Fiction in translation

Book Synopsis"Ma is Scared is the long-overdue debut of Anjali Kajal in English, representing the best of her short fiction, written and published over the last twenty years. From the anxious mother waiting for her daughter to return home safely, to the young student accused of stealing because of her caste, the stories gathered here explore the experience of women in small towns and urban centres across North India. Kajal writes about desire, abuse, silence, love and oppression in nuanced ways; how they are negotiated in the world; through relationships, family, motherhood, school, university, jobs. Her language, imagery and concerns are thoroughly contemporary, capturing the yearnings, restrictions and possibilities of modern life from a feminist and anti-caste perspective. "

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Book SynopsisAn historical thriller narrated from two different perspectives, in two eras. The novel revolves, around kidnapping of five babies during the night of 5th of April 1885. This is the start of the experiment into the idea of nature vs nurture. What happens if these children are given different upbringing? Twenty-five years later the children now grown up suddenly reappear on the doorsteps of their biological parents. Confused by his daughter's memory loss, one parent hires Alejandro a journalist to investigate. What he discovers shocks him to the core.

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Book SynopsisA bewitching novel set in contemporary Japan about the mysterious suicide of a young woman. Miwako Sumida is dead. Now those closest to her try to piece together the fragments of her life. Ryusei, who always loved Miwako, follows her trail to a remote Japanese village. Chie, her best friend, was the only person to know her true identity — but is now the time to reveal it? Meanwhile, Fumi, Ryusei’s sister, has her own haunting secret. Together, they realise that the young woman they thought they knew had more going on than they could ever have dreamed.Trade Review‘The gap between the private pain we suffer and the public image we project is explored with sensitivity and tenderness.’ -- Claire Allfree * Daily Mail *‘Vivid and intriguing — an elegantly cryptic, poetically plotted Murakami-esque whydunit.’ -- Sharlene Teo, award–winning author of Ponti‘An offbeat, tender exploration of the secrets we keep from others … Goenawan is clearly a talented and creative storyteller … She excels at suspense, keeping the reader guessing with left-field plot developments and forays into magic realism that somehow seem in keeping with realities on the ground.’ -- Sarah Gilmartin * The Irish Times *‘Clarissa Goenawan’s style is effortless and emotionally charged, and it’s particularly heartening to see a trans character depicted in a lead role, written in a real and sympathetic way.’ -- Prudence Wade * Press Association *‘A novel in three voices about the inner turmoil — and beauty — that people keep walled behind flawless surfaces.’ -- Tiffany Tsao, author of The Oddfits and The Majesties‘Dazzling.’ * Foyles Bookstore *‘She has created a Murakami-inspired novel that does away with all of his problems and tells a story far more rounded, pleasing, and sophisticated.’ -- Will Heath * Books & Bao *‘From the first page of Clarissa Goenawan’s The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida, we know that the titular Miwako has taken her own life, but we don’t know why. This same question plagues Miwako’s close friends as they grieve her death and search for answers. In this elegant and haunting novel, Goenawan deftly explores the messiness of grief, the pain of lost chances, and the way a life can collapse under the weight of secrets. Miwako and her friends are under my skin, and I’ll be thinking about them for some time.’ -- Kathleen Barber, author of Truth Be Told and Follow Me‘An exquisite tale about the way secrets shape and transform young lives. Behind Goenawan’s crisp, spare prose lies a world of emotional complexity.’ -- Mira T. Lee, award–winning author of Everything Here Is Beautiful‘Written in clear, simple prose, Goenawan’s novel presents the intriguing mystery of Miwako Sumida through the eyes of three characters who try to piece together her puzzle while struggling with their own questions of meaning and identity. This story about youth, friendship, grief, and trauma invites us through secret doors, ready to discover more.’ -- Intan Paramaditha, PEN Award–winning author of Apple and Knife and The Wandering‘Miwako is a powerful, memorable character … The way these characters’ lives intersect makes for a complex and satisfying tale, one that’s sad at the same time as it’s lively and warm.’ -- Rebecca Hussey * Book Riot *‘As three stories interlink, rich plot, description, and dialogue make this fiction seem like reality. While readers may be aware they’re not a part of the novel, through Goenawan’s enthralling writing, they will nonetheless become immersed in her fictional world.’ -- Budi Darma‘Tender and tragic … Goenawan’s luminous prose captures the deep emotions of her characters as they grapple with questions about family history, gender, and sexuality. The tug of Miwako’s strange, troubled spirit will wrench readers from the beginning.’ -- Publishers Weekly‘Goenawan, like any skilled novelist, manages to elegantly reveal both the pain and beauty of unraveling a life after loss. This is only her second novel to date, and she’s already been compared to the wizard of world-building, Haruki Murakami.’ * Lambda Literary *‘[Goenawan] raises an age-old question on the fine line where literature ends and life begins ... [she] has her own distinctive voice, as she sensitively explores traumatic sexual experiences through a woman’s perspective.’ * The Jakarta Post *‘A compelling protagonist ... Like Japanese brush painting, the author’s simple, clear prose captures Miwako’s vulnerability and complexity. Also vividly drawn are Fumi and Chie, each having built their own unusual protective personas that are gradually revealed. An eerie and elegant puzzle.’ * Kirkus Reviews *‘Like Goenawan’s previous Rainbirds, this is more literary fiction than conventional mystery, featuring exceptionally well-drawn characters facing adversity in a narrative written with an elegance and delicacy.’ -- Michele Leber * Booklist *‘Goenawan does an expert job of getting to the core of this university student with a mysterious past, and on how people grapple with the death by suicide of a loved one.’ * Alma *‘This haunting tale of grief and tragedy by the author of Rainbirds might appeal to new adults who remember John Green’s Looking for Alaska. The leisurely narrative uncovers a world of Japanese customs, ghosts, and grief.’ -- Lesa Holstine * Library Journal *‘[A] a complex, interpersonal mystery … [A] tremendous examination of sadness … [A] book with heart about the mysteries of the heart.’ -- Benjamin Welton * New York Journal of Books *‘Goenawan’s prose is transportive in its directness and evocative in its simplicity. In Miwako, she has succeeded in an intricate character study of a perturbed soul … An immersive, haunting tale.’ -- Walter Sim * The Strait Times *‘If her debut novel brings Murakami to mind, her second, with its winsome tone, harkens to early Banana Yoshimoto. However, with her blend of mystery, magic and social issues — in this case, sexual abuse, transgender awareness and suicide — Goenawan is developing her own distinct brand.’ -- Suzanne Kamata * The Japan Times *‘A quietly powerful meditation on the destructive power of secrets, as well as the power of truth to heal even beyond death.’ -- Christina Ladd * The Nerd Daily *‘[A] subtly fantastical story, driven by themes of love, loss, and grief. It toes the line between YA and literary fiction, and it does so effortlessly … [A] three-dimensional story that moves seamlessly from the distant past to the recent past to the present, painting a colourful image of Miwako Sumida that grows in detail as the story gains momentum. Despite not having been written by a Japanese novelist, The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida strongly and elegantly echoes the style and tone of manga like Erased and Orange, and most vividly the novels of Haruki Murakami … There are mysteries that tease at you and lies you’ll be told, all in service of a complex, intense story that ebbs and flows so beautifully. It’s a wild ride, and a delightfully satisfying one.’ * Books & Bao *‘This novel is both familiar and unusual. It is written in English by an Indonesian-born Singaporean author, but summons the atmospheres of Japanese fictions (both written and cinematic) … Clarissa Goenawan is an emerging talent … Compassionate and compelling.’ -- Alison Huber * Readings *‘Powerful and compelling.’ * Reading, Writing and Riesling *‘Very absorbing and incredibly well written … Highly recommended and I’ll be looking out for more from this author.’ * Theresa Smith Writes *‘A novel that examines a tragedy from three sides … Ultimately very readable and enjoyable.’ -- Emily Paull * The AU Review *‘What a beautiful, heartbreaking book … the language is reminiscent of Japanese books The Travelling Cat Chronicles (Hiro Arikawa) and If Cats Disappeared from the World (Genki Kawamura). In these stories, as in Goenawan’s, beautiful language and scenes are used as backdrops for a gentle uncovering of what it really means to be human.’ -- Kaylia Payne * Lip Magazine *‘This is a bittersweet tale of abuse and identity, of the potentially destructive nature of secrets and of the value of having people around who can understand and help process painful or traumatic events.’ * Pile by the Bed *‘This is a deep-cut examination of what happens to a life left behind.’ * Keeping Up with the Penguins *‘This is Murakami without the male gaze – a feminist Murakami, perhaps … An engrossing tale clearly influenced by Japanese women writers such as Risa Wataya and Banana Yoshimoto, The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida is about the crushing weight of secrets and how the long arm of history returns to haunt a person. In this novel, young women straitjacketed by the standards of mainstream society demand: give us a closer look.’ -- Cher Tan * The Saturday Paper *‘Quietly quirky in the manner of Haruki Murakami, including shades of magic realism, The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida focuses on the subtle intricacies of social interactions and sexuality, particularly in Japanese culture at the time … This is a lingering fable about learning to accept yourself, even in the wake of grief.’ -- Doug Wallen * Big Issue *‘The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida is a vibrant and at time surreal exploration of lost love, death, trauma, and friendship in Japan in the 1980s/90s … This novel is beautifully created and provides a mature look into suicide and its impacts on those left behind.’ FOUR STARS -- Akina Hansen * Good Reading *‘Captivating and sometimes heartbreaking … The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida is hard to put down and despite its tragedy is a thoroughly enjoyable read.’ -- Vittoria Bon * Gold Coast Bulletin *‘A novel that lingers in the mind thanks to its poetic delivery, layering of ideas and an engrossing tale, all led by vivid characters.’ * Bad Form Magazine *Praise for Rainbirds: ‘​A murder mystery and a family drama in one, this book is as beautiful as it is understated. The author presents us with a fascinatingly structured look into Japanese society and a depiction of mourning and grief that is universally recognisable.’ * San Francisco Chronicle *Praise for Rainbirds: ‘A​ transnational literary tour-de-force. Readers will be carried along by its creepy charm.​’ * The Japan Times​ *Praise for Rainbirds: ‘Clarissa Goenawan spins a dark, encapsulating story that will certainly reel you in completely.’ * Bustle *Praise for Rainbirds: ‘Mysterious and dark.’ * Daily Beast *

