Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisOne of the greatest novels ever written, Anna Karenina is the story of a beautiful woman whose passionate love for a handsome officer sweeps aside all other ties. This major translation conveys Tolstoy's precision of meaning and emotional accuracy in an English version that is highly readable and stylistically faithful.Trade ReviewRosamund Bartlett's version draws on her acclaimed work as a prolific writer, translator and scholar of modern Russian literature and culture. * Carol Apollonio, The Times Literary Supplement *[It is] much the best English translation which has ever appeared ... Bartlett also offers a superb introduction - best thing ever written about the novel - and helpful notes. It is also a very beautifully produced book. * A. N. Wilson, TLS *Any excuse to reread Anna Karenina, and I enjoyed Rosamund Bartlett's new translation, published in a handsome hardcover edition by Oxford University Press. * Sara Wheeler, Book of the Year 2014, Observer *Rosamund Bartlett's translation is much the best English translation which has ever appeared. Bartlett also offers a superb introduction - best thing ever written about the novel - and helpful notes. It is also a very beautifully produced book. * A. N. Wilson, Books of the Year, Times Literary Supplement *A classically elegant translation... Rosamund Bartlett's introduction, a tour d'horizon of Tolstoy's life and work, is also excellent. * Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal *Groundbreaking * Oxford Today *Rosamund Bartlett's achievement is magnificent. In particular, her translations of the descriptive passages are miniature masterpieces. The translation is fresh and immediate, but with all the elegance and power of the original. * Amy Mandelker, CUNY *Rosamund Bartlett's riveting new translation of Anna Karenina brings the reader into Tolstoy's many-faceted worlds with an immediacy, majesty and clarity that no other translator of this great novel has ever achieved. At the same time she represents "the idiosyncrasy of Tolstoy's inimitable style" through idiomatic, natural English. Whether it is Levin's series of epiphanies, the intimate workings of Anna's mind and heart, or the ever-present, sustaining worlds of families and of nature-the sky, the meadows, the bees or other creatures of the animal kingdom-each of Tolstoy's interlocking realms is powerfully yet exquisitely rendered by one of the finest translators of our time. Bartlett's Anna Karenina, with its brilliant introductory essay, explanatory notes and bibliography, will be the go-to English version of Tolstoy's-indeed the world's-precious masterpiece. * Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis University *In this crisp new translation, Bartlett brings a refreshing tone to some of the novels traditional, didactic black spots, as well as to its classic moments the horse race, the railway station. Bartlett is a scholar with an in-depth knowledge of the man she is translating and this shines through in her instinctive ear for Tolstoys authorial voice and rhythm. * Helen Rappaport, Shiny New Books *This is a fine new translation, of which the scholarship demonstrates Bartlett's considerable knowledge of the author. It is a welcome contribution to the ongoing life of this enigmatic, divided, passionate work. * Catherine Brown, Independent *I am swept up in prose that is so beautiful it has moved me more than once to tears... And I am weighing in to say that I love Bartlett's language. It resonates with my concept of Tolstoy, and my concept of this magnificent novel. I recommend this book... I don't think a new reader of "Anna" could go wrong with Bartlett. * Anne Rice *

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Book SynopsisSanaka Hiiragi was born in 1974 in the Kagawa Prefecture. She graduated from Kobe Women's University, majored in literature and completed her studies at Himeji Dokkyo University. After living and working overseas as a Japanese language teacher for seven years, her debut novel, The Battle of Marriage Island, was nominated for the Konomys Award in 2012 and was chosen as The Hidden Jade' by the editors in 2013. She is a big fan of cameras, photography and kimono art.

