Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisA kind of miracle Not only made me laugh (again and again) but brought tears to my eyes' Jonathan FranzenOne of the most brilliant satirical novels about life in East Berlin' New York TimesThomas Brussig's classic German satire, translated into English for the first time and introduced by Jonathan Franzen, is a comedic, moving account of life in East Berlin before the Fall of the Berlin WallThe Short End of the Sonnenallee, is a satire set, literally, on the Sonnenallee, the famed boulevard of the sun in East Berlin.Within this boulevard lives Michael, an adolescent who faces daily ridicule whenever he steps out of his apartment building and comes into view of the observation platform on the West side. Look, a real Zonie. Can we take your picture? Hopelessly in love with the most beautiful girl on the street, Michael is batted away in favour of the Western boys who are free to cross the border. What chance does Michael have, and how much trouble will he get into by pursuing her?Laugh-Trade Review‘One of the most brilliant satirical novels about life in East Berlin, in the shadow of the wall’ New York Times ‘Gentle comedy … The fullness of Eastern lives, and their human ordinariness – despite the emptiness and abnormality of the background against which they were lived – is the subject of Brussig’s funny, rueful book’ Telegraph ‘The slim episodic novel The Short End of the Sonnenallee, which was set around the mid-1980s among East Berlin adolescents and evokes their world of feelings and experiences right down to the unfussy syntax, is the purest, brightest, most tender poetry of resistance’ Die Zeit

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of the bestselling Suite Française.Le Bal is a sharp, brittle story of a girl who sets out to ruin the mother she hates. The Kampfs have risen swiftly up the ranks of 1930s Parisian society. Painfully aware of her working-class roots, and desperate to win acceptance, Madame Kampf decides to throw a huge ball to announce her arrival to society. Her daughter Antoinette, who has just turned fourteen, dreams of attending, but Madame Kampf is resolved not to present her daughter to potential admirers. In a fury of adolescent rage and despair, Antoinette exacts a swift and horrible revenge...Snow in Autumn pays homage to Némirovsky''s beloved Chekhov and chronicles the life of a devoted servant following her masters as they flee Revolutionary Moscow and emigrate to a life of hardship in Paris. As the crisis pushes the family to the brink of dissolution, Tatiana struggles to adapt to life in Paris and waits in vain for her cherishTrade ReviewWith its cool, understated prose and sharp psychological accuracy, this is perfect for a train journey... A reminder of what good writing can achieve in a very few words * The Times *A cruel, sophisticated tale making the terrible beautiful without diminishing for one moment the horrors of displacement and war * Guardian *A genuine artist -- Julian BarnesThis book is a masterpiece * Sunday Express *It is quite outstanding, full of beauty, pain and truth... We are lucky to have this book * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisWritten in alternating chapters, W or the Memory of Childhood, tells two parallel tales, in two parts. One is a story created in childhood and about childhood. The other story is about two people called Gaspard Winckler: one an eight-year-old deaf-mute lost in a shipwreck, the other a man despatched to search for him, who discovers W, an island state based on the rules of sport. As the two tales move in and out of focus, the disturbing truth about the island of W reveals itself. Perec combines fiction and autobiography in unprecedented ways, allowing no easy escape from these stories, or from history.Trade ReviewPerec was a haunted writer, haunted by his Jewish ancestry, by the Holocaust that coincided with his own orphaned childhood, by the death of his father in 1940 and his mother's disappearance in Auschwitz. Writing, for him, was an act of exorcism * Sunday Times *A strange and complicated book, a work of tremendous, silenced emotion * Observer *His brilliant and profound memoir-fantasy deserves to be recognised for what it is: a masterpiece * Guardian *The childhood story of 'W' carries Perec's confused conception of the concentration camps...bewilderingly sad * Independent *Perec was a polymathic genius, and his early death in 1982 (he was only 45) robbed France of its most dazzling experimental writer, one who tried everything and failed at nothing...He has, deservedly, become a cult in France, particularly with young Parisians, who instinctively (and rightly) identify him as the super-zapper, the biographer of their fragmented consumer culture, of which he was himself the creation. * Glasgow Herald *

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Book SynopsisA NEW TRANSLATION BY ADAM THORPEA great novel that is also an inexhaustible pleasure to read'' GuardianEmma Bovary is an avid reader of sentimental novels; brought up on a Normandy farm and convent-educated, she longs for romance. At first, Emma pins her hopes on marriage, but life with her well-meaning husband in the provinces leaves her bored and dissatisfied. She seeks escape through extravagant spending sprees and, eventually, adultery. As Emma pursues her impossible reverie she seals her own ruin. Madame Bovary is one of the greatest, most beguiling novels ever written.Thorpe''s new translation is stunning and heartily recommendedScotsmanThorpe''s new translation is to die for'Independent[Thorpe's] hard work has yielded beauty. The rhythms are perfectly judged, unexpected enough to make the reader attend to every word'Robert Chandler, TLSTrade ReviewMagnificent. I insist everyone reads Adam Thorpe's new translation. * Vogue *A handsomely bound hardback edition that perfectly befits the beautiful new translation therein... we are pretty confident that Thorpe's bash at Bovary is a contender for the new best English version out there. Sensitive and musical, and simply and wittily annotated, it's got "new classic" written all over it. Plus it's dressed in this really elegant embroidered design by Karen Nichols, so everything gangs up and makes it basically a must-buy. * Dazed and Confused *Flaubert's 1856 novel begins with marriage and what follows is the archetypal tale of a desperate housewife * Daily Telegraph *Mesmerising * Independent *The most scandalous novel of all time * Playboy *

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Book SynopsisNikolai Leskov was born in 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo in Russia. He began his writing career as a journalist living in Kiev, and later settled in St. Petersburg. He published his first piece of fiction in 1862 in The Northern Bee, and continued on to write and publish many short stories and novellas, including The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), The Sealed Angel (1873), The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), and Lefty (1882). He died in February 1895.Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Gogol. They were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation prize. They live in Paris.Trade ReviewI don’t know why Nikolai Leskov is not better known: he’s one of the best… You don’t just feel the falling snowflakes and smell the hay – you glimpse where God might be -- Sara Wheeler * Observer *Nikolai Leskov is one of the greatest and most popular of the wonderful group of Russian storytellers who flourished in the nineteenth century * New York Times Book Review *Serious criticism ignored him but his tales succeeded instantly with the public... No-one catches so truthfully the diversity of national character of his time. His variety is astonishing... Leskov has both feet in life -- V.S. PritchettOn Lady Macbbeth of Mtensk: 'Short, sharp and shocking novel...It is a strikingly modern work, a sort of souped-up Madame Bovary in which the anti-heroine, the bored provincial housewife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, is gripped by an excessive passion for a seductive farmhand. She's hardboiled as any Chandler dame as her ardour for her low-born lover takes her down a jet-black road of cruelty and murder' -- Sunday TelegraphNikolai Leskov fully deserves the privilege of standing in line with such makers of Russian literature as Tolstoi, Gogol, Turgenev and Goncharov. In power and beauty, Leskov's talent cedes only a little to the talent of any one of these men I have named - the creators of the Holy Bible of the Russian land - but in breadth of exposition, in depth of understanding of life's riddles, and in knowledge of the Russian language, he very often surpasses his predecessors and fellow writers -- Maxim Gorky

