the Edge of the World is an unforgettable story of the depths of grief, the lightness of love and the human longing to keep the people who are no longer with us close to our hearts.'A moving and uplifting anatomisation of grief and the small miraculous moments that persuade people to start looking forward again' Sunday Times'Strangely beautiful, uplifting and memorable, it's a book to savour' Choice, Book of the Month'A poignant, atmospheric novel dealing with love, coming to terms with loss and the restoration of one's self' Daily Mail'A story about the dogged survival of hope when all else is lost . . . A striking haiku of the human heart' The Times'Beautiful. A message of hope for anyone who is lost, frightened or grieving' Clare Mackintosh, Sunday Times bestselling author of After the End'Incredibly moving. It will break your heart and soothe your soul' Stacey Halls, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars'Mesmerising . . . beautiful . . . a joy to read' Joanna Glen, Costa shortlisted author of The Other Half of Augusta Hope'Spare and poetic, this beautiful book is both a small, quiet love story and a vast expansive meditation on grieving and loss' Heat'A perfect poignant read' Woman & HomeTrade ReviewA story about the dogged survival of hope when all else is lost . . . Messina shows us that even in the face of a terrible tragedy, such as an earthquake or a loss of a child, the small things - a cup of tea, a proffered hand - can offer a way ahead. Its meditative minimalism makes it a striking haiku of the human heart * The Times *Carefully told and with great care, this feels a particularly resonating story right now * Stylist *This beautiful novel tells a story of universal loss and the power of love. It will remain engraved in my heart and mind forever. During these difficult times we face, it addresses questions that we might all have - how to connect with those we have loved and lost and how to allow ourselves to live and to love again. Beautifully written, sensitive and evocative, it paints a picture of an inner and outer world that is infused with both tragedy and hope. It moved me to tears and made me want to speak my own secret thoughts in the phone box at the edge of the world. Absolutely breathtaking and stunning * Christy Lefteri *A message of hope for anyone who is lost, frightened or grieving. Beautiful. * Clare Mackintosh *Incredibly moving. It will break your heart and soothe your soul * Stacey Halls *Spare and poetic, this beautiful book is both a small, quiet love story and a vast, expansive meditation on grieving and loss * Heat *Before I got started, I already loved the phone box at the edge of the world. But then I loved everything else. Especially the beautiful prose, powerful but held back, like grief. And the characters - emerging blinking from their tragedies, hurt and hesitant - but ultimately hopeful. It was a joy to read. Mesmerising! * Joanna Glen, author of The Other Half of Augusta Hope *This is a beautiful book. And a timely one. It tells a story about the aftermath of a disaster, long after the disaster. It tells of memories of the first few weeks after horror struck, but more it tells about the years after. If we're not directly affected, we lose sight of the years after that others have to endure. Or survive * Bookbag *The Phone Box at the Edge of the World has such a subtle strength to it. The power to transfer such huge emotion from the page to my heart. It felt like a balm to my soul, one I did not know I needed. For me it is easily one of my books of the year * Waterstones bookseller *Immensely moving and emotionally powerful . . . possessed of a rare empathetic pull * Waterstones bookseller *This book is one to read now * Cosmopolitan *A perfect poignant read * Woman & Home *A balm to the soul in difficult times * Good Housekeeping *All I can say is that I thoroughly recommend this book to all, even if you have not lost someone dear. This book offers a sweet and poignant story, as well as some meaningful messages and a hopeful outlook on life * Escape to the Bookshelf *This an aching sweetness about this novel, with telling details that bring the departed so alive * Saga Magazine *A quiet, elegantly told story of how life goes on after loss. * Press Association *An elegant, elegiac story ... a poignant, atmospheric novel dealing with love, coming to terms with loss and the restoration of one's self. * Daily Mail *A stylish and carefully calibrated meditation upon the nature of loss, grief and the joyously restorative power of love. * The Yorkshire Times *This was a poignant read that brings love, light and hope to a heartbreaking situation * Rea's Book Review *Messina's beautifully-written debut novel of loss and the power of love, provides hope in the most of difficult of times. * Surrey Life *A touching tale of loss and recovery. * Wiltshire Living *Beautifully moving read ... heartbreaking and poignant. * Woman's Own *A quiet, elegantly told story of how life goes on after loss * Leinster Leader *BOOK OF THE MONTH: Strangely beautiful, uplifting and memorable, it's a book to savour. * Choice magazine *Strangely beautiful, uplifting and memorable, it's a book to savour * Scottish Herald *Moving, heart-breaking, redemptive * Irish Examiner *A whimsical, moving and uplifting anatomisation of grief and the small miraculous moments that persuade people to start looking forward again. * The Sunday Times *A tale of strength and hope born out of pain ... Messina has captured a grieving nation's soul. * The Lady *Beautiful in its candour ... staggering in its hold on you. More than a story of grief, it points to a fundamental hope in reforming after tragedy, and a celebration of lives well-lived. * Sunday Business Post *

