Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisFrom cult sensation Mariana Enriquez, author of the International Booker Prize-shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed "...one of the best novels of the 21st century" - Paul Tremblay "...a magnificent accomplishment and a genuine work of power" - Alan Moore His father could find what was lost. His father knew when someone was going to die. His father had talked to him about the dead who rode in on the wind. The dead travel fast. Gaspar is six years old when the Order first come for him. For years, they have exploited his father's ability to commune with the dead and the demonic, presiding over macabre rituals where the unwanted and the disappeared are tortured and executed, sacrificed to the Darkness. Now they want a successor. Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar break free? Spanning the brutal decades of Argentina's military dictatorship and its aftermath, Our Share of Night is a haunting, thrilling novel of broken families, cursed inheritances, and the sacrifices a father will make to help his son escape his destiny.Trade ReviewA gorgeous, dazzling novel... Startlingly brilliant... An enchanting, shattering, once-in-a-lifetime reading experience. * New York Times *A masterpiece of supernatural horror... Our Share of Night is a literary achievement, gorgeous and exacting in its execution * Washington Post *With realism in its magic and magic in its realism, this is a magnificent accomplishment and a genuine work of power. -- Alan MooreA gothic horror epic... Has the makings of a cult read * The Times *Very dark, very powerful, very compelling... An extraordinary thing -- John LanchesterA novel so disquieting, so unsettling I could neither put it down, nor read it late at night. Enriquez's short stories had already made me a fan for life - her novel is going to haunt me for the rest of my life -- Kelly Link, author of White Cat, Black Dog and Get in Trouble, finalist for the Pulitzer PrizeDazzling... Towering, electric, wild - this novel is a masterpiece and a true original. -- Laura van den Berg, author of The Third HotelThrilling and engaging, it is a staggering accomplishment. Mariana Enriquez has written the novel that other novels will be compared to -- John LanganBinds together the terror of Stephen King with the history and aftermath of Argentina's military dictatorship which saw thousands "disappeared"... This horror is a must-read * Evening Standard *Compelling... unlike most Gothic fictions, this book is truly frightening -- Adam Thirlwell * London Review of Books *Epic and intimate, lyrical and brutal, horrifying and defiantly hopeful, and one of the best novels of the 21st century. I'm going to press this book into the hands of everyone I know -- Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers ClubA hugely ambitious, inventive and compelling work of modern fantasy * Interzone *Macabre and unsettling, some of the imagery is so horrific that it is hard to keep reading, yet the story so captivating it is impossible to stop... Lest this all sound too horrific, there is profound and enduring love here as well * New Internationalist *This is a literary work of huge significance... [A] fully unfurled psychic map of a country, the claustrophobia and inescapable horror of a haunted house story told over the length and breadth of a nation * The List *Enriquez is a masterful world builder. And the one she creates here devastates. This engrossing mixture of supernatural horror and intimate storytelling will leave an indelible but instructive mark on readers -- Sergio de la Pava, author of A Naked SingularityThere is a high gothic flavour to this material, as well as lurid, brilliantly over-the-top moments of grotesquery, of high violence... It has teeth, claws and a beating heart difficult to resist for those hardy of stomach -- Stuart Evers * Spectator *This is a proper gothic door stopper * Times Literary Supplement *An old-fashioned flesh-creeper... it is done with absolute relish and evident delight... Entirely unique - a long serious novel which has all the delights of horror fiction * Literary Review *A bone-chilling behemoth of a book, and another treasure in Enriquez's trove * nb. Magazine *A singular, soul-rattling novel... Mariana Enriquez's terrifying, lush, blood-soaked epic masterfully uses the occult to depict unspeakable brutality, political oppression, and the tragedy of Argentina's disappeared to devastating effect, while powerfully exploring the lengths a parent will go to protect their child. I've never read anything like it and I'll never forget my time in Enriquez's mesmerizing world. -- Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers

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Book SynopsisCrime and Punishment is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century. It is the story of a murder committed on principle, of a killer who wishes to set himself outside and above society. It is marked by Dostoevsky's own harrowing experience in penal servitude, and yet contains moments of wild humour.Trade ReviewSuperb... the Oxford University Press edition is beautifully produced and competitively priced. * Donald Rayfield, Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis"Solà pushes past the limits of human experience to tell a story of instinct and earth-time that is irresistible in its jagged glory." - C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills is Gold When Domenec - mountain-dweller, father, poet, dreamer - dies suddenly, struck by lightning, he leaves behind two small children, Mia and Hilari, to grow up wild among the looming summits of the Pyrenees and the ghosts of the Spanish civil war. But then Hilari dies too, and his sister is forced to face life's struggles and joys alone. As the years tumble by, the inhabitants of the mountain - human, animal and other - come together in a chorus of voices to bear witness to the sorrows of one family, and to the savage beauty of the landscape. This remarkable English-language debut is lyrical, mythical, elemental, and ferociously imaginative.Trade ReviewWhen I Sing, Mountains Dance made me swoon. Translated with great musicality and wit, it is rich and ranging, shimmering with human and non-human life, the living and the dead, in our time and deep time; a fable that is utterly universal, deadly funny and profoundly moving -- Max PorterThere's so much beauty in this wonderful polyphonic novel. Each page makes you fall in love again with nature, with imagination, with words, with life. When I Sing, Mountains Dance is timeless and unique -- Mariana EnríquezLike nothing I've read before. This novel is a feral, yowling love howl to a place of such staggering majesty that it resists usual comprehension. By giving voice to animals, storms, outcasts, one-legged girls, birthing women, and the mountain itself, Solà pushes past the limits of human experience to tell a story of instinct and earth-time that is irresistible in its jagged glory. -- C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills is GoldIrene Sola is a magnificent writer, When I Sing, Mountains Dance is a creepy, earthy masterpiece -- Camilla Grudova, author of The Doll's AlphabetSolà's prose, excellently translated from the original Catalan, is expansive and tactile. Her sentences accumulate, running along, taking in as much as possible, senses alert... Solà convincingly implicates everyone in the quickening pace of history and environmental decline... this attentive, playful, responsive novel makes an excellent case for stopping and listening -- Christopher Shrimpton * Guardian *Mara Faye Lethem's translation magnificently preserves the dreamy, haunting tone of the original... [and] Solà's distinctive lyricism... When I Sing, Mountains Dance illuminates the delicate, mutable relationship we have to the places that dictate how we understand ourselves -- Ella Fox-Martens * TLS *