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Book SynopsisShimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the west coast of Japan, to meet with a geisha he believes he loves.Trade ReviewBeautifully economical . . . The haiku works entirely by implication; so, in this novel, using the same delicate, glancing technique, Mr. Kawabata probes a complicated human relationship * The Times Literary Supplement *Kawabata's novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time * The New York Times Book Review *

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Book SynopsisTold in a simple mythical style, the story of Siddhartha is an inspirational classic by Hermann Hesse, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is translated from German by Hilda Rosner with an introduction by John Peacock.Siddhartha, the son of a wealthy Brahmin, is unable to find peace within his own religion and community so sets off on his travels through India in search of enlightenment. First he spends time with a group of ascetics called Samanas. For a while he embraces their doctrine and rejects all worldly goods. When he hears about a man called Gotama the Buddha he leaves the Samanas. However Buddhist teaching disappoints him and he realizes that self-discovery must come from his own experiences. He rejects the spiritual life, takes a lover and becomes a rich merchant. But after some years, dissatisfied with materialism, he takes off again in search of the spiritual peace he longs for.Trade ReviewHe was an interesting figure who, through his refusal to acknowledge his limitations or the times he lived in, brought something entirely new to the novel -- Philip Hensher * Spectator *A trusted guide for a generation of readers whose faith in institutions was destroyed by the First World War -- Adam Kirsch * New Yorker *A subtle distillation of wisdom, stylistic grace and symmetry of form * The Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisYukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committTrade Review[a] beautiful and austere tale… written in lush, languid prose, filled with beautiful sentences and turns of phrase, this is one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year * Reading Matters *Romantic obsession and sexual intrigue meet in the sumptuous historical melodrama * Variety *An austere love story, probably my favourite of his novels -- David Mitchell * Independent on Sunday *Mishima is the Japanese Hemingway * Life magazine *This tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest works. It could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy. * Washington Post *

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Book Synopsis*From the author of The Last Children of Tokyo* A mind-expanding, cheerfully dystopian novel about friendship, difference and what it means to belong, by a National Book Award-winning novelist. Welcome to the not-too-distant future. Japan, having vanished into the sea, is now remembered as 'the land of sushi'. Hiruko, a former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): 'homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. no time to learn three different languages. might mix up. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language most Scandinavian people understand'. Hiruko soon makes new friends to join her in her travels searching for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue: Knut, a graduate student in linguistics, who is fascinated by her Panska; Akash, an Indian man who lives as a woman, wearing a red sari; Nanook, an Eskimo from Greenland, first mistaken as another refugee from the land of sushi; and Nora, who works at the Karl Marx House in Trier. All these characters take turns narrating chapters, which feature an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra- nationalist named Breivik; Kakuzo robots; uranium; and an Andalusian bull fight. Episodic, vividly imagined and mesmerising, Scattered All Over the Earth is another sui generis masterwork by Yoko Tawada.Trade ReviewTawada writes beautifully about unbearable things -- Sara Baume, author of Spill Simmer Falter WitherMagnificently strange -- RIVKA GALCHEN * NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE *Every Yoko Tawada novel pulls the ground out from under us, but gives us new senses in return. Scattered All Over the Earth, a novel of created, found, remembered and possible languages - of what lies at the very heart of listening - is that rare work of art: something entirely new in the world -- Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have NothingTawada writes lightly about serious matters in this memorable, magical tale -- Books of the Month * Guardian *Tawada has certainly achieved the goal of highlighting the arbitrariness or even meaninglessness of borders, nations and fixed identities, and of holding up the inequalities of western immigration policies to scrutiny. The craftmanship of Scattered All Over the Earth is impeccable and every bit as inventive as fans of Yoko Tawada's work have come to expect * TLS *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMishima is lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair -- Christopher IsherwoodNever has a "confession" been freer from self-pity and emotional over-indulgence * Sunday Times *A writer of immense energy and ability * Time Out *A terrific and astringent work of beauty... a work of art * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis'I finished it in one sitting. Probably for the tenth time... it carries me along waves of wonder' Franz KafkaMICHAEL KOHLHAAS HAS BEEN WRONGED. HE WILL HAVE JUSTICE.Based on the real life of an ordinary horse-dealer cheated by a government official, Michael Kohlhaas is the darkly comical and magnificently weird story of one man's alienation from a corrupt legal system. When his attempts to claim his rights are thwarted by bureaucracy and nepotism, Kohlhaas vows to take justice into his own - increasingly bloody - hands. Will he be remembered as a dangerous enemy of the peace, or a vigilante hero?Praised by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Susan Sontag, Roberto Bolaño, Werner Herzog, and J. M. Coetzee, this is one of the most influential tales in German literature. In this vital new translation by the renowned poet Michael Hofmann, Kleist's bizarre, brutal and maddening story is urgent today.Trade ReviewThis sparkling new translation from Michael Hofmann makes for a fine entry point into Kleist's passionate, grotesque, hysterical, and deeply strange body of work * The New Yorker *Michael Kohlhaas: a story about bravery and its twin, stupidity -- Roberto BolañoThe morbid, the hysterical, the sense of the unhealthy, the enormous indulgence in suffering out of which Kleist's plays and tales were mined-is just what we value today. Today Kleist gives pleasure, most of Goethe is a classroom bore -- Susan SontagSometimes you find a brother, and you instantly know that you are no longer alone. I experienced this with Kleist -- Werner HerzogHis sentences are remarkable - great hatchet-blows of thought, an implacable narrative speed, a pulverizing sense of inevitability. No wonder Kafka liked him so much -- Paul Auster