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Book SynopsisAppearing for the first time in English, Deceit is the debut novel by Yuri Felsen, a leading modernist writer of the interwar Russian diaspora. Known by his contemporaries as ‘the Russian Proust’, Felsen died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, his life and legacy destroyed by the Nazis.Written in the form of diary, Deceit is a psychological self-portrait of an unnamed narrator, a neurasthenic and aspiring author, whose often-thwarted pursuits of his love interest and muse provide the grounds for his beautifully wrought extemporizations on love, art and human nature. Modulating between the paroxysms of his tormented romance and his quest for an aesthetic mode befitting of the novel he intends to write, Deceit is a remarkable work of introspective depth and psychoanalytic inquiry.Like voyeurs, party to his most intimate thoughts, we accompany the diarist as he goes about Paris, making enraptured preparations for the materialisation of his fantasy, observing not only his eagerness, dreaminess and poetic inclinations, but also his compulsive desire to analyse his surroundings and self. Yet amid these ravishing flights of scrutiny we discern hints of his monomaniacal tendencies, which blind him from the true nature of his circumstances. Thus begins an exquisite game arranged by the author, wherein it falls to the reader to second-guess the essence of what really lies behind his narrative.Trade Review'This is ... real literature, pure and honest.' Vladimir Nabokov 'The miracle of Yuri Felsen is how his apparently Nabokovian rhythms lull you into a false sense of security, before a sudden and chilling exposure to the weather of a walk where the whole elegantly interwoven conceit of the narrator is ripped apart. And the pain of someone like Walser glints through a decadent surface of exiled life in Paris, to hint at darker shadows to come.' Iain Sinclair 'Deceit is a strange and beautiful dream, an intimate and tragic love letter from a lost world.' Camilla Grudova'Towards the end of this strange novel in the form of a strange diary the narrator declares that "it is impossible to live without deceit". What has preceded this bald statement is the work of a connoisseur of deceit in its multitudinous forms, the most potent being a subset of self deceptions described in painful raw detail. It’s a work steeped in absolutely joyous misery.' Jonathan Meades'Dark thickets of language part to reveal a pearl of psychological prose and a highly actual account of the psychic impermanence of migration.' Sasha Dugdale

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Book SynopsisAn artist races to finish his forgery of a masterpiece while held captive in surreal, menacing splendor.José Federico Burgos is a failed painter turned forger trapped in surreal, an architectural masterpiece hidden behind high walls, an impish vagabond, and some very resourceful, very intimidating twins—Forgery pays homage to greats like Juan Rulfo and Luis Barragán, traversing late 20th Century Guadalajara with the exuberance and eccentricity of an 18th Century picaresque.Trade Review"Ave Barrera eases us into this microcosmos as strange and shocking as it is true, constructing powerful atmospheres imbued with very varied sensations, ranging from dreamlike hallucinations to terror, horror and beauty." —El País"We must pay serious attention to the work of Ave Barrera."" —Cristina Rivera Garza , author of NO ONE WILL SEE ME CRY"The plot flows in an intelligent and audacious way: It surprises by the simplicity and malice in which complex technical aspects are solved."" —Geney Beltrán Félix"A wild ride for protagonist and reader alike." —Kirkus"A fun and entertaining story of a great literary quality." —Milenio"Delightfully written, full of revelations … Such a literary discovery." —Radio 3 (RTVE)