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Book SynopsisA rich and unforgettable tragic-comic novel of sexual intrigue and political scheming, The House of Ulloa is one of the greatest works of nineteenth-century Spanish literature.The House of Ulloa follows pure and pious Father Julián Alvarez, who is sent to a remote country estate to put the affairs of the marquis, an irresponsible libertine, in order. When he discovers moral decadence, cruelty and corruption at his new home, Julián''s well-meaning but ineffectual attempts to prevent the fall of the House of Ulloa end in tragedy. Combining gothic elements with humour and social satire, The House of Ulloa is the finest achievement of Emilia Pardo Bazán, a prolific writer, feminist, traveller and intellectual, and one of the most dynamic figures of her time.Brilliantly balancing biting satire and gothic undertones, and evoking a rich sense of place, this is a wonderful novel that deserves to be ranked with the other great books of the period. The Countess Emilia Pardo Bazán was born in 1851 and married at sixteen. After separating from her husband, she embarked on an affair with novelist Benito Pérez Galdós. The House of Ulloa (1886) is generally considered as her masterpiece among her many literary works. Professor Paul O''Prey is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Roehampton, London. Lucia Graves has translated works by Robert Graves, Anaïs Nin, Katherine Mansfield and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and is the author of a memoir, A Woman Unknown, and a novel, The Memory House.''An absolutely first-rate novelist [...] Bazán''s genius lies in the way she mixes comedy, farce, realism and heightened-pitch hysteria with a dash of gothic [...] People may travel by donkey in this book, but it could have been written yesterday'' - Nick Lezard, Guardian''Pardo Bazán''s mastery of social types and of the political currents that swirled around the liberal revolution are unsurpassed in Spanish literature ... O''Prey and Graves ... avoid awkward literalisms while nonetheless remaining true to the spirit of the original'' New CriterionTrade ReviewAn absolutely first-rate novelist [...] Bazán's genius lies in the way she mixes comedy, farce, realism and heightened-pitch hysteria with a dash of gothic [...] People may travel by donkey in this book, but it could have been written yesterday -- Nick Lezard * Guardian *Pardo Bazán's mastery of social types and of the political currents that swirled around the liberal revolution are unsurpassed in Spanish literature ... O'Prey and Graves ... avoid awkward literalisms while nonetheless remaining true to the spirit of the original -- New Criterion

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Book SynopsisLiterally meaning ''Pillow of Grass'', Kusamakura is Soseki''s portrayal of an artist who opposes convention and logic, and shuns emotional involvement. Soseki''s artist attempts to live as a hermit using other people as his stimuli for his sensations and reflections. The artist fluently and prolifically composes poetry, but finds himself unable to paint - despite befriending a beautiful young divorcee. He remains emotionally distanced from her for a long time and it is only one day when he sees compassion in her eyes that he finds himself able to paint her, but also reconnected with the emotional undercurrents he had hitherto tried to avoid, thereby ending his retreat from the world. Siseko''s beautiful and haikuesque novel is infused with his own musings on art and nature, and helped to establish the novel as a major literary form in Japan.

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Book SynopsisThis volume contains new translations of four of Pushkin's best works of fiction. The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories, in which Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. The Tales of Belkin are witty parodies of sentimentalism, while Peter the Great's Blackamoor is an early experiment with recreating the past. The Captain's Daughter is a novel-length masterpiece which combineshistorical fiction in the manner of Sir Walter Scott with the devices of the Russian fairy-tale. The introduction provides close readings of the stories and places them in their European literary context.Trade ReviewHe is a great story-teller, the Toby Litt of his day, you might say, and this translation knocks all the others I have seen (two) into a cocked hat. Terrific. * Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian *The Queen of Spades is surely Pushkin's prose masterpiece, one of the greatest short stories ever written and the source of Tchaikovsky's opera. * The Irish Times (Dublin) *Table of ContentsTales of The Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin ; The Queen of Spades ; The Captain's Daughter ; Peter The Great's Blackamoor

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Book SynopsisWriting towards the close of the nineteenth century, Chekhov - himself a country doctor - recorded in his fiction the symptoms of a diseased society. The seven stories collected here are a bleakly savage indictment of a society paralysed by spiritual malaise, and morbidly conscious of evils which can neither be killed nor cured. This volume also contains an Introduction by Ronald Hingley. 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.Table of ContentsThe Butterfly ; Ward Number Six ; Ariadne ; A Dreary Story ; Neighbours ; An Anonymous Story ; Doctor Startsev

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Book SynopsisThree Tales offers an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world''s greatest novelists. A Simple Heart is set in the Normandy of Flaubert''s childhood, while Saint Julian and Herodias draw on medieval myth and the biblical story of John the Baptist for their inspiration. Each of the tales invites comparison with one or other of Flaubert''s novels, but they also reveal a fresh and distinctive side to the writers''s genius. 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 Review`A. J. Krailsheimer's new translation adheres more faithfully to Flaubert's idiosyncratic sentence structures...authentically captures the original's elliptical nature, with its ghostly authorial voice.' * Sunday Telegraph *`Intensely brilliant prose from the acclaimed author of Madame Bovary. These classic tales reflect Flaubert`s talent as a witty narrator and in particular A Simple Heart presents a wonderfully evocative portrait of 19th Century France.' * Wales on Sunday *Table of ContentsA Simple Heart ; The Legend of Saint Julian The Hospitaller ; Herodias

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories * Guardian *A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness * Independent *The most addictive of writers . . . a unique teller of tales * Observer *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories * Guardian *A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness * Independent *The most addictive of writers . . . a unique teller of tales * Observer *