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Book SynopsisRead the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon – soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones. 1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind. Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns. This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces. Praise for The Three-Body Problem: 'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired 'Immense' Barack Obama 'Unique' George R.R. Martin 'SF in the grand style' Guardian 'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail Winner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best NovelTrade ReviewA unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology -- George R.R. MartinWildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense -- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United StatesA marvellous mélange of awe-inspiring scientific concepts, clever plotting and quirky yet plausible characters, all conveyed in in a plain style capable of signalling hidden depths * The Times *A milestone in Chinese science fiction * New York Times *The best kind of science fiction -- Kim Stanley RobinsonLiu Cixin's impressive The Three Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo award for best novel, the first time a Chinese writer has taken that prize * Guardian (2015 Books of the Year) *It's a stunning, high-concept, rollercoaster of a novel which offers an intriguing Eastern perspective... this is a trilogy which, like Asimov's Foundation epic, looks set to quickly become an essential science fiction classic' * Starburst Magazine (rating: 9/10) *China has a lively SF scene inaccessible to western audiences until recently, so it's a great pleasure to read this book by Cixin Liu – the country's most popular SF writer – in English. Handled expertly on the terms of the genre, it is seeing this tale played out through a different cultural lens that makes the book fascinating. The translation is exemplary. The book is top-flight SF; smart, informative and engaging * SFX *Hard science fiction at its finest, and fans will appreciate the superb attention to detail that drives this constantly evolving and impressive series * SciFiNow *The writing is superb... The ideas are astounding, real eye-openers that expand the mind and really get the old grey matter going... A stand-out, award-worthy novel and one that deserves a place amongst the science fiction classics' * SF Book Reviews *For a book that makes you think, and holds true to some of the traditional values of SF, this one can't be beat * SFF World Magazine *[The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest are] the works of fiction I am most enthusiastic about * Bloomberg *A celebration of science as saviour * The Hindu *This book lives and dies by the quality of its ideas. Fortunately, the many, many different questions posed are fascinating and imaginative and I barreled through this novel right up to its gripping conclusion * Bending Over Bookwards *A book rich in ideas, puzzles and theories but each of them is explained in a way that isn't only accessible but is also absolutely engrossing... The ideas are vast but they are beautifully expressed and, for this, credit must also go to Ken Liu who has done a fantastic job of translating this masterpiece. I loved where The Three Body-Problem took me – it is tense, wondrous and fascinating and I am so ready to read its successor, The Dark Forest, the next in this exciting, original and gobsmacking trilogy' * For Winter Nights *A really fascinating book and I'm delighted that there are two more to come in the series... I'd recommend to readers who want to enjoy the science as much as the story' * SF Crowsnest *A book that you must have read, whether you are a Science Fiction fan or not. Cixin Liu tackles so many different topics from action, thriller and a strong emotional backdrop... I cannot imagine what effort it must have cost to translate such an epic story to English but it paid off really well. A great performance' * The Book Plank *Even what doesn't happen is epic * London Review of Books *Cixin Liu began his massively ambitious trilogy with this dazzling work of SF... Hard to sum up in a few short lines, but one you read it you'll be doing your best to tell everyone else to follow suit' * SciFiNow *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHe is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him -- Vladimir NabokovKafka described with wonderful imaginative power the future concentration camps, the future instability of the law, the future absolutism of the state, the paralysed, inadequately motivated, floundering lives of the many individual people; everything appeared as a nightmare and with the confusion and inadequacy of a nightmare -- Bertolt Brecht

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Book SynopsisTolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. In this revised and updated version of the definitive and highly acclaimed Maude translation, Tolstoy's genius and the power of his prose are made newly available to the contemporary reader.