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE A joyful family saga about free will, forgiveness, and how we are all interconnected. In October 1989, triplet babies are born into chaos in a Swedish hospital. Over two decades later, the siblings are scattered around the world, barely speaking. Sebastian is in London working for a mysterious scientific organisation and falling in love. Clara has travelled to Easter Island to join a doomsday cult. And the third triplet, Matilda, is in Sweden, practising being a stepmother. Then something happens that forces them to reunite. Their mother calls with worrying news: their father has gone missing and she has something to tell them, a twenty-five-year secret that will change all their lives … 'Hilarious' CLAIRE LOMBARDO 'Playfully experimental' THE GUARDIAN 'Magnificent' THE TELEGRAPHTrade Review‘A wild 529-page trip … magnificent.’ -- Amber Medland * The Telegraph *‘Playfully experimental … enjoyable … funny.’ -- Suzi Feay * The Guardian *‘This is a prismatic, hilarious, and deeply intelligent novel overflowing with wisdom about the complexities of being alive — I read it ravenously, and with pen in hand.’ -- Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had‘With gorgeous prose and a wry wit, Amanda Svensson offers readers at once a novel of family, love affairs, the search for meaning, of grief and of sibling rivalry — of triplets with a twist.’ -- Donna Freitas, author of The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano‘A brilliant vision of family and modern life, both as we know it and as it can only be imagined by one of Sweden’s finest writers — as translated by one of our finest translators, Nichola Smalley. A playful, tender, and funny gem.’ -- Saskia Vogel, author of Permission‘Big, playful, and very strange.’ -- Gayle Lazda * London Review Bookshop *‘In her new novel Amanda Svensson portrays with both sincerity and humour, how there is a system to the madness and a madness in the system. It is a winding work that establishes her among the great storytellers with a totally unique voice.’ -- Jury statement from the Per Olov Enquist Literary Prize‘[W]ith a devoted passion for narration and a steadfast belief in the intrinsic value of fiction, Amanda Svensson portrays triplets Sebastian, Clara, and Matilda. The story of their lives in different corners of the world evolves into a supreme literary work, which expands the reader’s senses in the face of the possibilities of reality, just by being so unabashedly fictitious.’ -- Jury statement from the Tidningen Vi’s Literary Prize‘[A] novel about serious contemporary issues such as climate and fear, but that also makes you smile.’ -- Jury statement from the Svenska Dagbladet Literary Prize‘A verbose, kooky, surrealistic, and simply wonderful novel with major existential questions.’ * Svenska Dagbladet *‘A classic family saga, which recalls Thomas Mann and Zadie Smith, but also has the intricacy and ambition of the intellectual mystery à la Marisha Pessl or Donna Tartt. Svensson pours art and science, literature, and politics into the brew, until she has achieved an entertaining bildungsroman that is far removed from the egocentric autofiction that is said to be dominating contemporary literature … Svensson carries out her almost perilously demanding literary project with a lightness that is impressive.’ * Expressen *‘There is such an enormous amount of energy and vitality in Amanda Svensson’s prose, an energy that is instantly recognisable from her previous books. There is not a single stale sentence, not a single dull repetition or artificial response. She seamlessly moves between the novel’s different moods and she can be insanely funny without losing any of the fundamental sincerity.’ * Östersunds-Posten *‘A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding is composed like a rich kind of symphony, with a diverse set of voices and places that together move from cacophony to harmony. This is a book that, to use the author’s own words, makes you feel alive.’ * Göteborgs-Posten *‘The Freudian term unheimlich appears early in the novel, pre-empting the doubles and doublings, shadows and ghosts, recurring images and disappearing persons that haunt the book. It is oddly comforting that against such an uncanny backdrop the banalities and joys of the world continue — characters still fall in love, quarrel, sit in discomfort and make amends. The beauty of Svensson’s work is in this precise balance: she maintains compelling emotional resonance amid a truly wild and sprawling world. … A truly delightful study of the contours of family, the limits of free will, and the end of the world as we know it, A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding is expansive and expanding.’ -- Leah Jing McIntosh * The Saturday Paper *‘Chaos and the search for order duel in Svensson’s intelligent debut.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘In Amanda Svensson’s novel A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, a shocking secret forces three siblings to reevaluate their places in their family and the world … A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding is a dynamic novel about methods of coping in a world where nothing is certain.’ * Foreword Reviews *‘[A System So Magnificent] is joyous and funny.’ * ANZ LitLovers *‘Svensson writes beautifully... it's a pleasure simply to follow along.’ * The Complete Review *‘All families are dysfunctional, but some raise it to an art form, as Amanda Svensson so deftly outlines in her admirable novel A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding … While all of her main characters are deeply — really deeply — flawed, Amanda Svensson has you rooting for them through their highs and lows.’ * Book Page *‘At the heart of Svensson’s tumultuous epic lies a perennial query: Are our lives simply random intersections of space and time, or are they part of a grand master plan of the universe, where we are all but cosmic marionettes and nothing is coincidence?’ * The New York Times *‘Brilliant … a sprawling family epic exploring complex questions about the power of one’s mind and the impact of one’s choices … This sharp and expansive novel takes up love, loss, truth, and beauty and will challenge readers to decide if they agree when Matilda asserts: “We're all living in different worlds. It's up to each of us to decide what form that world takes”.’ * Shelf Awareness *‘Amanda Svensson’s raucous, sprawling debut takes on the enigmas of our origins, riddles of human consciousness and animal cognition, doomsday cults, and the most bedevilling of mysteries — the minds and choices of our closest intimates.' -- Jury statement from the International Booker Prize 2023

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of The Picture Bride, two women’s lives and identities are intertwined — through World War II and the Korean War — revealing the harsh realities of class division in the early part of the 20th century. Can’t I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress’s place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army. Years of hardship, survival, and even happiness follow. In the aftermath of WWII, the women make their way home, where they must reckon with the tangled lives they’ve led, in an attempt to reclaim their identities, and find their places in an independent Korea. Trade Review‘Can't I Go Instead’s complex and profoundly human characters will captivate, devastate, and move you, all at once.’ -- Juhea Kim, author of Beasts of a Little Land and Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist‘A true feast for historical fiction readers who love unpredictable stories and complex characters!’ -- Lorena Hughes, award-winning author of The Spanish Daughter‘Compelling and inspiring, this story speaks of resilience and determination to make the best out of the situation one has been dealt.’ * Booklist *‘Can’t I Go Instead is an epic work of historical fiction by acclaimed Korean author Lee Geum-yi that vividly brings to life the tumultuous early 20th century in Korea … Lee’s exhaustive research into the realities of the era, from the atrocities of the Imperial Army to the treatment of Asians in America, underpins this propulsive novel. Fans of emotional yet historically accurate fiction will find Can’t I Go Instead a transportive reading experience and meaningful perspective on the past.’ * NZ Booklovers *Praise for The Picture Bride: ‘Cleverly orchestrated and poignantly conveyed throughout.’ * Daily Mail *Praise for The Picture Bride: ‘Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories ... a must read!’ -- Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Three SistersPraise for The Picture Bride: ‘Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories. I loved Willow from the first page to the last. Loved her courage, and her tenacious, yet caring, beautiful soul. The Picture Bride is the ultimate story of the power of friendship — a must read!’ -- Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Three SistersPraise for The Picture Bride: ‘A fascinating journey into the world of Korean “picture brides” whose lives take unexpected turns as they land on distant shores. A beautiful testimony to those women bold and determined enough to leave behind all that was familiar, seeking a better life.’ -- Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author Before We Were Yours and The Book of Lost FriendsPraise for The Picture Bride: ‘A transporting and immersive story that will enthral historical fiction readers. Poignant and moving, its unforgettable characters will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.’ -- Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba

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Book SynopsisMulti-generational crime mystery taking place in the north of Iceland, as brutal retribution is exacted for childhood abuse

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Book SynopsisIndigenous Mapudungun and Quechua words, history, colonialism and cosmology form the chorus to this tropical fever dream of life, love, death, and friendship.

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Book SynopsisOne of the most powerful short stories ever written: Yukio Mishima’s masterpiece about the erotics of patriotism and honor, love and suicide.Trade Review"The violence we are facing with such difficulty in our daily lives, he gives us simply in all its subcutaneous horror and myth." -- Hortense Calisher - The New York Times Book Review"A direct yet lyrical style devoted entirely to bringing out the elevated emotions of its two characters." -- Trevor Berrett - The Mookse and the Gripes