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Book SynopsisJean-Paul Didierlaurent lives in the Vosges region of France. His short stories have twice won the International Hemingway Award. The Reader on the 6.27 is his first novel. A bestseller in France, it has been sold in over twenty-five territories.Trade ReviewA delightful tale about the kinship of reading . . . Already a bestseller in France, The Reader on the 6.27 looks set to woo British readers and become a book club favourite. * Independent on Sunday *Charming . . . It is a clever, funny, and humane work that champions the power of literature * Sunday Times *This contemporary fable was acquired by more than twenty countries. A beautiful testimony to the universality of the love of books * Livres Hebdo *The humanity of the characters . . . the re-enchantment of everyday life, the power of words and literature, tenderness and humor . . . The Reader on the 6.27 is a must. * L'Express *I read it in one sitting, I couldn't put it down! * Literary Loveliness - Hello Magazine Online *

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Book SynopsisTrapped in a stifling marriage, Anna Karenina is swept off her feet by dashing Count Vronsky. Rejected by society, the two lovers flee to Italy, where Anna finds herself isolated from all except the man she loves, and who loves her. But can they live by love alone? In this novel of astonishing scope and grandeur, Leo Tolstoy, the great master of Russian literature, charts the course of the human heart.A masterpiece of realism and illuminated by irresistible characters, Anna Karenina is among the best-loved of all novels, penetrating to the heart of the ruling class in Tsarist Russia. This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Anna Karenina is translated by Aylmer & Louise Maude, and features an afterword by Ned Halley.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA stunning addition to the literature of eccentricity * The New York Times *A spellbinder from beginning to end, an edgy masterpiece * Chicago Sun-Times *Like Kafka, Abe's work reveals an astonishing ability to create dreamlike events * Chicago Tribune *

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Book Synopsis'Gripping and atmospheric' - Sunday Times A breath-taking missing persons thriller set under the menacing peaks of the Pyrenees Five years after their disappearance, the village of Monteperdido still mourns the loss of Ana and Lucia, two eleven-year-old friends who left school one afternoon and were never seen again. Now, Ana reappears unexpectedly inside a crashed car, wounded but alive. The case reopens and a race against time begins to discover who was behind the girls' kidnapping. Most importantly, where is Lucia and is she still alive?Inspector Sara Campos and her boss Santiago Bain, from Madrid's head office, are forced to work with the local police. Five years ago fatal mistakes were made in the investigation conducted after the girls first vanished, and this mustn't happen again. But Monteperdido has rules of its own.'Addictive, atmospheric and haunting, one of the best books you'll read this year' - Jo Spain, internationally bestselling author of The ConfessionTrade ReviewAddictive, atmospheric and haunting, one of the best books you'll read this year * Jo Spain, internationally bestselling author of The Confession *Gripping and atmospheric * Sunday Times *Creepy and atmospheric * Woman & Home *A heart-thumping thriller * Irish Mail *A tense page-turning novel... Gripping and scary this is a slice of Euro-noir that will please fans of The Killing * New Books Magazine *With its gripping premise and exotic wilderness setting, this is an intriguing and immersive mystery from one of Spain's leading screenwriters * Irish Independent *