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Book SynopsisA Japanese scientist thwarts an international plot to release a deadly virus by mutating it to make people kinder, but something goes horribly wrong A darkly funny, mind-blowing speculative thriller from the most original writer in Britain' (Daily Express)Utterly believable, dark and disturbing one of my books of the year' Trevor Wood Brilliantly original an alternative reality of the pandemic that's both terrifyingly plausible, relevant and timely' Sam Holland Clever, compelling, funny and it really makes you think: could it yet happen? Or did it happen already?' Daily MailIdealism clashes with political cynicism in a scathingly pointed satire that serves as a reminder of how the pandemic brought out the best in people but also, in some instances, the very worst' Financial Times  _________ Compassion may be humanity's deadliest weaponThe threat of nuclear war is no longer scary. This is much worse. It's invisible. It works quickly. And it's comingThe scourge has already infected and killed half the population in China and it is heading towards the UK. There is no time to escape. The British government sees no way out other than to distribute Dignity Pills' to its citizens: One last night with family or loved ones before going to sleep forever together. Because the contagion will kill you and the horrifying news footage shows that it will be better to go quietly.Dr Haruto Ikeda, a Japanese scientist working at a Chinese research facility, wants to save the world. He has discovered a way to mutate a virus. Instead of making people sick, instead of causing death, it's going to make them... nice. Instead of attacking the lungs, it will work into the brain and increase the host's ability to feel and show compassion. It will make people kind.Ikeda's quest is thoughtful and noble, and it just might work. Maybe humanity can be saved. Maybe it doesn't have to be the end.But kindness may also be the biggest killer of all  _______ One of the best things I've ever read incredibly moving and hugely entertaining' Chris McDonald It's the author's black humour and thought-provoking observations on human nature and our society that take over your brain to the extent that you'll be thinking about it for weeks after'' CultureFlyWhen Carver switches into full sci-fi, everything that comes before is injected with even deeper and darker themes, adding new layers that make the unpacking of the novel's final conclusion all the more satisfying' SciFi NowHis best yet. Carver just gets better and better' S.J. WatsonFirst and foremost a scathing takedown of government responses to the coronavirus outbreak'' SFXThe final chapters will have you racing through the pages to find out what happens Carver manages to get the right balance of dark humour, touching moments and razor-sharp social commentary' Crime Fiction LoverArguably the most original writer in Britain' Daily Express Insightful, sharp-minded, and fascinating a brilliant twist on a pandemic' Sarah Moorhead Thoughtful, challenging and unafraid to examine the impact huge events can have on the human condition his most important novel to date' The Madrid Review Unflinching, smart and entertaining as thought-provoking as it is brilliant' Isabelle Broom One of the most compelling and original voices in crime fiction' Alex North

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Book SynopsisHisashi Kashiwai was born in 1952 and was raised in Kyoto. He graduated from Osaka Dental University. After graduating, he returned to Kyoto and worked as a dentist. He has written extensively about his native city and has collaborated on TV programmes and magazines.Jesse Kirkwood is a literary translator working from Japanese into English. The recipient of the 2020 Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize, his translations include The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto and A Perfect Day to Be Alone by Nanae Aoyama.

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020, an enthralling Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance from one of Japan's greatest writers.'Beautiful... Haunting' Sunday Times'A dreamlike story of dystopia' Jia Tolentino__________Hat, ribbon, bird rose.To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed.When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?__________Finalist for the National Book Award 2019 Longlisted for the Translated Book Award 2020New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year'This timeless fable of control and loss feels more timely than ever' Guardian, Books of the Year'Echoes the themes of George Orwell's 1984, but it has a voice and power all its own' Time'A novel that makes us see differently... A masterpiece' Madeleine ThienTrade ReviewThe Memory Police is a masterpiece: a deep pool that can be experienced as fable or allegory, warning and illumination. It is a novel that makes us see differently, opening up its ideas in inconspicuous ways, knowing that all moments of understanding and grace are fleeting. It is political and human, it makes no promises. It is a rare work of patient and courageous vision -- Madeleine Thien * Guardian *It's an age since I read a book as strange, beautiful and affecting… this haunting work reaches beyond…to examine what it is to be human… a remarkable writer * Sunday Times *Masterly...Like Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Mohsin Hamid's Exit West, Yoko Ogawa's novel transforms a familiar metaphor into imaginative truth. -- Jia Tolentino * The New Yorker *In a feat of dark imagination, Yoko Ogawa stages an intimate, suspenseful drama of courage and endurance while conjuring up a world that is at once recognizable and profoundly strange * Wall Street Journal *Explores questions of power, trauma and state surveillance...particularly resonant now, at a time of rising authoritarianism across the globe. * New York Times, pick of the month *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA stunning addition to the oeuvre of one of postwar Japan's greatest storytellers * Wall Street Journal *Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved -- Angela CarterMishima was one of literature's great romantics, a tragedian with a heroic sensibility, an intellectual, an esthete, a man steeped in Western letters who toward the end of his life became a militant Japanese nationalist * New York Times *Mishima is the Japanese Hemingway * Life Magazine *A writer of immense energy and ability * Time Out *A startlingly modern, hypervisual jewel; it could be a really interesting movie. It was mesmerizing, seeming to fall in my hands from an alternative sky. -- Patti Smith

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Book SynopsisItalo Calvino (Author) Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in Italy. He was an essayist and journalist and a member of the editorial staff of Einaudi in Turin. One of the most respected writers of the twentieth century, his best-known works of fiction include Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Marcovaldo and Mr Palomar. In 1973 he won the prestigious Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985. A collection of Calvino's posthumous personal writings, The Hermit in Paris, was published in 2003. William Weaver (Translator) William Weaver has translated Umberto Eco, Italo Svevo, Primo Levi, Italo Calvino and Roberto Calasso, among others. He is a professor at Bard College.Trade ReviewInvisible Cities changed the way we read and what is possible in the balance between poetry and prose... The book I would choose as pillow and plate, alone on a desert islandWhole chapters of unforced poetic prose in which insight and fantasy are perfectly matched-an exquisite world * Observer *'Invisible Cities is perhaps his most beautiful work-the artist seems to have made peace with the tension between man's ideas of the many and the one * New York Review of Books *The most beautiful of his books throws up ideas, allusions, and breathtaking imaginative insights on almost every page. Each time he returns from his travels, Marco Polo is invited by Kublai Khan to describe the cities he has visited-Although he makes Marco Polo summon up many cities for the Khan's imagination to feed on, Calvino is describing only one city in this book. Venice, that decaying heap of incomparable splendour, still stands as substantial evidence of man's ability to create something perfect out of chaos * Times Literary Supplement *So important for thinking about the rich layers of life around us, our frailties, how we question and how we find meaning. * Red *

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Book SynopsisHisashi Kashiwai, the author of The Restaurant of Lost Recipes, was born in 1952 and was raised in Kyoto. He graduated from Osaka Dental University. After graduating, he returned to Kyoto and worked as a dentist. He has written extensively about his native city and has collaborated on TV programmes and magazines. The first book in the series was The Kamogawa Food Detectives.