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Book Synopsis''The father of contemporary European detective fiction'' Ann Cleeves''He hadn''t seen her arrive. She had stopped on the pavement a few steps away from him and was peering into the courtyard of the Police Judiciaire, where the small staff cars were parked. She ventured as far as the entrance, looked the officer up and down, then turned round and walked away towards the Pont-Neuf''When an old lady tells Maigret someone has been moving things in her apartment, she is dismissed as a fantasist - until a schocking event proves otherwise. ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century'' GuardianTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories * Guardian *A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness * Independent *The most addictive of writers . . . a unique teller of tales * Observer *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories * Guardian *A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness * Independent *The most addictive of writers . . . a unique teller of tales * Observer *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis morose little gem boasts its share of sensuous depravity * Wall Street Journal *Mishima 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 sexually and psychologically complex novel... in a honed translation by Andrew Clare -- Damian Flanagan * TLS *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE''Repetition made a great and, as I have since learned, lasting impression on me'' W. G. SebaldFilip Kobal, an Austrian teenager, is on the trail of his missing older brother Gregor, who he never knew. All he has is two of Gregor''s books: a school copy book, and a dictionary in which certain words have been marked. As he enters Slovenia on his journey, Filip discovers something else entirely: the transformative power of language to describe the world, and the unnerving joy of being an outsider in a strange land.''One of the most moving evocations I have ever read of what it means to be alive, to walk upon this earth'' Gabriel JosipoviciTranslated by Ralph ManheimTrade ReviewHandke's eminence, displayed in a substantial oeuvre of plays, novels and poems, is reaffirmed brilliantly by [Repetition] -- Publisher's WeeklyKnifelike clarity of evocation ... Handke is a kind of nature poet, a romantic whose exacerbated nerves cling like pained ivy to the landscape -- John Updike

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Book Synopsis''You''ll get used to things, you''ll see. But you have to watch very carefully what you say and what you do.''Adil Bey is an outsider. Newly arrived as Turkish consul at a run-down Soviet port on the Black Sea, he receives only suspicion and hostility from the locals. His one intimacy is a growing, wary relationship with his Russian secretary Sonia, who he watches silently in her room opposite his apartment. But this is Stalin''s world before the war, and nothing is as it seems. Georges Simenon''s most starkly political work, The People Opposite is a tour de force of slow-burn tension.''Irresistible... read him at your peril, avoid him at your loss'' Sunday TimesTrade ReviewA unique teller of tales ... What interested Simenon was the average man losing control of his own fate * Observer *

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Book Synopsis''A breath of fresh cold air . . . a dangerous edge to gladden fans of Lisbeth Salander'' Boyd TonkinThe first in the Rebecka Martinsson series from the million-book bestselling author, for fans of Stieg Larsson, The Bridge and The Killing TV series.A church in the glittering frozen wastes of northern Sweden. Inside, a sacrifice: the body of a man - slashed to pieces, hands severed, eyes gouged out.The victim''s sister is first to discover the body and she soon finds herself the police''s only suspect. Terrified and confused, she calls on an old friend: hot-shot city lawyer Rebecka Martinsson.Can Rebecka dig beneath the surface of the community that she once fled, and find the truth? ''A chilling plot knee-deep in blood-spattered snow'' Jim Kelly''A labyrinthine conspiracy, superlative storytelling'' IndependentA nail biting, suspense-filled mystery'' Sunday Telegraph

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Through this story the author restores a past that has been erased by history and emphasizes the historical memory of what must never be repeated or forgotten." * Daejon Ilbo *"[An] exceptional novel… Soom captures the agonizing legacy of a dark chapter from the recent past." * Booklist *"The process of directly confronting the comfort women’s hellish experiences is truly painful. However, because the novel is not a product of the author’s imagination but in fact based on historical reality, we cannot turn our heads away. No, we must not." * Donga Ilbo *"Though it is fiction, Kim Soom’s novel is steeped in fact. One Left dignifies its subjects as an authentic memorial that makes an indelible mark on history." * Foreword Reviews *"It may seem cliché to state that a novel is necessary. But this one really is." * Asian Review of Books *"This is a painful, powerful literary indictment of the systemic subjugation of Korean comfortwomen, whose own #MeToo movement has yet to be fully reckoned with, decades after the fact." * Bookmonger *"This Korean novel dramatizes, with indelible force, the utter dehumanization of women confined to authoritarian patriarchal imprisonment." * The Arts Fuse *"[A] landmark — the first novel dedicated to depicting comfort women, a topic that invokes as much weariness as it does outrage among today’s public. Though a work of fiction, Kim Soom’s story is based on exhaustive research and testimonies given by actual comfort women...By rendering this topic in the form of a novel, Kim injects a new sense of emotional urgency in recognizing these very real and hauntingly painful experiences." * International Examiner *"[S]ynthesizes acute personal memories with painful history, straddling the line between fact and fiction. The result is a gut-wrenching narrative." * Korean Herald *"All credit then, to author, translators and publisher for bringing this important book to us." * London Korean Links *"In their even, experienced hands the translation avoids any temptation toward melodrama or obscenity, especially tricky and crucial given the raw, violent subject at hand... For English readers, one must note commensurate, masterful sensitivity to every word and nuance in the translation." * Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature (TSWL) *"[T]he first Korean novel devoted exclusively to the subject of the “comfort women.” In direct opposition to the Japanese government’s efforts to suppress the memory of its sex slave camps, Kim chooses to deploy language like a scalpel, crafting her narrative from the testimonies of dozens of Korean survivors... Granting dignity to the few living survivors is a matter of urgency, as highlighted by the fictional construct of One Left." * Ploughshares *"In this a telling of a tragic history from the perspective of one elderly former sex slave who sees herself as “the last one,” Kim revitalizes energy for this irreconcilable injustice in a new generation of readers." * Korean Quarterly *

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Book SynopsisPresents the tale of a star-crossed courtship between the young nobleman Calisto and the beautiful maiden Melibea in fifteenth-century Spain.Trade Review"A new English version of Celestina - a surprisingly modern Spanish masterpiece of the Renaissance - by an accomplished American translator. What a treat for readers!" (Edith Grossman, translator of Don Quixote)"

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Book SynopsisHåkan Nesser is one of Sweden's most popular crime writers, receiving numerous awards for his novels featuring Inspector Van Veeteren, including the European Crime Fiction Star Award (Ripper Award), the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Prize (three times) and Scandinavia's Glass Key Award. The Van Veeteren series is published in over twenty-five countries and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Håkan Nesser lives in Gotland with his wife, and spends part of each year in the UK.In addition to the popular Van Veeteren series, his other books include the psychological thriller The Living and the Dead in Winsford and The Barbarotti series.Trade ReviewOne of the best of the Nordic Noir writers. * Guardian *The godfather of Swedish crime. * Metro *One of Sweden’s best crime writers. * Mail on Sunday *A master of suspense. * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThe last novel by the international superstar and author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.''Kundera is the saddest, funniest, and most lovable of authors.'' TimesAn artist, clearly one of the best to be found anywhere.'' Salman Rushdie''Kundera designs fictions of the highest order.'' Ian McEwanCasting light on the most serious of problems and at the same time saying not one serious sentence; being fascinated by the reality of the contemporary world and at the same time avoiding realism - that''s The Festival of Insignificance.In Kundera''s earlier novel, Slowness, Vera, the author''s wife, says to her husband: ''you''ve often told me you meant to write a book one day that would have not a single serious word in it . . . I warn you: watch out. Your enemies are lying in wait.'' Far from watching out, Kundera finally and fully realises his old aesthetic dream in a novel that we could view as a summati