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Book SynopsisThe 25-year-old case of a missing girl sees Varg Veum dig deep into the past to find her kidnapper, as the secrets and lies of a tiny community threaten everything … Gunnar Staalesen’s award-winning, international bestselling Varg Veum series continues in this chilling Nordic Noir thriller. ***WINNER of the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year*** 'Mature and captivating’ Herald Scotland ‘One of the finest Nordic novelists – in the tradition of Henning Mankell’ Barry Forshaw, Independent ‘Masterful pacing’ Publishers Weekly _________________ September 1977. Mette Misvær, a three-year-old girl disappears without trace from the sandpit outside her home. Her tiny, close middle-class community in the tranquil suburb of Nordas is devastated, but their enquiries and the police produce nothing. Curtains twitch, suspicions are raised, but Mette is never found. Almost 25 years later, as the expiry date for the statute of limitations draws near, Mette’s mother approaches PI Varg Veum, in a last, desperate attempt to find out what happened to her daughter. As Veum starts to dig, he uncovers an intricate web of secrets, lies and shocking events that have been methodically concealed. When another brutal incident takes place, a pattern begins to emerge… Shocking, unsettling and full of extraordinary twists and turns, Where Roses Never Die reaffirms Gunnar Staalesen as one of the world’s foremost thriller writers. _________________ Praise for Gunnar Staalesen 'There is a world-weary existential sadness that hangs over his central detective. The prose is stripped back and simple … deep emotion bubbling under the surface – the real turmoil of the characters’ lives just under the surface for the reader to intuit, rather than have it spelled out for them’ Doug Johnstone, The Big Issue ‘Gunnar Staalesen is one of my very favourite Scandinavian authors. Operating out of Bergen in Norway, his private eye, Varg Veum, is a complex but engaging anti-hero. Varg means “wolf ” in Norwegian, and this is a series with very sharp teeth’ Ian Rankin ‘Staalesen continually reminds us he is one of the finest of Nordic novelists’ Financial Times ‘Staalesen does a masterful job of exposing the worst of Norwegian society in this highly disturbing entry’ Publishers Weekly 'The Varg Veum series is more concerned with character and motivation than spectacle, and it’s in the quieter scenes that the real drama lies’ Herald Scotland 'Every inch the equal of his Nordic confreres Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo' Independent ‘With an expositional style that is all but invisible, Staalesen masterfully compels us from the first pages … If you’re a fan of Varg Veum, this is not to be missed, and if you’re new to the series, this is one of the best ones. You’re encouraged to jump right in, even if the Norwegian names can be a bit confusing to follow’ Crime Fiction Lover ‘With short, smart, darkly punchy chapters Wolves at the Door is a provocative and gripping read’ LoveReading ‘Haunting, dark and totally noir, a great read’ New Books Magazine ‘An upmarket Philip Marlowe’ Maxim Jakubowski, The Bookseller ‘Razor-edged Scandinavian crime fiction at its finest’ Quentin BatesTrade Review'Gunnar Staalesen is one of my very favourite Scandinavian authors. Operating out of Bergen in Norway, his private eye, Varg Veum, is a complex but engaging anti-hero. Varg means "wolf'" in Norwegian, and this is a series with very sharp teeth' Ian Rankin * 'Not many books hook you in the first chapter - this one did, and never let go!' Mari Hannah * 'One of Norway's most skilful storytellers' Johan Theorin * 'Razor-edged Scandinavian crime fiction at its finest' Quentin Bates

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2000. Part travel diary, part philosophy, part love story, Soul Mountain' is an elegant, unforgettable novel that journeys deep into the heart of modern-day China.In 1982 Chinese playwright, novelist and artist Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer, the very disease that had killed his father. For six weeks Gao inhabited a transcendental state of imminent death, treating himself to the finest foods he could afford while spending time reading in an old graveyard in the Beijing suburbs. But a secondary examination revealed there was no cancer he had won a reprieve from death' and had been thrown back into the world of the living.Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing. He travelled first to the ancient forests of central China and from there to the east coast, passing through eight provinces and seven nature reserves, a journey of fifteen thousand kilometres over a period of Trade Review‘Gao’s portraits of fellow wanderers, farmers and party officials are vivid and shine a light on their place and time. The language (wonderfully translated by Mabel Lee) is luminous and tactile…There’s a feeling of entering and moving through a place we had seen only through mist.’ Time Out ‘When he writes of his experiences in the real world, Gao transcends cultural barriers. A good story will out in any language, and when Gao is good he is staggeringly so. His writing about the Cultural Revolution is remarkable.’ Daily Telegraph ‘A picaresque novel on an epic scale…”Soul Mountain” bristles with narratives in miniature – stories from ancient Chinese history, folk tales, childhood reminiscences, memories of the Cultural Revolution, as well as bitter arguments and passionate sex. Gao’s aim is to represent “the ineffability of life”, and, as far as that is possible to do, he has done it in this complex, rich and strange novel.’ Independent on Sunday

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Book Synopsis ** Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month **The exhilarating new Inspector Adamsberg novel from France's multi-million-copy bestselling crime fiction star**A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020**'Adamsberg is one of my favourite detectives... I so enjoyed This Poison Will Remain' ANN CLEEVESAfter three elderly men are bitten by spiders, everyone assumes that their deaths are tragic accidents. But at police headquarters in Paris, Inspector Adamsberg begins to suspect that the case is far more complex than first appears.It isn't long before Adamsberg is investigating a series of rumours and allegations that take him to the south of France. Decades ago, at La Miséricorde orphanage, shocking events took place involving the same species of spider: the recluse.For Adamsberg, these haunting crimes hold the key to proving that the three men were targeted by an ingenious serial killer. His team, however, is not convinced. He must put his reputation on the line to trace the murderer before the death toll rises..._______________________PRAISE FOR THIS POISON WILL REMAIN:'Absorbing... Full of twists and spiced with Vargas's characteristic wit and style' PETER ROBINSON'Vargas is an addictive writer whose surreal touches create a curiously solid world' INDEPENDENT'Vargas's books are...cunning, corkscrew murder mysteries' A.J. FINNTrade ReviewThrilling… Breathtakingly original… A wildly inventive plot that puts Vargas’s real-life expertise (she is an archaeologist) to brilliant use * Sunday Times, Crime Book of the Month *I so enjoyed This Poison Will Remain, real vintage Vargas: playful, thought-provoking, a total delight. And beautifully translated. Adamsberg is one of my favourite detectives -- ANN CLEEVES, author of the Shetland seriesIn This Poison Will Remain, Fred Vargas has delivered an absorbing plot full of twists and spiced with her characteristic wit and style. Adamsberg is a terrific creation and his team of misfits a joy to watch in action -- PETER ROBINSON, author of the DCI Banks seriesFred Vargas’s books are murder mysteries, yes – cunning, corkscrew murder mysteries – but so much else besides: delicate comedies, engrossing tours of French geography and history, fascinating excursions into folklore and myth -- A.J. FINN, author of The Woman in the WindowVargas has as loving and sharp an eye for provincial French eccentrics as Simenon... Vargas is an addictive writer whose surreal touches create a curiously solid world * Independent *