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Book SynopsisCollected here in Penguin Classics are two of Fyodor Dostoyevsky''s shorter works, Notes from Underground and The Double, translated by Ronald Wilks with an introduction by Robert Louis Jackson. Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky''s groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the ''anthill'' of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence ''underground''. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who looks exactly like him - his double, perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly tragicomic study of human consciousness. Ronald Wilks''s extraordinary new translation is accompanied here by an introduction by Robert Louis Jackson discussing these pivotal works in the context of Dostoyevsky''s life and times. This edition also contains a chronology, bibliography, table of ranks and notes on each work. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was born in Moscow. From 1849-54 he lived in a convict prison, and in later years his passion for gambling led him deeply into debt. His other works available in Penguin Classics include Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot and Demons. If you enjoyed Notes from Underground and The Double, you might like Dostoyevsky''s Demons, also available in Penguin Classics. ''Notes from Underground, with its mood of intellectual irony and alienation, can be seen as the first modern novel ... That sense of meaninglessness of existence that runs through much of twentieth-century writing - from Conrad and Kafka, to Beckett and beyond - starts in Dostoyevsky''s work'' Malcolm Bradbury

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of international bestseller The Eight Mountains comes a story of love and community in the wild beauty of the Italian AlpsThe remote alpine village of Fontana Fredda lives by the seasons. These quiet, complex rhythms appeal to Fausto, who has left the city of Milan behind, and with it his relationship. He takes a job as chef in a little restaurant and entrusts himself to new beginnings.Silvia is also seeking change: her sights are on the glaciers where, she has read, climbing a thousand metres towards the sky is equivalent to travelling ten times the same distance to the north. She is in search of her personal North Pole.When Fausto and Silvia meet one night, their story begins: a tender story of love and renewal; of the community that sustains them; and of lives humbled by the implacable strength and beauty of the mountains.As intimate in focus as it is epic in scope, The Lovers is a luminous meditation on our que