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Book SynopsisMEET DETECTIVE GEREON RATH IN THE BOOKS THAT INSPIRED THE HIT TV SERIES BABYLON BERLIN ‘A first-rate historical thriller and Gereon Rath is one of the most intriguing detectives in fiction.’ - Paul Burke, NB Magazine Berlin, 1932: A drowned man is found in a freight elevator, miles from any standing water. How did he get there? A series of murders by drowning has shocked Berlin. Inspector Gereon Rath’s hunt for the killer has stalled, and his personal life is as turbulent as ever. His fiancée, Charly, has at last started her probationary year with Berlin CID, experiencing all the challenges of working in a male-dominated police force. When Rath’s work on the case of the drowned man sweeps him away to a remote village on the Polish border, his investigation clashes with local myths and the growing power of the Nazi party. As he puts the pieces of the puzzle together, Rath begins to wonder if he has a serial killer on his hands. Can he catch the killer before another victim is claimed? About the Gereon Rath Mysteries 1930s Berlin is a hotbed of vice and organised crime. When Inspector Gereon Rath leaves Cologne to join Berlin’s murder squad, he cannot begin to imagine the brutality and complexity of the world he is stepping into as communists and Nazis struggle for power.Trade Review‘A mystery full of twists and surprises and a classic detective you will root for all the way to the last page. Masterful.’‘The body count steadily mounts in Rath’s most complicated case to date.’‘The Fatherland Files is a first-rate historical thriller and Gereon Rath is one of the most intriguing detectives in fiction.’ * NB Magazine *‘Highly recommended.’ * Crime Time *

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Book SynopsisIt's the early part of the nineteenth century and the Arabian Peninsula and the waters surrounding it are ablaze. Piracy in the Gulf threatens global maritime trade routes while the Wahabbi strain of Islam is conquering followers town by town across the region. Britain, eager to reinforce its presence in the Middle East and protect the East India Company's ships, has a plan: send a man-of-war from England to quash the pirates while persuading Egypt to join an international alliance with Oman and Persia to fight the Wahabbis. At the center of it all lies a priceless Indian sword, a gift from the British monarch to the Egyptian Pasha. But Erhama bin Jaber, a historical figure and one of the most notorious pirates in the Gulf, has his own agenda and his own vendettas. When the Arabian corsair and his gang attack a ship carrying the sword, Britain's complex strategy goes terribly awry. As the pirates and British officials shuttle between ports throughout the region, plans and alliances are made and unmade as quickly as a rainstorm in the desert. In a grueling trudge across Arabia, an unlikely friendship is forged between Erhama's rebellious son and a British army major. This story of high-seas piracy and political intrigue, of unexpected kinship and personal betrayal, portrays the conflicting interests and human drama of these historic events in the Arabian Peninsula.Trade ReviewA fine talent in the world of novel writing... Al Qursan succeeds in taking us back to the past... and herein lies the value and importance of the novel. -- Ibrahim Darwish Al Qods Al Arabi Engaging and entertaining Al Dostoor This is a remarkable debut novel and one that captures the spirit of an age with delicate mastery and great skills QF Telegraph Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud's Al Qursan reminded me of Yousef Zedan's Azazeel, which won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009... I believe that Al Qursan should be awarded the same prize Al Arab Qatari writer Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud exquisitely relates an era of Gulf history in an outstanding and creative historical novel -- Yasser Al Zaater Al Arab (Al Qursan is a) formal and systematic analysis of the past by means of a narrative arc that is rich in characters and events as well as documents... all composed in a dramatic formula with rich vocabulary, an abundance of images and a wealth of meaning Al Nahaar What is remarkable about Al Qursan is that the author has brilliantly established a dramatic structure with great political awareness and an excellent historical mind without being spoiled by the intrusion of the narrator Aljazeera .net Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud's Al Qursan takes us to worlds bustling with action and excitement; amongst peninsulas, deserts and harbours where you can inhale the scents of people, spices from the eastern India company and the wine of the officers of the British navy. Al Arab '...the author has brilliantly established a dramatic structure with great political awareness and an excellent historical mind without being spoiled by the intrusion of the narrator' Aljazeera.net Aljazeera.net '...the author has brilliantly established a dramatic structure with great political awareness and an excellent historical mind without being spoiled by the intrusion of the narrator' Aljazeera.net Aljazeera.net the author has brilliantly established a dramatic structure with great political awareness and an excellent historical mind without being spoiled by the intrusion of the narrator Aljazeera.net