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Book SynopsisTHE #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER''Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart'' New York TimesOlga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best.When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era''s dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed.Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west.This is the story of that love, of Olga''s devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.Translated from the German by Charlotte CollinsTrade ReviewFrom the author of The Reader comes a brilliant new novel about history and the nature of memory... The story of Olga, translated here from German by Charlotte Collins, is the story of Germany's modern history. It is also a study of memory... You should read this novel if you appreciate the power of history. How do we remember each other? As individuals, or as parts of a larger whole? As they were, or as we wish they had been? The narration can be breakneck: decades pass in single sentences, while other paragraphs describe mere moments. This is the effect of memory; lives are condensed into a series of experiences and relationships. One line still sticks in my head, in a letter from a Norwegian bookseller. "History is not the past as it really was. It's the shape we give it". * Evening Standard *A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance... Olga's story draws us into a present-day reckoning with Germany's past. * Mail on Sunday *A poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time. * Observer *Bernhard Schlink, one of Germany's best-loved authors, is famous beyond its borders for the international bestseller The Reader. Like that excellent novel, his latest, Olga, is a searching examination of modern Germany and its scarred soul... there's a sophisticated precision to his writing, which is superbly translated by Charlotte Collins. And in Schlink's macro look at Germany's past, it's the small acts - of kindness and humility - that linger. * Sunday Telegraph, Novel of the Week *This is not a straightforward elegy - and throughout the book, death is not an absolute end. Instead, Schlink frames the novel as a search for meaning, which dances in Olga between a multitude of timeframes and territories. Throughout, Charlotte Collins's translation is careful and beautifully paced * Financial Times *A compelling tale of love and thwarted dreams... Schlink's lucid, no-frills prose lends his novel immediacy, and at times potency, and gives us a character to root for. * The Herald *One of Bernhard Schlink's secrets stems from his art of telling stories by interweaving the standpoints of different generations in the very same life story. Olga is another very well-done example of that. * Le Monde *In this moving book Bernhard Schlink resurrects the last traces of an unfulfilled love, with his trademark, sophisticated nostalgia. * Le Nouvel Observateur *Bernhard Schlink, whose The Reader we haven't forgotten, impresses again with Olga. * Lire *Everything points towards Olga being a new bestseller which can pick up where the international success of The Reader left off. In other words: not to be missed! * SWR1 *Schlink is a brilliant stylist; this bittersweet love affair is deeply moving. * Hamburger Abendblatt *The third part of the novel - letters Olga writes to Herbert after he's set out for the Arctic - is the most beautiful. Here, the camera finally zooms in and we learn of Olga's feelings, how she's torn between hope and fear, love and anger at her lover, who has left her for a madcap expedition. * Spiegel *[Schlink] takes up motifs from his most famous work The Reader. Olga, who fights to be allowed to continue her education, seems like an alternative draft of the illiterate Hannah, whose lacking abilities led to her becoming a concentration camp guard during the Nazi era. * Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung *Olga is captivating. Bernhard Schlink tells the story in lucid, serene language. He is a master of this warm, pleasant tone, which has a hint of the old-fashioned to it. * Stern *Schlink tells a gripping, true-to-life story which startles you with its unforeseen twists, and not only makes you think, but feel too. * NDR Kultur *Schlink was and is an author for readers who love intelligently told stories. And they won't be disappointed by Olga. * Tages-Anzeiger, Zurich *

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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 SynopsisDriven to his deathbed by an incurable disease, the thirty-year-old impoverished gentleman Chulkaturin decides to write a diary looking back on his short life. After describing his youthful disillusionment and his family’s fall from grace and loss of status, the narrative focuses on his love for Liza, the daughter of a senior civil servant, his rivalry with the dashing Prince N. and his ensuing humiliation. These pages helped establish the archetype of the “superfluous man”, a recurring figure in nineteenth-century Russian literature. First published in 1850, ‘The Diary of a Superfluous Man’ was initially censored by the authorities, as some of its passages were deemed too critical of Russian society. This volume also includes two other masterly novellas, also touching on the theme of disappointed love: ‘Asya’ and ‘First Love’.Trade ReviewTurgenev to me is the greatest writer there ever was. -- Ernest Hemingway

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Book SynopsisOn his way back to Russia after some years spent in the West, Grigory Mikhailovich Litvinov, the son of a retired official of merchant stock, stops over in Baden-Baden to meet his fiancee Tatyana. However, a chance encounter with his old flame, the manipulative Irina - now married to a general and a prominent figure in aristocratic expatriate circles - unearths feelings buried deep inside the young man's heart, derailing his plans for the future and throwing his life into turmoil.Trade ReviewTurgenev to me is the greatest writer there ever was. -- Ernest Hemingway

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Book SynopsisYoung immigrant Karl Rossmann has a series of adventures in a vision of an ultra-modern America that is both fantasy and social satire. Full of incident, and blackly humorous, Kafka's first novel is newly translated by Ritchie Robertson in an edition that includes a full introduction and notes.

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Book SynopsisTells the story of Lucius, a curious and silly young man, who is turned into a donkey when he meddles with witchcraft. Doomed to wander from region to region and mistreated by a series of deplorable owners, Lucius at last is restored to human form with the help of the goddess Isis.Trade Review"Sarah Ruden’s superb translation of Alpuleis’s The Golden Ass illuminates this wonderful story with a brilliant modern wit."—Philip Pullman, The Observer"[B]rilliantly executed . . . Sarah Ruden’s new translation of Apuleius’ neo-platonist romp about a guy who magically turns into a donkey. . .conveys how truly bizarre the style of the original is."—Emily Wilson, Times Literary Supplement"This new translation of Apuleius’s novel stands alone for its accuracy and cleverly farcical rendering."—Bookseller’s Buyer’s Guide"This new translation of Apuleius’s novel stands alone for its accuracy and cleverly farcical rendering."—Bookseller’s Buyer’s Guide"A wonderful translation—highly inappropriate and great fun. In Sarah Ruden's hands, the verbal gymnastics are ridiculously enjoyable rather than merely ridiculous."—Amy Eisner, Maryland Institute College of Art

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the EBRD Literature Prize Since she's been ill, Lalla Fatma has become a frail little thing with a faltering memory. Lalla Fatma thinks she's in Fez in 1944, where she grew up, not in Tangier in 2000, where this story begins. She calls out to family members who are long dead and loses herself in the streets of her childhood, yearning for her first love and the city she left behind. By her bedside, her son Tahar listens to long-hidden secrets and stories from her past: married while still playing with dolls and widowed for the first time at the age of sixteen. Guided by these fragments, Tahar vividly conjures his mother's life in post-war Morocco, unravelling the story of a woman for whom resignation was the only way out. Tender and compelling, About My Mother maps the beautiful, fragile and complex nature of human experience, while paying tribute to a remarkable woman and the bond between mother and son.Trade Review'Ben Jelloun is arguably Morocco's greatest living author, whose impressive body of work combines intellect and imagination in magical fusion' Guardian; 'In any language, in any culture, Tahar Ben Jelloun would be a remarkable novelist' Sunday Telegraph; 'One of Morocco's most celebrated and translated writers' Asymptote; 'A traditional storyteller whose tales have the status of myth ... An important writer.' Times Literary Supplement; 'About My Mother pulses with life, invigorating the reader with every sentence.' World Literature Today; `A beautifully crafted novel' The New Arab

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewChambers's edition of Tales of Moonlight and Rain is well worthwhile... Highly Recommended. The Complete Review A shining new version of a living Japanese classic. Japan Times Japan scholars and people who just like weird, spooky stuff should enjoy this new edition of Akinari's classic. -- Brad Quinn Daily Yomiuri Chambers's new translation is a lucid addition to the handful of previous versions. -- James Lasdun's The GuardianTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Tales of Moonlight and Rain Preface Book One Shiramine The Chrysanthemum Vow Book Two The Reed-Choked House The Carp of My Dreams Book Three The Owl of the Three Jewels The Kibitsu Caldron Book Four A Serpent's Lust Book Five The Blue Hood On Poverty and Wealth Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis new translation includes Kafka's two published collections, A Country Doctor and A Hunger Artist with other, uncollected stories, aphorisms, and parables that have become part of the Kafka canon. Enigmatic, satirical, often bleakly humorous, the stories meditate on art and artists and the human experience. Includes an introduction and notes.Table of ContentsTHE AEROPLANES AT BRESCIA; A COUNTRY DOCTOR: LITTLE TALES; THE RIDER ON THE COAL-SCUTTLE; A HUNGER ARTIST: FOUR STORIES; BLUMFELD, AN ELDERLY BACHELOR; AT THE BUILDING OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA; THE HUNTSMAN GRACCHUS; INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG; THE BURROW; SELECTED SHORTER PIECES; APHORISMS

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Book SynopsisEvery morning Håkan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. Then, one day he fails to come home.Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved but Håkan''s son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier Håkan was eager to talk to Kurt about a controversial incident from his past. Could this be connected to his disappearance? When Håkan''s wife also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth but the investigation will force him to look back over his own past, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us...Trade ReviewA heartbreaking tale of descent into despair and darkness that serves as a totem for what great crime writing can achieve -- Declan Burke * Irish Times *Magnificent * Financial Times *By the time you get to the end, you'll be wanting another. But it would be hard to beat this tale of murder and loss which leads back to the heart of the cold war * Daily Mirror *A plot as twisted and exciting as any Le Carre thriller * Daily Mail *It's a fine finale for the fretful policeman and it's hard not to feel you'll miss the old bugger -- Siobhan Murphy * Metro *