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Book SynopsisOne of Elena Ferrante''s Top 40 Books by Women G.H., a well-to-do Rio sculptress, enters the room of her maid, which is as clear and white ''as in an insane asylum from which dangerous objects have been removed''. There she sees a cockroach - black, dusty, prehistoric - crawling out of the wardrobe and, panicking, slams the door on it. Her irresistible fascination with the dying insect provokes a spiritual crisis, in which she questions her place in the universe and her very identity, propelling her towards an act of shocking transgression. Clarice Lispector''s spare, deeply disturbing yet luminous novel transforms language into something otherworldly, and is one of her most unsettling and compelling works. Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian novelist and short story writer. Her innovation in fiction brought her international renown. References to her literary work pervade the music and literature of Brazil and Latin America. She was born in the Ukraine in 1920, but in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Civil War, the family fled to Romania and eventually sailed to Brazil. She published her first novel, Near to the Wildheart in 1943 when she was just twenty-three, and the next year was awarded the Graça Aranha Prize for the best first novel. Many felt she had given Brazillian literature a unique voice in the larger context of Portuguese literature. After living variously in Italy, the UK, Switzerland and the US, in 1959, Lispector with her children returned to Brazil where she wrote her most influential novels including The Passion According to G.H. She died in 1977, shortly after the publication of her final novel, The Hour of the Star.Trade ReviewBrilliant ... Lispector should be on the shelf with Kafka and Joyce * Los Angeles Times *One of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers -- Orhan PamukThe premier Latin American woman prose writer of this century * The New York Times Book Review *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the Dublin Literary Award"An absolute masterpiece. Packed with understated emotion, stunning from beginning to end" Courttia Newland, author of A River Called Time"A masterful and moving work of literature" Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies"Easily among the best books I have ever read" Eileen Battersby, Irish Times"A beautifully crafted novel . . . Quite simply a brilliant piece of work" Charlie Connolly, New European"A blunt, brilliant book" Tom Graham, Financial TimesNobody can leave an island. An island is a cosmos in a nutshell, where the stars slumber in the grass beneath the snow. But occasionally someone tries . . . Ingrid Barrøy is born on an island that bears her name - a holdfast for a single family, their livestock, their crops, their hopes and dreams.Her father dreams of building a quay that will connect them to the mainland, but closer ties to the wider world come at a price. Her mother has her own dreams - more children, a smaller island, a different life - and there is one question Ingrid must never ask her.Island life is hard, a living scratched from the dirt or trawled from the sea, so when Ingrid comes of age, she is sent to the mainland to work for one of the wealthy families on the coast.But Norway too is waking up to a wider world, a modern world that is capricious and can be cruel. Tragedy strikes, and Ingrid must fight to protect the home she thought she had left behind.Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don ShawTrade ReviewEven by his high standards, his magnificent new novel The Unseen is Jacobsen's finest to date, as blunt as it is subtle and is easily among the best books I have ever read. -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times. *A beautifully crafted novel . . . Quite simply a brilliant piece of work . . . Rendered beautifully into English by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, The Unseen is a towering achievement that would be a deserved Booker International winner. -- Charlie Connolly * New European. *A profound interrogation of freedom and fate, as well as a fascinating portrait of a vanished time, written in prose as clear and washed clean as the world after a storm. -- Justine Jordan * Guardian. *The subtle translation, with its invented dialect, conveys a timeless, provincial voice . . . The Unseen is a blunt, brilliant book. -- Tom Graham * Financial Times. *A modern masterpiece . . . A central novel in Norwegian literature. * Klassekampen. *This is simply a beautiful and moving read . . . A master's hand turning the small into the great. * V.G. *Roy Jacobsen at his very best . . . A fantastic novel. * Dagbladet. *Jacobsen's lyrical voice has been gorgeously translated into English by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw -- Misha Hoekstra * The Riveter *This beautifully atmospheric novel, set on a small island off Norway, where weather and the power of the sea shape lives, is a compelling story of one family, generations of which have lived on the island that bears the family name. -- Books of the Year * Glasgow Herald. *A beautiful and rich depiction of place and of family life . . . an outstanding achievement. * New European, Books of the Year. *

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Book SynopsisA gripping, never-before-translated novella by the cult writer of SiblingsKathrin five years into a disenchanting marriage struggles to work the farm with her sister-in-law while her husband Heinrich is away fighting for the Third Reich. To help them with the harvest, Heinrich arranges for Alexei, a Russian prisoner of war, to labour in the fields. Though initially suspicious of this watchful stranger, Kathrin is soon drawn to Alexei, with ruinous consequences. First published in 1956, Woman in the Pillory is a formative novella by one of East Germany's most significant writers, showcasing Brigitte Reimann's vivid ideological engagement with the legacy of Nazi Germany and the Communist drive to create a new kind of person' following the devastation of the war. Translated by Lucy Jones