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Book SynopsisThe Book of Disquiet is one of the great literary works of the twentieth century. Written over the course of Fernando Pessoa's life, it was first published in 1982, pieced together from the thousands of individual manuscript pages left behind by Pessoa after his death in 1935. Now this fragmentary modernist masterpiece appears in a major new edition that unites Margaret Jull Costa's celebrated translation with the most complete version of the text ever produced. It is presented here, for the first time in English, by order of original composition, and accompanied by facsimiles of the original manuscript. Narrated principally by an assistant bookkeeper named Bernardo Soares - an alias of sorts for Pessoa himself - The Book of Disquiet is 'the autobiobraphy of someone who never existed', a mosaic of dreams, of hope and despair; a hymn to the streets and cafés of 1930s Lisbon, and an extraordinary record of the inner life of one of the century's most important writers. This new edition represents the most complete vision of Pessoa's genius.Trade ReviewThe very book to read when you wake at 3am and can't get back to sleep - mysteries, misgivings, fears and dreams and wonderment. Like nothing else. -- Philip PullmanIn a time which celebrates fame, success, stupidity, convenience and noise, here is the perfect antidote -- John Lanchester * Daily Telegraph *A complete masterpiece, the sort of book one makes friends with and cannot bear to be parted with -- Paul Bailey * Independent *A meandering, melancholic series of reveries and meditations ... beguiling and mysterious -- William BoydIt's hard to explain how this modernist hymnal of boredom, fatigue, dejection and jadedness is so beautiful and life affirming -- Mike McCormack * New Statesman Books of the Year *To read and then contemplate him is to be lifted a little bit above the earth in a floating bubble. One becomes both of the world and not of it. There's no one like him, apart from all of us. -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *An odd, occasionally exasperating and sometimes beautiful book and one that will be your friend at 3am on a sleepless night. -- Sophia Martelli * Observer *Fernando Pessoa was simply one of the best 20th-century writers ever... captivating... a series of beautifully wistful reminiscences, diary entries and aphoristic snippets... we recommend it like crazy. Pick one up and open it anywhere and we promise you'll be richly rewarded. -- Stuart Hammond * Dazed and Confused *Gorgeous ... utterly original * The New York Times *A reading experience unlike any other ... you will never forget it, or stop waiting to return to it -- Chris Power * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisWelcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of a radical sympathy toward criminals has become the norm and a grand skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house wrongdoers in compassionate comfort. Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city's new centrepiece, but is riven by doubt. As she casts her mind to the terrible crime she experienced as a young girl, she wonders if she might think against the grain of her time: could it be that criminals deserve the punishment and disdain of the past? In search of solace, in need of creative inspiration, Sara turns to the knowing words of an AI chatbotAwarded Japan's highest literary prize, Sympathy Tower Tokyo is an extraordinary novel from one of the most exciting new voices in world literature. Partly inspired by conversations with an artificial intelligence, it offers an extraordinary defence of the power of language written by humans, a touching exploration of the imaginative impulse, and an of

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Book Synopsis''One of the greatest love stories in world literature'' Vladimir NabokovThe heroine of Tolstoy''s epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but feels that her life is empty until she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike, and brings jealousy and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself. This award-winning translation has been acclaimed as the definitive English version of Tolstoy''s masterpiece.Translated by RICHARD PEVEAR and LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY with a Preface by JOHN BAYLEY