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Book SynopsisA Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Van Veeteren faces a chilling case in Håkan Nesser's Hour of the Wolf, the seventh book to feature Chief Inspector Van Veeteren. In the dead of night, in the pouring rain, a drunk driver smashes his car into a young man. He abandons the body at the side of the road, but the incident will set in motion a chain of events which will change his life forever. Soon Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, now retired from the Maardam police force, will face his greatest trial yet as someone close to him is, inexplicably, murdered. Van Veeteren's former colleagues, desperate for answers, struggle to decipher the clues to this appalling crime. But when another body is discovered, it gradually becomes clear that this killer is acting on their own terrifying logic . . .Hour of the Wolf is followed by book eight in the series, The WeepinTrade Review‘Hakan Nesser, the godfather of Swedish crime … His Van Veeteren novels have a puckishness and sprightliness that too often elude his younger, gloomier pretenders … Nesser has thus far only been a minor player in the British Nordic crime scene: Hour of the Wolf should be the book to change that’ Metro‘The Swedish novelist Hakan Nesser is in another league, exhibiting a skill and consistency rare in crime ¬fiction. Hour of the Wolf, translated by Laurie Thompson is one of his finest novels, starting with a road accident and unravelling its terrible consequences. The victim is a 16-year-old boy, struck by a car while walking home late at night, and the accident sets in motion a series of murders. One of the victims is related to Nesser’s detective, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, who has retired to become an antiquarian bookseller. The ex-policeman’s old team rallies to obtain justice for their much-loved former boss in a novel that combines a clever plot with authentic emotion’ Sunday Times‘All the tropes of Scandinavian crime: physical and metaphysical gloom, desolate landscapes and circumscribed lives. However, it is a grown-up, rather than a depressing read. The investigating cops are skilfully differentiated and their banter is amusing. As for the plot … it contains enough twists to keep you reading through the Bergmanesque darkness’ Mark Sanderson, Evening Standard‘Of the Nordic crime writers currently holding readers’ attention in an unbreakable grip, Håkan Nesser is comfortably the most anglocentric. Nesser himself has a notably dry and ironic sense of humour, more redolent of this island than Sweden, and intermittently makes London his home. He also has something in common with another great generator of suspense, Leytonstone-born Alfred Hitchcock: a preoccupation with guilt and the way in which crime draws everyone connected with it into a dark moral miasma – as in the latest book to reach these shores, Hour of the Wolf . . . All this is dispatched with the assurance that readers have come to expect from the author of such quietly compelling crime fiction as The Return and Woman With Birthmark. As before with Nesser, we are reminded of the writer Ruth Rendell in the coolly methodical fashion in which lives are destroyed by a crime, those of both the victims and the perpetrators . . . there is not a single misstep as the grim implications of the narrative are teased out. And — as with Hitchcock — the guilt of a single character becomes a kind of amorphous mass, affecting everyone involved, muddying moral distinctions’ Independent‘Nesser, an award-winning writer who has sold millions worldwide, has an easy style which pulls the reader along nicely...Comparisons with other Scandinavian thriller writers don’t work as Nesser has a style all his own, making him a writer who needs to be on the bookshelves of all crime fans. And in Van Veeteren he has created a hero who is easy to like' Edinburgh Evening News ‘All too chillingly plausible tale’ Daily Mail‘If Scandinavian gloom lights your candle, Håkan Nesser’s Hour of the Wolf will have you howling with pleasure . . . Desolate landscapes and quirky characters are described with impressive skill’ Evening Standard ‘Best books for summer 2012‘

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Book SynopsisAmid the lush abundance of Java's landscape, two boys spend their days exploring the vast lakes and teeming forests. But as time passes the boys come to realize that their shared sense of adventure cannot bridge the gulf between their backgrounds, for one is the son of a Dutch plantation owner, and the other the son of a servant. Inevitably, as they grow up, they grow estranged and it is not until years later that they meet again. It will be an explosive and emblematic meeting that marks them even more deeply than their childhood friendship did.Trade ReviewUnostentatious charm... an instant classic -- Emma Hagestadt * Independent *A book that truly breathes... It can break, haunt and stir you... Haasse has a fine, exact way with her story... Mesmerisingly lovely and then suddenly shocking; you have to react. After 60 or more years, and in a quite different world, it is still a wake-up call... Perfect -- Michael Pye * Scotsman *Distinguished, composed with intense concentration, with a cruel heart-breaking climax and a brave, passionate coda... [It] demands several readings... Immaculately constructed -- Paul Binding * Times Literary Supplement *An understated little gem of a book and this fresh and vibrant translation is an event worthy of a wholehearted welcome * New Internationalist *A translation as fresh as any Booker nominee... beautifully judged and a genuinely intriguing insight into the end of a European empire -- Thomas Quinn * Big Issue *Beautiful... conceived and executed with intelligence and grace * Three Percent *A classic * Good Reading Copy *

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Book SynopsisTeffi's genius with the short form made her a literary star in pre-revolutionary Russia, beloved by Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin alike. These stories, taken from the whole of her career, show the full range of her gifts. Extremely funny - a wry, scathing observer of society - she is also capable, as capable even as Chekhov, of miraculous subtlety and depth of character. There are stories here from her own life (as a child, going to meet Tolstoy to plead for the life of War and Peace's Prince Bolkonsky, or, much later, her strange, charged meetings with the already-legendary Rasputin). There are stories of émigré society, its members held together by mutual repulsion. There are stories of people misunderstanding each other or misrepresenting themselves. And throughout there is a sly, sardonic wit and a deep, compelling intelligence.

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Book SynopsisOnly yesterday, Gregor Samsa was a meek salesman, browbeaten by his unappreciative employer and depended on fiercely by his ungrateful family. This morning, Gregor awakens to discover that, overnight, he has been transformed into a monstrous insect. As Gregor frantically tries to conceal his predicament, neither his family nor his unsympathetic employer accept that a terrible metamorphosis has upended his existence. Is Gregor's condition only temporary? Will he eventually revert back to the person he was and resume his normal life? Or might he have to accept that his transformation is only an outward expression of how heand those in his lifeactually see him? First published in 1915, Kafka's best-known tale has inspired numerous interpretations for more than a century and helped to establish the term Kafkaesque as a reference to a bizarre and nightmarish experience. This collection of his short fiction, in a new translation, includes more than 30 of his short stories and sketches, inclu

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Book SynopsisResurrection (1899) is the last of Tolstoy''s major novels. It tells the story of a nobleman''s attempt to redeem the suffering his youthful philandering inflicted on a peasant girl who ends up a prisoner in Siberia.Tolstoy''s vision of redemption achieved through loving forgiveness, and his condemnation of violence, dominate the novel. An intimate, psychological tale of guilt, anger, and forgiveness, Resurrection is at the same time a panoramic description of social life in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century, reflecting its author''s outrage at the social injustices of the world in which he lived.This edition, which updates a classic translation, has explanatory notes and a substantial introduction based on the most recent scholarship in the field. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewTolstoy magisterially condemns society's social inequities by holding a mirror up to its flawed face; gripping and sombre. * The Observer *