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Book SynopsisEven as a young man, Hamid Farsi is acclaimed as a master of the art of calligraphy. But as time goes by, he sees that weaknesses in the Arabic language and its script limit its uses in the modern world. In a secret society, he works out schemes for radical reform, never guessing what risks he is running. His beautiful wife, Noura, is ignorant of the great plans on her husband's mind. She knows only his cold, avaricious side and so it is no wonder she feels flattered by the attentions of his amusing, lively young apprentice. And so begins a passionate love story of a Muslim woman and a Christian man.Trade Review'Warmly observed, richly detailed, and often bold and exciting, Schami's fine portrait of life in Damascus, Syria, in the middle of the 20th century is filled with a compelling set of characters. Noura is a Muslim girl who looks like Audrey Hepburn. Rami Arabi, her father, a noted sheikh, is frustrated that those who attend his mosque 'treat God like a waiter in a restaurant.' Salman is a Christian boy, hated by his drunkard father and devoted to his dog, and to Noura. Nasri Abbani is a wealthy man from an important family, but also a hopeless playboy, his business kept afloat only because of his clever clerk, Tawfiq. When Nasri sets foot in the studio of Hamid Farsi, the leading calligrapher in all of Syria, tragic and wondrous events are set in motion that will affect all in the most emphatic ways. Schami, born in Damascus, is one of Germany's most respected writers, bridging Arab and Western culture with his exquisite storytelling. A novel to be savored.' Publishers Weekly 20101025 The background to this bold and political novel is cosmopolitan: Jews, Armenians, Arabs and Iranians live cheek by jowl in Schami's Damascus. Finely rendered into English by Anthea Bell, The Calligrapher's Secret is a celebration of diversity. Rightly so; after all, as Serani, Farsi's old master points out: 'the Quran was revealed in Mecca and Medina, recorded in Baghdad, recited in Egypt, but written most beautifully of all in Istanbul. -- Andre Naffis-Sahely Times Literary Supplement 20111207 'Suspensful, spectacular, and searing are not adjectives one would use to describe The Calligrapher's Secret. Intriguing, intelligent, and multifaceted are far more accurate to convey what readers can expect from this well written story about love, art, family and Syrian culture.' New York Journal of Books 20111101

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Book SynopsisWhen Pauline Quenu is taken to the seaside to live with her relatives, her love of life contrasts with the pessimism which infects the family. This is the twelfth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, remarkable for it's depictions of intense emotions and physical and mental suffering.Trade ReviewThis excellent edition offers a finely judged and authoritative translation of one of Zola's more peculiar novels. * Richard Niland, Translation and Literature *

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Book SynopsisChina is ageing. Its shrinking households, overworked and overstretched, struggle to carry the burden of care for their elderly. Retired Beijing judge Uncle Xiao is one among millions of old-timers who face a hopeless choice: accept a lonely decline, or chase dubious 'miracle cures'. Then into his life steps Miss Zhong, a young rural nurse with her own share of problems. The two have little in common, but as time delivers tragedies they learn that family can take many forms. Will this unlikely pair weather life's storms together, and will Xiao find warmth in his sunset years?