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Book Synopsis WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023 A GUARDIAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR''The most exquisite kind of literature... I''ve put it on a special shelf in my library that I reserve for books that demand to be revisited every now and then. ''OLGA TOKARCZUK, author of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead''Could not be more timely... It''s funny and absurd, but it''s also frightening, because even as Gospodinov plays with the idea as fiction, the reader begins to recognise something rather closer to home... A writer of great warmth as well as skill''GUARDIAN''In equal measure playful and profound, Time Shelter renders the philosophical mesmerizing, and the everyday extraordinary. I loved it''CLAIRE MESSUD, author of The Woman Upstairs ''A genrebusting novel of ideas... Gospodinov''s vision of tomorrow is the nighTrade ReviewThe most exquisite kind of literature, on our perception of time and its passing, written in a masterful and totally unpredictable style. Each page comes as a surprise, so that you never know where the author is going to take you next. I've put it on a special shelf in my library that I reserve for books that can never be fully exhausted-books that demand to be revisited every now and then. * Olga Tokarczuk, author of THE BOOKS OF JACOB and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature *In equal measure playful and profound, Georgi Gospodinov's Time Shelter renders the philosophical mesmerizing, and the everyday extraordinary. I loved it. * Claire Messud *Gospodinov is one of Europe's most fascinating and irreplaceable novelists, and this his most expansive, soulful and mind-bending book. * Dave Eggers *A powerful and brilliant novel: clear-sighted, foreboding, enigmatic. A novel in which the future gives way like a rotten beam and the past rushes in like a flood. * Sandro Veronesi, author of THE HUMMINGBIRD and twice winner of the Premio Strega *Time Shelter is Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov's third novel, and for all its focus on the apparently bygone, it could not be more timely... It's funny and absurd, but it's also frightening, because even as Gospodinov plays with the idea as fiction, the reader begins to recognise something rather closer to home. Time Shelter was written between the Brexit referendum and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both of which represent, in their own ways, the weaponisation of nostalgia and the selection of particular eras in the time clinic of the not-so-new world order... True to form, Gospodinov finds humour in the bleakness... This novel could have been a clever, high-concept intellectual game with little by way of emotional investment, but Gospodinov is a writer of great warmth as well as skill... His affection for that period is sincere but also without illusion. He can draw out fully dimensional characters from the broken details of their fractured memories. His transitions - between humour and sadness, absurd situationism and reverberating tragedy, pathos and ironic observation - are never obtrusive. Thanks to the skill and delicacy of Angela Rodel's translation, these qualities are in abundant display for the anglophone reader... The novel's title - Time Shelter - is a neologism in Bulgarian as it is in English, a grafting from the noun "bomb shelter". It's well found in its ambiguity: sheltering from time, and sheltering within time. Both are attractive but impossible. Nostalgia used to feel like a source of harmless escape, and occasional sustenance. It is starting to seem like a fossil fuel, foreshortening our future as it burns. * Guardian *A genrebusting novel of ideas. This is a book about memory, how it fades and how it is restored, even reinvented, in the imaginations of addled individuals and the civic discourse of nations . . . His vision of tomorrow is the nightmare from which Europe knows it must awake. And accident, in combination with the book's own merits, may just have created a classic -- Simon Ings * THE TIMES *The morality of artificially returning people to the past, and the broader question of whether this truly brings solace - whether indulgence in nostalgia is curative or pernicious - is the central question of Georgi Gospodinov's newly translated novel... Touching and intelligent -- Adrian Nathan West, * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (USA) *An immensely enjoyable book which achieves depth with an affable narrative voice -- Declan O'Driscoll * IRISH TIMES *Mr. Gospodinov, one of Bulgaria's most popular contemporary writers, is a nostalgia artist. In the manner of Orhan Pamuk and Andrei Makine, his books are preoccupied with memory, its ambiguous pleasures and its wistful, melancholy attraction . . . This difficult but rewarding novel concludes with an image of Europe brought to the brink of renewed conflict - an abstraction that recent events have imbued with the terrible force of reality -- Sam Sacks * WALL STREET JOURNAL (USA) *Gospodinov cunningly draws attention to the violence that the past wreaks on the present. * New Yorker *Gospodinov writes like a botanist of the soul: he knows the effects that the pretty mushrooms and the hidden herbs within ourselves can do, in spite of what they look like from afar. The living beings he studies are our versions of our past, the unretrievable, the recreated, the future versions of our past, and how we imbue them with the fantasies and poisons that we cultivate in silence. * Yuri Herrera, author of SIGNS PRECEDING THE END OF THE WORLD *Georgi Gospodinov is unique in many ways. I've been reading him since the beginning and I know that no one can combine an intriguing concept, wonderful imagination and perfect writing technique like he can. This is great prose. * Olga Tokarczuk, author of THE BOOKS OF JACOB and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature *In this book, time sneaks away, and then returns, reconstituted. Franz Ferdinand is re-assassinated. The cigarettes you liked as a teenager are on sale again. Communism is back, and nice. The book is a satire, witty and scorching, but it is also wise and tender. * Joan Acocella *An extraordinary romp through time and memory, a beautifully written and wonderfully inventive meditation on what the past means to us, whether we can recapture it and how it defines our present. This is the perfect novel for these cloistered atemporal times. * Alberto Manguel, author of A HISTORY OF READING *Memory and kitsch - and their painful congruence in post-Soviet Europe - will be familiar themes to readers of Gospodinov's last book, The Physics of Sorrow. The novels share allusive, discontinuous narratives, an appetite for switching genres, an alertness to the power and the fragility of authorship and a dark humour rimed with grief. But in Time Shelter, finished shortly before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Gospodinov's sights are higher and his scope - conceptually and geographically - far wider . . . And the paradoxes that hummed quietly in the background of previous books roar into apocalyptic high gear -- Madoc Cairns * LITERARY REVIEW *Gospodinov's digressive, philosophical novel is less a work of realist literature than an allegory about the perils of looking backward . . . translator Rodel keeps the narrator's wry voice consistent . . . the story achieves a pleasurably Borges-ian strangeness while sending a warning signal about how memory can be glitch-y and dangerous . . . An ambitious, quirky, time-folding yarn * KIRKUS REVIEWS (USA) *A radical new therapy tests the power of nostalgia in the electric and fantastical latest from Gospodinov (The Physics of Sorrow). The clever prose sells the zany premise and imbues it with poignant longing . . . Thought-provoking and laced with potent satire, this deserves a spot next to Kafka * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (USA) *Georgi Gospodinov is one of the most interesting and innovative writers of this century and Time Shelter is a beautiful reflection on time, nostalgia and the soul. * Camilla Grudova *

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Book SynopsisNormality is the creepiest madness there is...In our near-future world, children are solely conceived by artificial insemination. Even sex between married couples is viewed as taboo. Amane's family is irregular. Her parents copulated to create her and hope that she too will find love and have a child with the person she marries. But Amane falls in line with society's way of thinking and wants a regular 'clean' marriage. Then she hears of a place that is the subject of a social experiment. Everyone in Paradise-Eden will act as one big family. Could this be the perfect third way?Praise for Sayaka Murata's fiction:'Exhilarating, weird and funny' Sally Rooney'Radical, hilarious, heartbeaking' Elif Batuman'A gift to anyone who has ever felt at odds with the world' Ruth Ozeki

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Book SynopsisKim Ho-yeon has worked as a novelist, playwright, and comic book writer. Considered a complete storyteller, he won the 9th Segye Literary Prize (offered by the Segye Ilbo newspaper ) in 2013, and in 2021, was awarded Yes24 Book of the Year and Millie Audiobook of the Year. His work stands out for the humanity conveyed by his characters, always inspiring, and for stories that remind us of our own lives. He lives in Seoul.