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Book SynopsisComing back to the "nest" of his family home in Russia after years of fruitless endeavours away from his roots, Lavretsky decides to turn his back on the vacuous salons of Paris and his frivolous and unfaithful wife Varvara Pavlovna. On his return he meets Liza, the daughter of one of his cousins, whom he had known when they were children and who rekindles in him long-smothered feelings of love. News of Varvara's death arrive from France, offering Lavretsky the prospect of a new life, but a cruel twist threatens to shatter his dreams and forces him to re-evaluate his plans. Hailed as a masterpiece of Russian literature, A Nest of the Gentry - Turgenev's most successful and widely read novel, here presented in a new translation by Michael Pursglove - deals with the personal struggles of the individual in a period of turbulent social change.Trade ReviewTurgenev to me is the greatest writer there ever was. -- Ernest Hemingway

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Book SynopsisThis is the story of Isak, a worker of the land, with its roots in man's deepest myths about the struggle to cultivate the land and make it fertile. Sweeping and panoramic, the story moves at the pace of the passing seasons and with the growth of the crops on which the characters' lives depend.Hamsun's themes of individual freedom, and the fundamental human need to reconcile man with the natural world, speak even more resonantly than when the novel was first published.Trade ReviewOne of the great writers of this century... Hamsun's novels have the simplicity of total self-possession. * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisNot so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous Angiolina-except that his angel just happens to be an unapologetic cheat. But what begins as a comedy of infatuated misunderstanding ends in tragedy, as Emilio's jealous persistence in his folly-against his friends' and devoted sister's advice, and even his own best knowledge-leads to the loss of the one person who, too late, he realizes he truly loves. Marked by deep humanity and earthy humor, by psychological insight and an elegant simplicity of style, As a Man Grows Older (Senilità, in Italian; the English title was the suggestion of Svevo's great friend and admirer, James Joyce) is a brilliant study of hopeless love and hapless indecision. It is a masterwork of Italian literature, here beautifully rendered into English in Beryl de Zoete's classic translation.

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Book SynopsisThe Flanders Road' is not only a masterpiece of stylistic innovation, but also a haunting portrayal - based on a real-life incident - of the chaos and savagery of war.Trade ReviewHis imagination, working through the controlled riot of words, flames and flares magnificently, and nowhere is he better than in conveying the sense of disintegration that overtook the French in 1940. * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThe Overnight Kidnapper is the twenty-third Inspector Montalbano mystery, from the international bestselling author Andrea Camilleri.After a hectic morning involving two rather irritating cases of mistaken identity, Inspector Montalbano finally arrives in his office ready to find out what’s troubling Vigàta this week. What he discovers is unnerving. A woman on her way home from work has been held up at gunpoint, chloroformed and kidnapped, but then released just hours later – unharmed and with all her possessions – into the open countryside.Later that day, Montalbano hears from Enzo, the owner of his favourite restaurant, that his niece has recently been the victim of the exact same crime. Before long, a third instance of this baffling overnight kidnapping has been reported. As far as Montalbano can tell, there is no link between the attacker and the victims. So what exactly is this mystery assailant gaining from these fleeting kidnappings? And what can he do to stop them? Montalbano must use all his logic and intuition if he is to answer these pressing questions before the kidnapper finds his next victim . . .The Overnight Kidnapper is followed by the twenty-fourth gripping Montalbano mystery, The Other End of the Line.Trade ReviewMontalbano’s colleagues, chance encounters, Sicilian mores, even the contents of his fridge are described with the wit and gusto that make this narrator the best company in crime fiction today * Guardian *Among the most exquisitely crafted pieces of crime writing available today . . . Simply superb * Sunday Times *One of fiction’s greatest detectives and Camilleri is one of Europe’s greatest crime writers * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisWhite Shroud (Balta drobule, 1958) is considered by many to be Lithuania's most important work of modernist fiction. Drawing heavily on the author's own refugee and immigrant experience, this psychological, stream-of-consciousness work tells the story of an emigre poet working as a bellhop in a large New York hotel during the mid-1950s. Via multiple narrative voices and streams, the novel moves through sharply contrasting settings and stages in the narrator's life in Lithuania before and during WWII, returning always to New York and the recent immigrant's struggle to adapt to a completely different, and indifferent, modern world. Skema uses language and allusion to destabilise, drawing the reader into an intimate, culturally and historically specific world to explore universal human themes of selfhood, alienation, creativity and cultural difference. Written from the perspective of a newcomer to an Anglophone country, the novel encourages an understanding of the complexities of immigrant life.

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Book Synopsis The Cook of the Halcyon is the penultimate novel in the Inspector Montalbano mystery series from the master of Sicilian crime, Andrea Camilleri.Moments later the all-white schooner, which looked like a hospital ship, began to pass ever so slowly before him, as if wanting to show itself off in all its beauty. The name on the prow said: Halcyon.Two deaths – the suicide of a recently fired worker and the murder of an unscrupulous businessman – lead Inspector Montalbano to the Halcyon, a mysterious ship that visits Vigàta’s port each day. With very few crewmen, no passengers, and a stern large enough to land a helicopter, it piques the Inspector’s interest straight away. In the midst of this, a rare trip to Genoa to visit Livia ends with the Vigàta police department in disarray, and Inspector Montalbano’s position as the head of the commissariat in jeopardy. It will be up to Montalbano to fix the damage done.Trade ReviewMontalbano’s colleagues, chance encounters, Sicilian mores, even the contents of his fridge are described with the wit and gusto that make this narrator the best company in crime fiction today * Guardian *Among the most exquisitely crafted pieces of crime writing available today . . . Simply superb * Sunday Times *One of fiction’s greatest detectives and Camilleri is one of Europe’s greatest crime writers * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisAndres, an Estonian peasant, purchases a smallholding in a marshy part of the country, which the novel is named after. He takes his young wife, and an incident with their cow sets the tone for a life of struggle in which the family grows and gradually lifts itself out of extreme poverty. They don’t only have to strive against the elements, but also against their neighbour Pearu, a wily and ruthless man. This Tolstoyan epic amongst the peasantry and the restless city (in volumes 2 – 4) tells the story of how Tsarist Estonia developed into the First Republic through the experiences of a family and in particular the partly autobiographical character of Indrek, who leaves the land to get an education at the end of this volume. This monumental work by Estonia’s greatest writer is a European classic which has for too long been neglected in the English-speaking world.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE PRIX ANAÏS NIN Jeanne moves from room to room. In the anonymous hotel bedrooms of Paris - Hotel Agate, Hotel Prince Albert, Hotel Prince Monceau, Hotel Coypel, Hotel Nord & Champagne - she undresses man after man, forgetting faces, names, pleasures, thoughts, and all physical attributes but one. In her head, a palace of memories is being built, image by new image, lover by new lover. There is no pathologizing Jeanne; she resists it. There is no way to impose a story on Jeanne; she escapes it. There is no pitying Jeanne, no lusting after Jeanne, no uncovering the secret to Jeanne; she won't allow it. Jeanne moves from room to room.Trade Review[T]ranslator Laura Francis does a fine job of capturing Leger's poise and poetry... t's a reminder of how rare it still is to have a female gaze on the aesthetic aspects of sex... Leger's writing is doing something different...cool, detached, specific... Genuinely fresh * Observer *A sustained assault on the authority of the phallus. . . Like a flickering pornographic video breaking up into pixels, [Jeanne] dissolves before us. . . In being nobody in particular, she can be anybody. . . there is a serious argument here * Sunday Times *[The Collection is a] provocative novel...creating a new kind of sex writing, in the surreal shapes and syntax of a direct yet viscous, particulate prose. . . In Laura Francis's supple translation, Leger's novel challenges, mesmerises, and impresses... it knowingly complicates its genre, offering a tantalising glimpse of a female desire unburdened by the debt of explanation...daring, direct and richly imagined * Arts Desk *Utterly brilliant. I love how Leger has taken a depersonalised perspective to open up such an intimate subject - this intrinsically erotic disparity has produced a completely fresh cliché-free kind of sex writing -- Claire-Louise BennettWith her unapologetic, searching heroine, and her refusal to answer 'why', Nina Leger opens up spaces of possibility in the reader. She draws us into a complex world of pleasure with a language as striking and sharp as the erotic imagination at play is tender, vulnerable and wild -- Saskia VogelI revelled in Jeanne's mesmeric, nihilistic sex life. The Collection is filled with slight-of-hand sensuality. Choreographic in its treatment of the gendered gaze -- Eli GoldstoneLeger's rendering of Jeanne's penile preoccupation is virtuosic and precise while also surprising, even surrealist. . .The Collection is short and focused... [Leger's] book is urgently necessary: because there are still men out there who don't understand how rare and revolutionary it is for a woman to write about what their penises look like to her. For a woman to adopt the surrealist approach, and show, for once, a man in pieces * Guardian *[A] bold, mischievous novel. . . truly fresh. . . a distinctive and evocative novel. . . A book for adventurous readers * Dublin Sunday Business Post *I am gripped by its weirdness...Jeanne's insatiable libido and darkly comic fixation on grotesque penises in The Collection defy the patriarchal archetype of female desire * frieze *