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Book SynopsisWhere were you the night Lina Stavred went missing? ''A terrific twisting roller-coaster of a thriller.'' PETER JAMES''Intensely gripping.'' CHRIS WHITAKERThe case was closed.Lina Stavred went missing 20 years ago. A local boy confessed to her murder but the body was never found.The records were sealed.Since then, the people of Ådalen have avoided talking about that painful summer, preferring to leave the past untouched. But we know you remember.Now Lina''s murderer has reappeared. This is detective Eira Sjödin's chance to untangle years of well-kept secrets but the truth is something Ådalen would rather forget.Atmospheric, immersive and utterly compelling.' M. W. CRAVENTruly gripping!' J. M. DALGLEISHMidsommar meets Mare of Easttown . . . A police procedural with panache.' O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

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Book SynopsisBased, like the earlier Impressions of Africa, on uniquely eccentric principles of composition, this book invites the reader to enter a world which in its innocence and extravagance is unlike anything in the literature of the twentieth century. Cantarel, a scholarly scientist, whose enormous wealth imposes no limits upon his prolific ingenuity, is taking a group of visitors on a tour of Locus Solus, his secluded estate near Paris. One by one he introduces, demonstrates and expounds the discoveries and inventions of his fertile, encyclopaedic mind. An African mud-sculpture representing a naked child; a road-mender''s tool which, when activated by the weather, creates a mosaic of human teeth; a vast aquarium in which humans can breathe and in which a depilated cat is seen stimulating the partially decomposed head of Danton to fresh flights of oratory. By each item in Cantarel''s exhibition there hangs a tale - a tale such as only that esteemed genius Roussel could tell. As the inventionsTrade ReviewAn experience unique in literature -- John Ashbery An imagination which joins the mathematician's delirium to the poet's logic - this, among other marvels, is what one discovers in the novels of Raymond Roussel. -- Raymond Queneau Genius in its pure state. -- Jean Cocteau My fame will outshine that of Victor Hugo or Napoleon. -- Raymond Roussel Raymond Roussel belongs to the most important French literature of the beginning of the century. -- Alain Robbe-Grillet The greatest mesmerist of modern times -- Andre Breton Things, words, vision and death, the sun and language make a unique form ... Roussel in some way has defined its geometry -- Michel Foucault

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Book SynopsisThe Battle of Reichenfels has been fought and lost. The army is in flight. The enemy is expected to arrive in town at any moment. A soldier, carrying a parcel under his arm, is wandering through an unknown town. All the streets look the same, and he cannot remember the name of one where he was supposed to meet the man who had agreed to take the parcel. But he must deliver the parcel or at least get rid of itA brilliant work from one of the finest exponents of the Nouveau Roman, In the Labyrinth showcases an inventive, hypnotic style which creates an uncanny atmosphere of déjà vu, yet undermines the reader's expectations at every turn.Trade ReviewRobbe-Grillet is a visual novelist for whom perception is intrinsically fascinating but fraught with uncertainty. * The Daily Telegraph *It is an enormous relief to be shown the world in fresh colours. * The Spectator *Powerful evocation and atmospherics … Christine Brooke-Rose’s translation is faultless. * The Observer *Robbe-Grillet's career was built on a sly and amusing paradox: of using fiction over and over again to undo the conventions of fiction. But how cleverly and engagingly he did it. * The Independent *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRobbe-Grillet is a visual novelist for whom perception is intrinsically fascinating but fraught with uncertainty. * The Daily Telegraph *Fascinating … It is an intricately clever novel * The Spectator *I doubt that fiction as art can any longer be seriously discussed without Robbe-Grillet. * The New York Times *Uses the full apparatus of the thriller … The conception is both inventive and subtle * The Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThe follow-up to the internationally acclaimed The President''s GardensAl-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of the Tigris he creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative, brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters Susannah Tarbush, Banipal On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war, how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of time before her father''sTrade ReviewAl-Ramli offers laughter, sorrow, and a breathtakingly grim climax. * Mail on Sunday. *Al-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of the Tigris he creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative, brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters. -- Susannah Tarbush * Banipal *

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Book SynopsisA CURSED PLACE. A COLD CASE. A KILLER WHO LEFT NO TRACE.The huge International bestseller.Gripping, unputdownable and packed with twists, The Mountain is a thriller that you will never forget.Can be compared (with no fear of hyperbole) to Stephen King and Jo Nesbø - Massimo Vincenz, La Repubblica.Jeremiah Salinger blames himself. The crash was his fault. He was the only survivor. Now the depression and the nightmares are closing in. Only his daughter Clara can put a smile on his face. But when he takes Clara to the Bletterbach - a canyon in the Dolomites rich in fossil remains - he overhears by chance a conversation that gives his life renewed focus. In 1985 three students were murdered there, their bodies savaged, limbs severed and strewn by a killer who was never found. Salinger, a New Yorker, is far from home, and these Italian mountains, where his wife was born, harbour a close-knit, tight-Trade ReviewA canyon in the Italian Dolomites, beautiful yet sinister, provides a stunning setting for Luca D'Andrea's first thriller . . . D'Andrea piles on the action at the atmosphere with the panache of a seasoned writer. -- Marcel Berlins * The Times. *Smart, stylish and extremely scary. * Sunday Mirror. *Can be compared (with no fear of hyperbole) to Stephen King and Jo Nesbø. -- Massimo Vincenz * La Repubblica. *D'Andrea is a real master. -- Sergio Pent * La Stampa. *An entertaining read with a wide cast of possible suspects, not all of them human. The book's twists and turns continue right until the end. * Western Mail. *A perfectly constructed thriller . . . Draws the reader right in. * Bayerischer Rundfunk TV “Capriccio” *A brilliant, enthralling debut. * Stern. *An unbelievably nail-biting thriller. * Alpin - Das BergMagazin. *Sentences like lightning bolts, twists like avalanches: a spectacular thriller. * Playboy. *An electrifying debut in the new wave of Italian thriller writing. D'Andrea's a name to add to your Eurocrime list. -- David Hewson, author of the Nic Costa novels and The KillingA first-rate thriller. * ZDF Morgenmagazin. *Scenic, pacy, rock hard, with seriously disturbing moments, this a clever, complex thrilling and thoroughly brilliant tale. * Sunday Sport. *The Mountain is a rich, disturbing and multi-layered thriller, the kind you can very easily lose yourself in, just as I did. Just wrap up warm - this is a thriller that chills. * For Winter Nights *D'Andrea's superb debut thriller mines the darkness that hides beneath the surface of Siebenhoch, a beautiful, remote Italian village . . . A genuinely unexpected denouement hits like a freight train, perfectly bringing together all the pieces of a macabre, utterly riveting puzzle. * Publishers Weekly. *The novel contains some fantastic writing and a twist you will NOT see coming! I was genuinely amazed at how much this seemingly cold case, gripped me. * Anne Bonny Book Reviews *D'Andrea's story sweeps away the reader in an avalanche of life-threatening revelations that make The Mountain a complete success as a debut thriller. * New York Journal of Books. *