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Book SynopsisWorking as a cook on a merchant ship, a woman comes to know and love Samsa, a woman who gives her the nickname 'Boulder'. When Samsa gets a job in Reykjavik and the couple decides to move there together, Samsa decides that she wants to have a child. She is already forty and can't bear to let the opportunity pass her by. Boulder is less enthused, but doesn't know how to say no - and so finds herself dragged along on a journey that feels as thankless as it is alien. With motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie, and whether her yearning for freedom can truly trump her yearning for love. Once again, Eva Baltasar demonstrates her pre-eminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world - and in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.Trade Review'Boulder is a sensuous, sexy, intense book. Baltasar condenses the sensations and experiences of a dozen more ordinary novels into just over one hundred pages of exhilarating prose. An incisive story of queer love and motherhood that slices open the dilemmas of exchanging independence for intimacy.' International Booker Prize judging panel ---- 'Through such intricate writing, in Julia Sanches's voraciously readable translation, the author deftly manages to elevate the idea of a relationship to a force of nature, with the character of Boulder representing the struggle to reconcile a desire to be alone with a desire for company.' Times Literary Supplement ---- 'Amid sexual trysts and growing tensions, Boulder searches for the mysterious sweet spot between her wants: freedom and connection. Baltasar has an innate talent for stretching the complexities of queer lives and predicaments into undulating adventure and tension.' The Face ---- 'In barely 100 pages, Catalan author and acclaimed poet Eva Baltasar has crafted a gem of a novella: sharp-edged, uncompromising and utterly compelling ... Boulder is for everyone: a hard-hitting, incisive triumph.' New Internationalist ---- 'Eva Baltasar's Boulder deftly demonstrates fiction's ability to elide the passage of time. . . . a thoroughly compelling work.' Words Without Borders Watchlist ---- '[T]he language of desire never stops vibrating off the page; Baltasar pans the mundane for gold, and offers those nuggets - these morsels of intimacy - in a way that grips and sates.' New York Times Book Review ---- '[T]his slim, visceral novel power gains power from its subversive blurring of maternal intuition and its queering of parenthood.' Publisher's Weekly ---- The book is a modern love story - global, queer, existential in its moral hierarchies - but it is also a rumination on those two most ancient of words: lover and mother. A novel that lionizes the desire to be alone even as it recognises the beauty and grace found within a family.' Kirkus Starred Review ---- 'Exquisite, dark and unconventional, Eva Baltasar turns intimacy into a wild adventure.' Fernanda Melchor ---- 'Boulder's action spans more than eight years, but the reader never feels the passage of that time . . . Everything here has an air of immediacy, yet at the same time one has the feeling that there are abysses yawning between every short sentence, ellipses that expand and beg to be filled in by the reader's own imagination. Boulder is a work of incandescent, volcanic brevity and density.' Nuvol ----'Opposed to all family ties, and jealous of her partner's child, our narrator refuses to resign herself to her new role of secondary character in her own story, and lashes out by drinking and engaging in clandestine sex with other women, much as would a character in a Charles Bukowski story (an author with whom Baltasar shares more than one stylistic affinity). With Boulder, Eva Baltasar goes beyond Permafrost, to the point that, as with Gillian Flynn's antiheroines, or the anti-superheroine Jessica Jones, the new femininity evokes the old masculinity.' El Periodico ----'Eva Baltasar amazed me last year [with Permafrost], and my conversion has been now been completed.' Libros y Literatura ----'In her second novel, Baltasar continues to work on her approach to the body, seen as the very substance of storytelling. Around bodies, considered both as sexual objects and as the medium through which our feelings must be expressed, she is building anew a language by which human beings may, in our era, be able to approach one another.' Zenda libros ---'Baltasar returns with the same expressiveness and lyricism as in Permafrost, but with a new complexity in her characters, addressing such vital issues such as motherhood and our increasing inability to communicate with one another - an epidemic in our era.' Valencia Plaza ---- 'Again it manages to be incredibly powerful and pack so much punch into such a slim volume. Absolutely wonderful.' David Coates, Blackwells Manchester ---- 'If you like lyrical slice-of-life prose and a melancholic look at relationships, I cannot recommend Boulder enough!' Red Newsom, Blackwells Manchester ---- 'So, Boulder is going straight to the pile of my favourite books of 2022 ' Giulia Lenti, Foyles CXR ---- 'God, I love Eva Baltasar's writing. Boulder is another masterpiece from one of Europe's most radical queer writers. I continue to be a Julia Sanches stan.' Gary Perry, Foyles CXR ---- 'This is a tender, unflinchingly honest examination of a woman's desires as she grapples with the challenges and obligations of partnership and motherhood, juxtaposed against her longing for personal freedom. It's clear that Baltasar is first and foremost a poet - every sentence is fluid and beautifully crafted (and impressively translated by Julia Sanches), to create a gorgeously sensuous and evocative reading experience.' Nichole Gadras, Mr Bs