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Book SynopsisOutside Vallorgana, a tiny, isolated village high in the foothills of the Dolomites, the Duke' lives in the villa of his aristocratic ancestors. The last in the centuries' old line of the Cimamontes, he spends his days on his land and absorbed in the family archive, tolerated, if gently ridiculed by the villagers who are his neighbours. When he finds out that the village big man is taking timber from his land, he has a decision to make. Will he stay in his glorious, cerebral isolation or will he honour his ancestral blood and take action against this affront?Matteo Melchiorre's portrait of the idiosyncratic character of the Duke and the world of Valorgana is a sweeping feat of literary imagination. With the pace, panorama and plot twists of a great nineteenth-century classic, the breathless story of the Duke's ensuing feud unfolds, asking some big twenty-first century questions about our relationships with privilege, the past, the natural world and each other.

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Book SynopsisAn erotic masterpiece of twentieth century fiction - a tale of sensual obsession and bloodlust in eighteenth century Paris''An astonishing tour de force both in concept and execution'' GuardianIn eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name has been forgotten today.It is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, wickedness, but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent . . .''A fantastic tale of murder and twisted eroticism controlled by a disgusted loathing of humanity . .. Clever, stylish, absorbing and well worth reading'' Literary Review''A meditation on the nature of death, desire and decay . . . A remarkable début'' Peter Ackroyd, The New York Times Book Review''Unlike anything else one has read. A phenomenon . . . [It] will remain unique in contemporary literature'' Figaro''An ingenious and totally absorbing fantasy'' Daily Telegraph''Witty, stylish and ferociously absorbing'' Observer

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Book SynopsisTHE MULTI-MILLION-COPY SELLING SOUTH KOREAN SENSATION THAT HAS GOT THE WHOLE WORLD TALKING'A ground-breaking work of feminist fiction.' Stylist Who is Kim Jiyoung?  Kim Jiyoung is a girl born to a mother whose in-laws wanted a boy. Kim Jiyoung is a sister made to share a room while her brother gets one of his own. Kim Jiyoung is a female preyed upon by male teachers at school. Kim Jiyoung is a daughter whose father blames her when she is harassed late at night.   Kim Jiyoung is a good student who doesn’t get put forward for internships. Kim Jiyoung is a model employee but gets overlooked for promotion. Kim Jiyoung is a wife who gives up her career and independence for a life of domesticity. Kim Jiyoung has started acting strangely. Kim Jiyoung is depressed. Kim Jiyoung is mad. Kim Jiyoung is her own woman. Kim Jiyoung

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Book SynopsisMikhail Bulgakov (1891 - 1940) was born and educated in Kiev where he graduated as a doctor in 1916. He rapidly abandoned medicine to write some of the greatest Russian literature of this century. After a lifetime at odds with the stultifying Soviet regime, he died impoverished and blind in 1940, shortly after completing his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. None of his major fiction was published during his lifetime.Trade ReviewStories as keen and bright as a scalpel... Courage shines from every angle of this profoundly human collection by the greatest of modern Russian writers * Sunday Times *A marvellous writer -- Michael FraynThe oil lamps of his little provincial hospital seemed to him a lonely beacon which symbolised the battle between light and darkness... These straighforward yet extraordinary sketches gain their strength from also being the account of a young man's growth. One begins to see that he became a novelist not because he had material but because he was storing up passion and temperament -- V.S. Pritchett * New Statesman *Wryly funny and fascinating * Sunday Times *Blizzards blow, wolves run loose in the forests, the doctor duels with Death, who is never satisfied * Harpers & Queen *

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Book SynopsisDISCOVER YOUR NEXT FEELGOOD JAPANESE NOVEL, BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLESOver 1.4 million copies sold in Japan'You will be wrapped in laughter and tears' Reader review*****'What I love about it is its Kindness' Reader review*****'I wanted to tap the shoulders of the characters' Reader review*****Famously scenic, the Hankyu commuter train trundles daily through Japanese landscape unaware of the heartaches of the passengers it carries. On the outward journey we are introduced to the emotional dilemmas of five characters as we puzzle out how they will unravel; on the return journey six months later, we watch them resolve:- a man meets the woman who always happens to borrow a library book just before he can take it out himself- a woman in a white bridal dress boards looking inexplicably sad- a university student leaves his hometown for the first time- a girl prepares to leave her abusive boyfriend;- an elderly widow discusses adopting the Dachshund she has always wanted with her granddaughter. As the seasons come around, so the Hankyu line trundles on carrying the lives and loves of its passengers ever forwards.

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Book SynopsisLittle Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Tired of the bustling city, a man takes the train through the snow to Japan''s mountains, to meet with a geisha he believes he loves. Beautiful and innocent, she is tightly bound by the rules of a rural geisha, and lives a life of servitude and seclusion. Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata''s masterpiece, is a delicate, subtle meditation on love and its limits.''A work of beauty and strangeness, one of the most distinguished and moving of Japanese novels'' New York Herald Tribune

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Book SynopsisNick Bradley (Translator) Nick Bradley holds a PhD from UEA focussing on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature. He lived in Japan for many years where he worked as a translator, and currently teaches on the Creative Writing master's programme at the University of Cambridge. His debut novel, The Cat and The City, was published in 2020.