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Book SynopsisThe acclaimed story of a young girl's awakening - set in the the evocative, beautiful Ukrainian/Polish city of LvivTrade ReviewThe House with the Stained-Glass Window is remarkable, a gripping, Lvivian evocation of a city and a family across a long and painful century, at once personal and political, a novel of life and survival across the ages * Philippe Sands *Zanna Sloniowska writes beautifully; with empathy, sensitivity, and with real political impact. As a Ukrainian from the multicultural city of Lviv, she provides an important new voice in Polish literature. -- Olga TokarczukFew novels will engage the heart and mind as cohesively as this emphatic performance that triumphs through its depiction of the human stories overshadowed by history. * Financial Times. *Sloniowska writes subtly and beautifully - every phrase conjures up images, casting colourful lights just like the stained-glass window of the title.This story could only have happened in Ukraine. And then again it could have happened anywhere, because the blood on the blue-and-yellow flag is just the beginning of an intimate tale about four generations of women. * Zwierciadlo. *Sloniowska is a fascinating story-teller who also gives insight into the reality of life in Ukraine. This is an astonishing literary discovery. * Polityka. *A city of women's mysteries, and History, which the author constantly re-interprets. Zanna Sloniowska surprises and seduces. * Krytycznym Okiem. *This novel was written as a challenge to crushing, cruel history; it arose from a desire to give a voice to the individual experiences of women. But at a certain point it turns in a direction contrary to its original ambitions, and the counter-history disappears in the fog of exploding smoke grenades. * Gazeta Wyborcza. *A moving, incisive saga about women entangled by historical events. * Newsweek Polska. *

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Book SynopsisFrom a former Israeli spy, comes the most realistic and authentic thriller of the year. The Times Number One BestsellerWinner of the CWA International Dagger.A Times, Telegraph and FT pick for Summer Reads 2019, and an FT Thriller of the YearThe year''s best espionage thriller Daily Telegraph Best Books of 2019Gripping, smart and shot through with dry wit. A terrific read Simon BeckettWhen an Israeli tech exec disappears from Charles de Gaulle airport with a woman in red, logic dictates youthful indiscretion. But Israel is on a state of high alert nonetheless. Colonel Zeev Abadi, the new head of Unit 8200''s Special Section, just happens to have arrived on the same flight.For Commissaire Léger of the Paris Police, all coincidences are suspect. When a second young Israeli from the flight is kidnapped, this time at gunpoint frTrade ReviewA timely addition to the canon of international thrillers ... races along with pace and verve to a satisfying ending -- Adam LeBor * Financial Times *This is deeply enjoyable espionage thriller with plenty of juicy details about modern spycraft, and although he is sometimes as sardonic and cynical as John Le Carré, Alfon's style is light and relaxed. He invests his heroes, Bond-esque spymaster Colonel Zeev Abadi and his beautiful, brilliant deputy Lt Oriana Talmor, with his own agreeable sense of humour . . . A spy novel with lead characters that are genuinely likeable. -- Jake Kerridge * Daily Telegraph. *Some terrific action sequences in this fiendishly complicated yet pacey thriller. Readers who relish technical detail will appreciate the wealth of information about the Israeli intelligence services, cheek-by-jowl with political shenanigans, Chinese gangsters and mysterious blonds -- Laura Wilson * Guardian *So self-possessed and jaw-clinchingly good . . . escapes the ghetto of genre fiction through some great writing. Highly recommended -- Greg Dixon * NZ Listener *Rarely can so much action have been crammed into a story of espionage covering just one day . . . Dov Alfon, a former intelligence officer and the editor-in-chief of an Israeli newspaper, knows about secrets and how to tell stories . . . Breathlessly exciting. -- Marcel Berlins * The Times. *A genuinely thrilling espionage novel . . . Chinese gangsters, French detectives, Russian models and charismatic, backstabbing Israeli spies, all locked into a brilliantly choreographed danse macabre. -- John Williams * Mail on Sunday. *I can't remember any previous Israeli thriller so brilliant, lean and sleek . . . A novel for our post-truth times, totally believable and impossible to put down. -- Aharon Lapidot * Israel Hayom. *Alfon takes over from John Le Carre and the old masters of the spy novel. -- Guy Horowitz * Haaretz. *Alfon breaks the limits of previous generation thrillers and creates the 21st century spy novel, sleek, highly political, funny, romantic and unforgettable. -- Talma Admon * Maariv. *Thriller of the year... I'm in love with this duo of intelligence officers, they'll never let me down. -- Galit Dahan-Carlibach * NRG. *Best novel of the year... John Le-Carre and scores of Mossad agents can happily retire and leave room for Dov Alfon and his Unit 8200 wizards, who change the shape of espionage thrillers with enormous talent, depth and intensity. A masterpiece. -- Shay Golden * Makor Rishon. *The best Israeli thriller ever written. -- Meira Barnea-Argaman * TV Channel 2. *If you want to sleep during your flight, do *not* buy this thriller at the airport! The pages fly by themselves and prey on my thoughts long after I landed. -- Haim Hecht * Radio Kol-Rega. *Dov Alfon has written a first-class thriller, utterly knowing, richly detailed and rigorously researched . . . A wonderful book, riveting and ingenious. I couldn't put it down till the final twist. -- Gal Perl * Al-Hakavenet. *Best read... Alfon knows so much about the ways the Israeli intelligence corps work that it adds a lot to the enjoyment of the book... His characters are great, and the plot is full of suspense and very fast-paced. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series. -- Adi Shtamberger * Jerusalem Post. *An amazing achievement... This thriller captures the zeitgeist with enormous power . . . Equal parts suspense and entertainment, you simply can't put it down. -- Ilan Lukatch * Radio Tel-Aviv. *Fast action, clever plotting and a Bond-esque lead character who drives the narrative forward at every turn . . . This is high octane spy action with a genuinely fascinating ability to take us behind the scenes of a modern intelligence service. -- M.C. Scott

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Book SynopsisThe third novel in a historical trilogy that began with the International Booker shortlisted The UnseenTrade ReviewA fascinating study of the complex reality of postwar society . . . The novel shimmers with characteristically striking imagery . . . Jacobsen can make almost anything catch the light -- Johanne Elster Hanson * Times Literary Supplement *The third part of a remarkable series of books . . . Don Bartlett and Don Shaw deserve much praise for their translation: their ingenious rendering of Ingrid's island dialect, which closely echoes the original Norwegian, is accompanied by the lyrical simplicity of Jacobsen's descriptions. -- Theodora Danek * Guardian. *Taken together, Jacobsen has given us an epic of Norway's experience of the first half of the 20th century that is subtle and moving. -- David Mills * Sunday Times. *