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Book SynopsisA banker hanged from Gallows Rock... An unknown child discovered in his flat...Iceland's Queen of Crime is back with a chillingly dark murder mystery.Trade ReviewPraise for Gallows Rock * : *Nail-biting... Iceland's long dark nights are at their most minatory in Sigurðardóttir's atmospheric thrillers * Financial Times *Sigurdardottir is as confident a writer as ever * The Sunday Times *The multi-award winning Icelandic writer has a growing UK fan base. The fourth thriller featuring child psychologist Freyja and detective Hulder, is as chilling as Scandi noir should be * Peterborough Telegraph *Sigurðardóttir hooks her readers very quickly... Eventually, justice is done and the loose ends are satisfactorily tied up * Literary Review *Pacey dealing out of the plot twists amid uniquely Icelandic characters and circumstances * The Sunday Times Crime Club *You'll devour it with fascination and you'll be head over heels with Sigurðardóttir's writing * Daily Record *Packs an all too timely punch - 5 Stars * Heat *Well-paced police procedural with a twist you may not see coming * Choice Magazine *

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Book SynopsisDoctor Pascal is the twentieth and final novel in Zola's great Rougon-Macquart series. Pascal Rougon has spent his life chronicling the hereditary patterns and illnesses of his family, using medicine to attempt cures, whilst his niece Clotilde places her faith in God.Trade ReviewThe excellence of this particular edition is consistent with the standard set by the indefatigable Brian Nelson who has been responsible for almost half the translations of the preceding Rougon-Macquart novels. * Robert Lethbridge, Journal of European Studies *As a translator, Australian Julie Rose is able to encompass the wide range of moods within Zola's writing. [..] Rose's Zola comes alive in a way that feels entirely fresh and very much its own thing. * Peter Boyle, The Australian *Table of ContentsIntroduction Translator's Note Select Bibliography A Chronology of Émile Zola Family Tree of the Rougon-Macquart Doctor Pascal Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisIn the city of Yong’an, a fiction writer and amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures, with their greenish stomachs or gills or strange birthmarks, live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness, some with ancient forbears, others engineered as artificial breeds.Guided – and often misguided – by her elusive university professor and his scrappy sidekick-student Zhong Liang, our narrator finds herself on a mission to track down each species. And as she blunders from one implausible situation to the next, she comes one step closer to revealing her own multifaceted beastliness…Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China addresses existential questions of identity, being, love and morality with whimsy and grace.

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Book Synopsis**THE No.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER****A THE TIMES TOP 10 CRIME BOOK OF THE DECADE**HARRY HOLE'S DEADLIEST ENEMY IS BACK... AND OUT FOR BLOODHarry is in a bad place: Rakel has left him, he's working cold cases and notorious murderer Svein Finne is back on the streets.THE FIRST KILLER HARRY PUT BEHIND BARS IS OUT TO GET HIM.Harry is responsible for the many years Finne spent in prison but now he's free and ready to pick up where he left off.A MAN LIKE HARRY BETTER WATCH HIS BACK.When Harry wakes up with blood on his hands, and no memory of what he did the night before, he knows everything is only going to get worse...'This is the king of Norwegian crime on top form' Observer*JO NESBO HAS SOLD OVER 55 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE*The explosive new Harry Hole thriller Killing Moon is out now!Jo Nesbo was a Sunday Times number one bestseller with Macbeth on 20/09/2018Trade ReviewKnife shows Nesbo back on form… This is a police procedural that breaks the bounds of the format with abandon… Nesbo manhandles the reader into contented…submission * Financial Times *The sharp-as-a-knife Nesbo at his best. A first-class mix of thriller and murder mystery... Nesbo has done it again... Knife is a fantastic and exhilarating suspense novel * Dagbladet *Skilfully plotted…Nesbo…uses the vast, cold landscapes of Norway to excellent effect in building dread * UK Press Syndication *Nesbo weaves the strands of his elaborate narrative with the ease of a gifted storyteller, tantalising the reader with misdirections and a plateful of red herrings. Yet it's remarkable how quickly he can disentrangle an intricate plot. And momentum? He's a genius at that - the 500-plus pages just fly by...never underestimate Nesbo - he's a writer with a seemingly endless supply of stories to tell * The Times *[Knife] may be Nesbo’s best storytelling yet. It’s not just clever; it’s diabolical, and let’s be glad it is, because the corkscrewing plot provides a measure of relief from the pain on view in this uncompromisingly intense and brilliant novel * Booklist *

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Book SynopsisLord of All the Dead is a courageous journey into Javier Cercas'' family history and that of a country collapsing from a fratricidal war. The author revisits Ibahernando, his parents'' village in southern Spain, to research the life of Manuel Mena. This ancestor, dearly loved by Cercas'' mother, died in combat at the age of nineteen during the battle of the Ebro, the bloodiest episode in Spain''s history. Who was Manuel Mena? A fascist hero whose memory is an embarrassment to the author, or a young idealist who happened to fight on the wrong side? And how should we judge him, as grandchildren and great-grandchildren of that generation, interpreting history from our supposed omniscience and the misleadingperspective of a present full of automatic answers, that fails to consider the particularities of each personal and family drama?Wartime epics, heroism and death are some of the underlying themes of this unclassifiable novel that combines road trips, personTrade ReviewThere is no-one writing in English like this: engaged humanity achieving a hard-won wisdom -- David Mills * The Times *A remarkable act of personal history: brave, revelatory and unflinchingly honest -- William BoydCercas' candid wranglings with how to tell this tale, his own deep discomfort and the grave maturity with which he acknowledges he can't feel morally superior to Mena make him a wonderfully warm and wise guide through this sad, small chapter of the Spanish Civil War. -- Siobhan Murphy * The Times *One of the strengths of Lord of All the Dead is the breadth of its subject matter. . . In this elegant and penetrating narrative Cercas shows us how important it is that Mena's life is not forgotten -- Nick Major * Glasgow Herald *It's a subversive and disenchanted view of war in general and the Spanish conflict in particular, in a fine translation by Anne McLean . . . It can be moving, unexpectedly funny,racy, demotic or deadpan. -- Lee Langley * Spectator *An excellent novel . . . fascinating both in its exploration of the past and in the playful creativity of its own narrative. -- Ángel Basanta * El Cultural *An admirable novel, truly unique -- Alberto Moreiras * La marea *Only Cercas could have written a novel like this, at the peak of his maturity as a writer; he is one of the best we have -- José María Pozuelo Yvancos * ABC *A brave, persuasive novel -- José-Carlos Mainer * El País *A powerful work of D.I.Y. history . . . It may help Spaniards, and people further afield, to better understand the lure of Fascism, a pressing task in today's world" * New Yorker *

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