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Book SynopsisIntroducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.Akutagawa was one of the towering figures of modern Japanese literature, and is considered the father of the Japanese short story. This paradigmatic selection, which includes the stories that inspired Akira Kurosawa''s 1950 film Rashomon, showcases the terrible beauty, cynicism, sublime pain and absurd humour of his writing.''One never tires of reading and re-reading his best works. The elegantly sTrade ReviewOne never tires of reading and re-reading his best works. The elegantly spare style has a truly spine-tingling brilliance -- Haruki MurakamiExtravagance and horror are in his work, but never in the style, which is always crystal-clear -- Jorge Luis Borges

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Book Synopsis'A subtle distillation of wisdom, stylistic grace and symmetry of form' Sunday Times 'It's hard to think of a more recent novel that has sung so eloquently the joys of being alone' Guardian An inspirational classic from Nobel Prize-winner Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha is a beautiful tale of self-discovery Dissatisfied with the ways of life he has experienced, Siddhartha, the handsome son of a Brahmin, leaves his family and his friend, Govinda, in search of a higher state of being. Having experienced the myriad forms of existence, from immense wealth and luxury to the pleasures of sensual and paternal love, Siddhartha finally settles down beside a river, where a humble ferryman teaches him his most valuable lesson yet. Hermann Hesse's short, elegant novel, echoing the life of the Buddha, has been cherished by readers for decades as an unforgettable spiritual primer. A tender and unforgettable moral allegory, it is an undeniable classic of modern literature. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Translated by Hilda Rosner Hermann Hesse (1877-1963) is counted among the leading novelists and thinkers of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946 for a body of literature renowned for its humanist, philosophical and spiritual insight. His most famous works include Siddhartha, Journey to the East, Demian, Steppenwolf, and Narcissus and Goldmund.Trade Review'A subtle distillation of wisdom, stylistic grace and symmetry of form' - Sunday Times'A writer of genius' - The Times''[It's] hard to think of a more recent novel that has sung so eloquently of the joys of being alone... beguiling' - Guardian'Its simple prose and rebellious character echoed the yearnings of a generation that was seeking a way out of conformity, materialism and outward power.... Siddhartha emerged as a symbol; the symbol of those who seek the truth' - Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist'This novel is an eternally unfolding lotus: as fresh as the day I first read from its leaves' - LitHub

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Book SynopsisClarice Lispector''s sensational, prize-winning debut novel Near to the Wild Heart was published when she was just twenty-three and earned her the name ''Hurricane Clarice''. It tells the story of Joana, from her wild, creative childhood, as the ''little egg'' who writes poems for her father, through her marriage to the faithless Otávio and on to her decision to make her own way in the world. As Joana, endlessly mutable, moves through different emotional states, different inner lives and different truths, this impressionistic, dreamlike and fiercely intelligent novel asks if any of us ever really know who we are.Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian novelist and short story writer. Her innovation in fiction brought her international renown. References to her literary work pervade the music and literature of Brazil and Latin America. She was born in the Ukraine in 1920, but in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Civil War, the family fled to Romania and eventually sailed to Brazil. In 1933, Clarice Lispector encountered Hermann Hesse''s Steppenwolf, which convinced her that she was meant to write. She published her first novel, Near to the Wildheart in 1943 when she was just twenty-three, and the next year was awarded the Graça Aranha Prize for the best first novel. Many felt she had given Brazillian literature a unique voice in the larger context of Portuguese literature. After living variously in Italy, the UK, Switzerland and the US, in 1959, Lispector with her children returned to Brazil where she wrote her most influential novels including The Passion According to G.H. She died in 1977, shortly after the publication of her final novel, The Hour of the Star.Trade ReviewBrilliant ... Lispector should be on the shelf with Kafka and Joyce * Los Angeles Times *The first fiery novel by the Brazilian national treasure -- Carlos Valladares * Gagosian Quarterly *A genius -- Colm Tóibín * Guardian *A truly remarkable writer -- Jonathan FranzenLispector's novels offer a stark counterpoint to much of modern life's focus on individual fame * The Boston Globe *One of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers -- Orhan PamukThe originality of Near to the Wild Heart lies in its technique and language: self conscious, bleakly humourous, but poetic ... We now finally have a translation worthy of Clarice Lispector's inimitable style. Go out and buy it. -- JS Tennant * Observer *

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Book SynopsisDazzlingly original, Kobo Abe''s The Woman in the Dunes is one of the premier Japanese novels in the twentieth century, and this Penguin Classics edition contains a new introduction by David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas.Niki Jumpei, an amateur entomologist, searches the scorching desert for beetles. As night falls he is forced to seek shelter in an eerie village, half-buried by huge sand dunes. He awakes to the terrifying realisation that the villagers have imprisoned him with a young woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit. Tricked into slavery and threatened with starvation if he does not work, Jumpei''s only chance is to shovel the ever-encroaching sand - or face an agonising death. Among the greatest Japanese novels of the twentieth century, The Woman in the Dunes combines the essence of myth, suspense, and the existential novel.Kobo Abe (1924-93) was born in Tokyo, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. During his life Abe was considered his country''s foremost living novelist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been bestsellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes, The Ark Sakura, The Face of Another, The Box Man, and The Ruined Map.If you liked The Woman in the Dunes, you might enjoy Albert Camus'' The Plague, also available in Penguin Classics.''A haunting Kafkaesque nightmare''Time