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Book Synopsis'Terrific . . . Easily the most purely entertaining novel I have read so far this year' - David Mills, The Sunday Times'A really excellent suspense novelist' - Stephen KingThe second volume of Pierre Lemaitre's enthralling, award-winning between-the-wars trilogyIn 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second-floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, MaTrade ReviewAn epic inhabited by flamboyant characters and imbued with an all-consuming drama * Figaro *Literature with conviction; a furious talent * L'Obs *Confirms the genius of a great novelist and storyteller * Express *Terrific . . . Easily the most purely entertaining novel I have read so far this year -- David Mills * The Sunday Times *A perfectly orchestrated comédie humaine * Journal du Dimanche *Lemaitre is always readable and his caustic wit shines through -- Antonia Senior * The Times *Pierre Lemaitre: unleashed * Libération *

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Book SynopsisOne of contemporary fiction''s most gifted sentence builders Beejay Silcox, GuardianBehind the ornate doors of 30, rue du Métal in Brussels, twenty students begin their apprenticeship in the art of decorative painting - that art of tricksters and counterfeiters, where each knot in a plank of wood hides a secret and every vein in a slab of marble tells a story.Among these students are Kate, Jonas and Paula Karst. Together, during a relentless year of study, they will learn the techniques of reproducing materials in paint, and the intensity of their experience - the long hours in the studio, the late nights, the conversations, arguments, parties, romances - will cement a friendship that lasts long after their formal studies end.For Paula, her initiation into the art of trompe l''œil will take her back through time, from her own childhood memories, to the ancient formations of the materials whose depiction she strives to master. And from theTrade ReviewAs she has so often done, de Kerangal shows there is poetry to be found in our jargon, and stories embedded in our tools . . . This is writing that defies haste, that slows the eye. It is also a mighty feat of translation . . . Cements [de Kerangal's] reputation as one of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders -- Beejay Silcox * Guardian *The book is a joyful testament to the rigours of research, and to the translator's art too . . . Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam -- Jonathan Gibbs * TLS *Intensely alive, encompassing both the technical and the poetic, emotion and cerebrality -- Raphaëlle Leyris * Le Monde *Always brilliant, executed in flowing, lyrical prose that had already reached the firmament in [Mend the Living] . . . De Kerangal finds fiction in reality; precise, technical vocabulary is imbued with rich imagination and meaning. And mastering trompe-l'œil - isn't that the ideal metaphor for the work of a novelist? -- Frédérique Roussel * Libération *The art of painting in perfect harmony with de Kerangal's writing; visual, flamboyant, assured . . . in perfect alignment with her subject -- Marine Landrot * Télérama *Kerangal's elegant, sexy, subtly Proustian, and fluidly dimensional drama of discipline and passion, imitation andimagination is resplendently evocative and exhilarating. -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *Long looping sentences, beautifully translated from the French by Jessica Moore, are balanced by taut scene changes . . . De Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism that her characters hope to achieve in paint * London Magazine *

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Book SynopsisEberhard Mock's third investigation - another cerebral, stylish and compelling noir from the dark and squalid underbelly of Breslau.Trade Review'A classicist at Wroclaw University, Marek Krajewski - in his splendid series of crime novels about inter-war Breslau - disinters this buried metropolis like a fictional archaeologist... Breslau 1919 lives again... If the secret of these deaths lurks in the wartime past, the ritualistic dogma that surrounds them very faintly hints at an equally grim future' Boyd Tonkin, Independent. * Independent *'Krajewski was lecturer at the University of Wroclaw, and he prides himself on historical accuracy. His Breslau is populated by pimps, prostitutes and cynics, and it isn't hard to believe that the city will one day become one of Hitler's strongholds' Joan Smith, Sunday Times. * Sunday Times *'Phantoms of Breslau is a cynical, moody thriller which solidifies Krajewski's position as a distinctive voice in contemporary European fiction' Val Nolan, Irish Examiner. * Irish Examiner *'Polish author Marek Krajewski does a fine job of conjuring the chaos of Breslau (now the Polish city of Wroclaw), while Mock - a man of conflicts and contradictions - makes for a refreshing protagonist' Fachtna Kelly, Sunday Business Post in Ireland. * Sunday Business Post in Ireland *

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Book SynopsisThe follow-up to The Dinosaur Feather exposes a scandal in an addictive scientific thriller.Trade ReviewSissel-Jo Gazan has demonstrated that her acclaimed mystery, The Dinosaur Feather was no fluke . . . The author has an uncanny knack for quickly drawing a reader into the minds of her characters . . . The domestic intrigues of Marie and her relatives, and of Soren and Anna, prove as engrossing as the criminal conspiracies at hand. * Wall Street Journal *The Dinosaur Feather, Sissel-Jo Gazan's acclaimed debut, proved that scientific controversy could feature in crime fiction... This is a terrific novel, involving bitter rivalries among scientists. * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisPart history, part legend, this is the story of Sundiata Keita: the heroic figure who founded the empire of Mali. A thirteenth-century oral epic, Sundiata sees the full-length tale captured in print for the first time. This is Sundiata, the epic tale of a man ''great among kings'' who, through his legendary deeds and exploits, came to father an empire. For over 800 years, this story has been passed down to generations of listeners through spoken word.D.T. Niane''s novelisation captures all the mystery and majesty of medieval African kingship. This ambitious story ranks alongside the Ancient Greek and Roman classics as one of the world''s great adventure stories.

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Book SynopsisThe tales of one family and their larger-than-many-lives sister, Antoine, weaves together the vibrant, epic story of Guadeloupe and its diaspora in Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails.This is Antoine's life story: an ill-fated romance between her upper-class mother and farmer father; a childhood spent deep in the countryside; the splendors and slums of Guadeloupe's great city, Pointe-à-Pitre; the eruption of modernity; the rifts in a deeply hierarchical society under colonial ruleand the reasons she left it all behind. And to whom might she tell it? A young woman born on the outskirts of Paris yearns to understand her lineage and métis identity. Her memories of occasional childhood visits are all that connects her to her father's home. It is at her request that old Aunt Antoine, the eccentric and indomitable matriarch of the Ezechiels, unwinds the unforgettable tale of their family and with it a rich, layered account of Guadeloupe and its diaspora over the