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Book Synopsis“These are the voices of Crime and Punishment in all their original, dazzling variety: pensive, urgent, defiant, and triumphant. This new translation by Michael Katz revives the intensity Dostoevsky’s first readers experienced.” —Susan McReynolds, Northwestern University

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Book SynopsisIt's world history. But not as we know it.c.1000AD: Erik the Red's daughter heads south from Greenland1492: Columbus does not discover America1531: the Incas invade EuropeFreydis is the leader of a band of Viking warriors who get as far as Panama. Nobody knows what became of them. Five hundred years later, Christopher Columbus is sailing for the Americas, dreaming of gold and conquest. Even when captured, his faith in his mission is unshaken. Thirty years after that, Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, arrives in a Europe ready for revolution. Fortunately, he has a recent guidebook to acquiring power - Machiavelli's The Prince. So, the stage is set for a Europe ruled by Incas and, when the Aztecs arrive on the scene, for a great war that will change history forever.'Binet's best book yet: the work of a major writer just hitting his stride. A delightful counterfactual novel' ***** - Daily TelegraphTrade ReviewGlorious, funny and profound * Daily Telegraph *A wild romp of a book that turns history on its head * Guardian *A bold and thrilling experiment in counter-factual history from a masterful storyteller * Financial Times *Characteristically ambitious, brilliant...Combining all the pleasure of a period romp with vital questions about our shared origin stories...a triumph * i *A propulsive 'counter-factual' romp...both dizzying and fun -- Claire Allfree * Metro, *Summer Reads of 2021* *

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Book SynopsisIn crisp, unembellished prose, Choi Eunyoung paints intimate portraits of the lives of young women in South Korea, balancing the personal with the political. In the title story, a fraught friendship between an exchange student and her host sister follows them from adolescence to adulthood. In 'A Song from Afar', a young woman grapples with the death of her lover, travelling to Russia to search for information about the deceased. In 'Secret', the parents of a teacher killed in the Sewol ferry sinking hide the news of her death from her grandmother. In the tradition of Sally Rooney, Banana Yoshimoto, and Marilynne Robinson - writers from different cultures who all take an unvarnished look at human relationships and the female experience - Choi Eunyoung is a writer to watch.Trade ReviewInsightful and deeply felt * New York Times Book Review *Written with sober detail, filmic precision and absolute control . . . an incredibly impressive collection told with realism, seriousness and moral integrity * Observer *Gentle yet elucidating . . . Shoko's Smile is the most beautiful book I've come across this year * Sisain *Shoko's Smile is the outcome of Choi's quite triumphant attempt to invent her own way to talk about dark facets of our reality . . . And her way at first comes across as bright and lighthearted. Of course, misleadingly so . . . Choi invents the narratives of today's real people who have not surrendered or become oppressors themselves, and who have survived nonetheless * GQ *Eunyoung's engaging debut collection examines her protagonists' interior lives in moments of longing, connection, and familial rift . . . Eunyoung's lyrical prose and complex characters will captivate readers * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisIn a lyrical novel, tinged with an hallucinatory eroticism, celebrated Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos depicts Cavafy in the midst of a journey of self-discovery.

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Book SynopsisA title in which, the author personalizes the political and social changes in his country over the past few decades. By moving back and forth in time and focusing on small events and everyday people, it breathes life into Chinese history by describing the effects of larger-than-life events on the average citizen.Trade Review"In his novels and short stories, Mr. Mo paints sprawling, intricate portraits of Chinese rural life, often using flights of fancy-animal narrators, elements of fairy tales-that evoke the lyrical techniques of South American magical realists." -New York Times "Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition."-Nobel Committee for Literature "If China has a Kafka, it may be Mo Yan. Like Kafka, Yan has the ability to examine his society through a variety of lenses, creating fanciful, Metamorphosis-like transformations or evoking the numbing bureaucracy and casual cruelty of modern governments."-Publishers Weekly"

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