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Book Synopsis**From the global crime sensation comes a NEW gritty standalone thriller**Nesbo deserves to be crowned the king of all crime thriller writers' Sunday ExpressEvery killer has a story. When a small-time crook is shot down in the street, all signs point to a lone wolf, a sniper who has seemingly vanished into thin air. To tell it he needs to get caught. Down-and-out detective, Bob Oz is sitting in a dive bar in Minneapolis when he gets the call: there's been another murder, and they don't think it will be the last. And this wolf wants the world to know... As the body count grows, Oz suspects that something more sinister is at play. And the closer he gets the more disturbed he becomes. Because the serial killer reminds him of someone: himself. He's only just getting started. Wolf Hour is a gritty, standalone thriller jam-packed with unexpected twists, dark secrets, and bubbling personal and political tension, from crime writing's king of the cliffhanger.

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Book SynopsisLiving in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo S.M., who tries to direct Macabéa''s fate but comes to realize that, for all her outward misery, she is inwardly free. Slyly subverting ideas of poverty, identity, love and the art of writing itself, Clarice Lispector''s audacious last novel is a haunting portrayal of innocence in a bad world.Trade ReviewHer last and perhaps greatest novel -- Barbara Mujica * Americas *Her finest book * The Nation *Her searing last novel ... mesmerizing * Vogue *

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Book Synopsis"Spectacular . . . drops the reader through one trapdoor into another" A.J. FINNIt all starts with an innocuous curiosity: at the Hotel de Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, there is no Room 622.This anomaly piques the interest of Joël Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary star, who flees to the Verbier to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his publisher, and begin his next novel.Before he knows it, he's coaxed out of his slump by a fellow guest, who quickly uncovers the reason behind Room 622's erasure: an unsolved murder. The attendant circumstances: a love triangle and a power struggle at the heart of Switzerland's largest private bank, a mysterious counter-intelligence unit known only as P-30, and a shadowy émigré with more money than God.A Russian doll of a mystery crafted with the precision of a Swiss watch, The Enigma of Room 622 is Joël Dicker's most diabolically addictive thriller yet.Praise for Joël Dicker "It's that most engaging of treats, a big, fat, intelligent thriller" SIMON MAYO"Dicker has the first-rate crime novelist's ability to lead his readers up the garden path" Sunday ExpressTranslated from the French by Robert BononnoTrade ReviewIn book after book, this astonishingly talented (and astonishingly young) author approaches genres we might dismiss as shopworn - the campus mystery, the family drama, the out-of-the-past whodunit - and with a flourish, whips them into spectacular new shapes. And in The Enigma of Room 622 - as you'll learn early on, there is no Room 622 - Dicker salutes Agatha Christie even as he drops the reader through one trapdoor into another, so that by the end, we doubt we've ever read another novel quite like it. (We haven't.) Fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley will hug this book in between chapters; the many readers who love Anthony Horowitz's mysteries will celebrate. And me? I'll be reading it again -- A.J. FinnDicker has the first-rate crime novelist's ability to lead his readers up the garden path * Sunday Express *Joël Dicker really knows how to tell a great story * Valeurs Actuelles *The cleverly jigsawed plot pays homage to Agatha Christie * Booklist *

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Book SynopsisKim Jee-hye (Author) Kim Jee-hye studied Journalism and Broadcasting, and she currently runs an independent bookstore in South Korea called Walking on the Clouds. Soyangri Book Kitchen is her debut novel.

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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 SynopsisWINNER OF THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD'A Korean take on Misery' Time'A masterwork of suspense, and a profound meditation on grief, solitude, and secrecy' Laura van den Berg, author of Find MeIn this tense, gripping novel by a star of Korean literature, Oghi has woken from a coma after causing a devastating car accident that took his wife's life and left him paralysed and badly disfigured. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Following months in hospital, Oghi is neglected and left alone in his bed. His world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his troubled relationship with his wife, a sensitive, intelligent woman who found all of her life goals thwarted except for one: cultivating the garden in front of their house. But soon Oghi notices his mother-in-law in the abandoned garden, uprooting what his wife had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes. When asked, she answers only that she is finishing what her daughter started. A bestseller in Korea, The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms. 'Like Hitchcock or Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief' Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000'While reading The Hole, you'll find yourself suddenly doubting everything' Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mother

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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 SynopsisOn sleepless nights, I open the matchbox and reread the story of the girl who gathered shooting stars. After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Tomoko is sent to live for a year with her uncle in the coastal town of Ashiya. It is a year which will change her life. The 1970s are bringing changes to Japan and her uncle's magnificent colonial mansion opens up a new and unfamiliar world for Tomoko; its sprawling gardens are even home to a pygmy hippo the family keeps as a pet. Tomoko finds her relatives equally exotic and beguiling and her growing friendship with her cousin Mina draws her into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling. Rich with the magic and mystery of youth, Mina's Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time, and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse. Praise for Mina's Matchbox'I read Mina's Matchbox like a besotted child, enraptured, never wanting it to end.' RUTH OZEKI, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness'Dreamy and whimsical, Mina's Matchbox traffics in the themes at which Ogawa always excels: memory, identity, and nostalgia' Esquire, Best Books of the Summer'A conspicuously gifted writer. . . To read Ogawa is to enter a dreamlike state. . . She possesses an effortless, glassy, eerie brilliance' GuardianEvokes the secret crushes and crushing secrets of girlhood with charm and elegance' People

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