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of Thirteen Hours - A Sunday Times ''100 best crime novels and thrillers since 1945'' pickONE COP. ONE KILLER. TWO CAPTIVES OF THE PAST.Mat Joubert, once a rising star of the South African police force, had it all. Then his wife was murdered, and his hopes died with her. Alcoholic, depressed and overweight, he is a shadow of his former self.Then a new killer appears on the streets of Cape Town, murdering at random. Mat throws himself into the case, viewing it as his last chance for redemption.But, as their shared desire for revenge threatens to destroy both him and the mysterious killer he is hunting, Mat soon learns that he is not the only one with ghosts to lay to rest . . .Trade ReviewI really enjoyed DEAD BEFORE DYING. I liked the complexity of the main character, the interactions between the detectives, and their dogged determination to find both the robber and the serial murderer . . . A sad, tense denouement ends the book, with an unexpected twist. I'd highly recommend this book. I've enjoyed all the Deon Meyer books I've read so far, and this one is no exception. * Eurocrime *An impressively tangled web and taut narrative keeps the reader guessing until the last couple of pages. * Heat *The atmosphere of a hot, turbulent country is very vividly evoked, and the characterisation is dynamic . . . A striking debut novel. * Crime Time *A plot-driven page-turner . . . Joubert is a haunted yet sympathetic protagonist. * Bookpage *Meyer subtly juxtaposes the heartbreak of the victims' families with the heartbroken detective assigned to their cases. Using humour and pathos in equal measure, Meyer builds a deeply moving portrait of a man in search of his own dignity. * Booklist *

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Book SynopsisWhen a woman finds a suicide note in her mailbox, she can't imagine that it has anything to do with her. And yet it signals the end of her own life... but who is her enemy? Only Commandant Martin Servaz can find out...Trade ReviewA super-accelerated version of a Hitchcock thriller, with thrills and shocks on nearly every page...Minier reels out lurid, quick and dirty prose, dirty enough to blacken the fingers as we read * Spectator on Don't Turn Out the Lights *Minier keeps the suspense watertight and the whiplash-like twists coming...a powerful psychological thriller and one of the zippiest reads of the year. * Boston Globe on Don't Turn Out the Lights *Over the past few years, France has produced some of Europe's most striking and original crime novelists. Bernard Minier is up there with the best * Sunday Times on A Song for Drowned Souls *Bernard Minier's second novel A SONG FOR DROWNED SOULS confirms his status in the forefront of crime fiction's French renaissance...A gripping read * The Times *Minier delivers yet another absorbing thriller that will keep readers guessing until the final shocking pages...will entice fans of dark, gritty Scandinavian thrillers who will find Martin Servaz reminiscent of Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole * Library Journal on A Song for Drowned Souls *A publishing sensation in France, where it's rushed up the bestseller lists, this is Minier's first crime novel and this translation justifies its vast French reputation...With a villain possessing the intelligence of Thomas Harris's immortal Hannibal Lecter, this is great story-telling, with a creeping sense of dread that would not disgrace Stephen King at his best. * Daily Mail on The Frozen Dead *

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Book SynopsisAn epic and engrossing novel set at the beginning of the twentieth century, THE ODESSANS is the story of three families from Odessa in the Ukraine: the Russian Petrovs, the Jewish Geibers, and the Teslenkos, who are of Ukrainian and Polish descent. Throughout years of war, famine, political struggle and incredible hardship, their deep friendships sustain each of the families. Their lives are rent by tragedy; some friends are hounded by anti-Semites, while others join opposite sides in the Civil War or are forced to flee to Odessa. But through it all, their characteristic good humour and faith in each other enable their close circle to survive.

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Book Synopsis''A masterpiece . . . I challenge any author to top it!'' Sigridur Alberstsdottir, Icelandic National Broadcasting Service.Jósef Loewe enters the world as a lump of clay - carried in a hatbox by his Jewish father Leo, a fugitive in WWII Germany.Taking refuge in a small-town guesthouse, Leo discovers a kindred spirit in the young woman who nurses him back to health and together they shape the clay into a baby. But en route to safety in Iceland, he is robbed of the ring needed to bring the child to life. It is not until 1962 that Jósef can be ''born'', only to grow up with a rare disease. Fifty-three years on, it leads him into the hands of a power-hungry Icelandic geneticist, just when science and politics are threatening to lead us all down a dark, dangerous road.At once playful and profoundly serious, this remarkable novel melds multiple genres into a unique whole: a mind-bending read and a biting, timely attack on nationalism.Trade ReviewSjón is a raconteur of talent. He can flick from angelic frolics to seedy violence as if each tale were a smooth refraction of the last. He has a knack for high comedy, too. ... Victoria Cribb deserves equal praise for bringing all this zest into English so well. -- Cal Revely-Calder * The Daily Telegraph *This is a work of great ambition ... above all it feels like a work of virtuoso narrative for its own sake; an Icelandic 1001 Nights. * The Sunday Times *Sjón writes with a poet's ear and a musician's natural sense of rhythm. This extraordinary performance, consisting of three books in one, sets out to entertain, but also to prod the reader towards a stark realisation of human mortality and the games fate plays . . . The influence of Günter Grass's The Tin Drum is evident. Sjón has mastered the earlier fabulist's technique of merging history with high-speed comedy and surreal profundity. With a man made of clay and a bewildered angel struggling to get rid of a symbolic trumpet, there are shades of the Bible as well as Milton. Sjón, an heir of Mikhail Bulgakov and Laurence Sterne, eases literary references into the text as mere suggestions. With the light, fluid touch of Victoria Cribb, a resourceful, often inspired translator who is alert to Sjón's quick-change vocal register and genre-hopping artistry, the effect is hypnotic. The reader becomes a gleeful collaborator in an extravaganza in which Bosch meets Chagall, with touches of Tarantino . . . His wild, subversive imagination is among his great strengths, not only in CoDex 1962 but throughout his work . . . This wayward, exciting odyssey confronts death throughout. Nothing is quite what it seems, and there are no easy answers. Here, instead, is an artist preoccupied with questions. -- Eileen Battersby * Guardian, Book of the Day *This modern-day saga in three novels revolving around the life of Josef Löwe blends genres and illustrates the way stories can bring the most fabulous dreams - and nightmares - to life in a work that feels like The Tin Drum of our time. -- Johhn Freeman, Books of the Year * Boston Globe *Bewitching . . . His stories compound the dreamscapes of Surrealism, the marvels of Icelandic folklore and a pop-culture sensibility into free-form fables. Call it magic realism under Nordic lights . . . Sjón's finale anchors his ingenuity to a moving plea for solidarity Hrolfur, the entrepreneurial geneticist, yearns to "soar heavenwards into a world where imagination is the only law of nature that matters". CoDex 1962 applauds the aim, but distrusts his means and motive. The wild flight remains a mission not for scientists but for story-tellers. * The Economist *One blindingly beautiful section comprises a list of surrealist images, the nightly dreams of a group of townspeople . . . This book is a Norse Arabian Nights. Each section is a honeycomb. Stories are nested in stories and crack open to reveal rumour and anecdote, prose poems, tendrils of myth. This abundance isn't an empty show of virtuosity but rooted in Sjon's belief in the power and obligation of old-fashioned storytelling . . . [It] consumed me for the better part of a week. I can only echo Loewe, with gratitude, exasperation and awe. "This book's a bloody thief of time." -- Parul Sehgal * New York Times *Sure to delight the reader . . . irresistibly sweeps the reader away . . . a masterpiece, meticulously executed from the first page to the last -- Sigridur Albertsdottir * National Broadcasting Service Iceland *I found myself awed by its ambition, its uncommon narrative sophistication, its incredible emotional depth - especially in its concluding chapters - and, finally, most unexpectedly, its profound seriousness of purpose . . . it deserves all the attention and esteem it has received . . . every excess in CoDex 1962 is redeemed, accounted for, and justified by the end of the novel, which not only offers important revelations but also reconfigures everything that has preceded it so that the fantasy elements take on radical new meanings . . . far and away the best thing Sjón has ever written . . . It reads, on every page, like the work of a writer who is stretching his talents as far as they can go. It is one of the best novels of the year in any language - visceral, captivating, intellectually rewarding, and ultimately deeply moving - and its ambition and achievement are unlikely to be equalled by more than a handful of books this decade. -- Alex Dewar * Splice *This book is psychedelic, it's potent and it wants to consume the whole world . . . Sjón is a prodigal storyteller in all senses of the phrase . . . he is a master of atmosphere, a fine observer of the cross-hatchings of human motivation and a vivid noticer of detail. * New York Times Book Review *Sjón's novels are brilliant collisions of history and fable, psychology and fantasy -- Chris Power * Guardian *Dazzlingly funny and entertaining in sections, dramatic and tragic, light and serious, woven with the artistry we recognise in Sjón's other work ... he creates with his inexhaustible imagination a gorgeous and relevant ending -- Fridrika Benonysdottir * Frettabladid *Iceland's literary spell-binder ... A tantalising smoke of marvel and magic drifts through Sjón's work -- Boyd Tonkin * Economist 1843 *Sjón is one of our era's great writers. Like Ovid, Kafka, and Bulgakov, he is fascinated by metamorphosis and, from apparently limitless resources of the imagination, can convey what it must feel like -- Charles Baxter * Nation *An extraordinary and original writer -- A.S. ByattMasterful . . . [it] feels like a noble descendant from Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita . . . Yet as with all such works, it's not the categorising, of course, but the work's own strikingly individual, grounded yet independent streak that is such a delight. . . . Sjón is known as one of Iceland's top writers. With CoDex 1962, his place in English is strengthened, especially with this rigorously empathetic translation by his longtime collaborator, Victoria Cribb. . . . This novel is a wonderwork - and an insistently sheer joy to read. -- Andrew Singer * World Literature Today *

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Book Synopsis From the creative genius of Jostein Gaarder, author of modern classic Sophie''s World, comes a novel about loneliness and the power of words Jakop is a lonely man. Divorced from his wife, with no friends apart from his constant companion Pelle, he spends his life attending the funerals of people he doesn''t know, obscuring his identity in a web of improbable lies. As his addiction spirals out of control, he is forced to reconcile his love of language and stories with the ever more urgent need for human connection. An Unreliable Man is a moving and thought-provoking novel about loneliness and truth, about seeking a place in the world, and about how storytelling gives our lives meaning.Decades after his global bestseller Sophie''s World, Jostein Gaarder has written a poignant and funny book for our times - full of life and hope.Praise for Sophie''s World''ATrade ReviewSOPHIE'S WORLD is set to become a unique popular classic: a wonderfully engaging mystery story that also forms a completely accessible and lucid introduction to philosophy and philosophers - The Times on SOPHIE'S WORLDA marvellously rich book - Guardian on SOPHIE'S WORLDAn Alice in Wonderland for the 90s . . . a simply wonderful, irresistible book - Daily Telegraph on SOPHIE'S WORLDA modern fairytale - Heat on THE ORANGE GIRLIt should be read by all - Vogue on THE ORANGE GIRL

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Book Synopsis'A master of suspense' – Sunday TimesWhen Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti returns to work after a personal tragedy, his boss hands him a cold case to ease him back in. But the case doesn't stay cold for long . . . The Axe Woman is the fifth Inspector Barbarotti novel from bestselling author Håkan Nesser.Five years previously, Arnold Morinder simply vanished. His partner claimed he had travelled abroad, never to return. But Arnold’s partner was Ellen Bjarnebo: one of Sweden’s most notorious killers, having served over ten years in prison for killing her first husband and dismembering his body with an axe. And when Barbarotti seeks to re-interview Ellen, she is nowhere to be found . . .With neither a body nor a prime suspect, Barbarotti must use all the ingenuity at his disposal. And as the cold case begins to thaw and he finally begins to make progress, he realizes that nothing about Ellen Bjarnebo can be taken for granted . . .Trade ReviewOne of the best Nordic Noir writers * The Guardian *One of Sweden's best crime writers * The Mail on Sunday *A master of suspense * The Sunday Times *The godfather of Swedish crime * Metro *Some aficionados would argue that the Swede Hakan Nesser is the most accomplished writer in the [Nordic noir] field today, and The Axe Woman is choice fare -- Barry Forshaw * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisBased on the popular Netflix series! In the early 20th century, esteemed writer Maurice Leblanc created Arsène Lupin, a French Sherlock Holmes-type who became known as the gentleman thief. Lupin's exploits, in pursuit of the rich, have been documented in more than twenty stories and books, as well as in film. In January 2021, Netflix released a major hit in the entertaining Lupin mystery-comedy series based on the stories.The Best Stories of Arsène Lupin is a collection of the most engaging of Leblanc's writing about Lupin, with a special foreword by West Point associate professor of English and writer Matthew Carey Salyer.

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Winner of the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation'Both a great anti-war novel and a love story, full of tenderness – as around it the world shatters.' – Der Spiegel, 'Novel of the Year'The year is 1944 and Veit Kolbe, a young German soldier, injured fighting in Russia, is recovering at Mondsee, a village and a lake below Drachenwand mountain, close to Salzburg in Austria. Here he meets Margot and Margarete, two young women who share his hope that sometime, sooner or later, life will begin again.The war is lost but how long will it take before it finally comes to its end? In Hinterland, Arno Geiger tells of Veit’s nightmares and the strangely normal life of the small village, of the Brazilian who dreams of returning to Rio de Janeiro, of the landlady and her rallying calls, of Margarete the teacher with whom Veit falls in love, but who doesn't return his affection.But when Veit’s wounds are healed his next call-up orders arrive. The military outlook for Germany and Austria looks increasingly grim and Veit’s luck has run out . . .Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

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