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Book SynopsisIn tired, hot Paris at the end of August, a group of friends, who'd rather still be at the sea, meet for a dinner in one couple's apartment.Taking us behind the shutters of the Sixth Arrondissement, with a cast of characters that both delight and repel, fractured relationships, manipulation, bad behaviour and desperation are all laid bare in this very contemporary take on a Parisian huis clos story.What starts as just a little dinner ends up having monumental consequences for everyone.The book was shortlisted for the 2024 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and won the 2023 Prix Littéraire Gisèle Halimi for women's writing.

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Book Synopsis''There they stood, bumbling into lines with a bit of difficulty: Mother Finland''s chosen sacrifice to world history''Unknown Soldiers follows the fates of a ramshackle troupe of machine-gunners in the Second World War, as they argue, joke, swear, cadge a loaf of bread or a cigarette, combat both boredom and horror in the swamps and pine forests - and discover that war will make or break them. One of Finland''s best-loved books, this gritty and unromantic depiction of battle honours the dogged determination of a country and the bonds of brotherhood forged between men at war, as they fight for their lives.''A rediscovered classic... profound and enriching ... Unknown Soldiers still has the power to shock'' HeraldTrade ReviewOne of the best war novels ever written * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisOne of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language, Marcel Proust''s In Search of Lost Time Vol. 1: The Way by Swann''s is published in a new translation from the French by Lydia Davis in Penguin Classics.The Way by Swann''s is one of the great novels of childhood, depicting the impressions of a sensitive boy of his family and neighbours, brought dazzlingly back to life by the famous taste of a madeleine. It contains the separate short novel, A Love of Swann''s, a study of sexual jealousy that forms a crucial part of the vast, unfolding structure of In Search of Lost Time. This book established Proust as one of the greatest voices of the modern age - satirical, sceptical, confiding and endlessly varied in his responses to the human condition.Since the original pre-war translation Remembrance of Things Past by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, there has been no completely new rendering of Proust''s French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is this Penguin Classics edition of In Search of Lost Time that makes Proust accessible to a new generation.Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris, giving himself over entirely to writing his masterpiece In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu).If you enjoyed In Search Of Lost Time, you might like James Joyce''s Ulysses, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''The latest Penguin Proust is a triumph, and will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new audiences throughout the English-speaking world''Sunday Telegraph

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Book SynopsisAs the head of the aristocratic family, Don Fabrizio is accustomed to knowing his own place in the world and expects his household to run accordingly. He is aware of the changes which are rapidly making men obsolete but he remains attached to the old ways. But Don Fabrizio will make few accommodations for the modern world.Trade ReviewThere is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about itEvery once in a while, like certain golden moments of happiness, infinitely memorable, one stumbles on a book or a writer, and the impact is like an indelible mark. Lampedusa's The Leopard, his only novel, and a masterpiece, is such a work * Independent *Perhaps the greatest novel of the centuryOne of the great lonely books...not a historical novel, but a novel which happens to take place in historyThe poetry of Lampedusa's novel flows into the Sicilian countryside...a work of great artistry

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Book SynopsisTHE BESTSELLING GLOBAL PHENOMENONMeet Lisbeth Salander - the iconic character who has captivated 100 million readers worldwide."As vivid as bloodstains on snow . . . a perfect introduction to the unique strengths ofScandinavian crime fiction"LEE CHILDLisbeth Salander gets under the skin of her targets like no-one else. Those who underestimate her live to regret it. If they're lucky . . .Mikael Blomkvist - disgraced journalist, womanizer - is everything she ought to hate. But when she is hired by a security firm to investigate him, her report on his life reveals an integrity that fascinates her.Then she discovers that Blomkvist is cracking open the cold case of a missing girl - uncovering secrets that have poisoned a family through generations.And only one thing gives Salander greater satisfaction than exposing a liar: stopping a killer.With an introduction by Val McDermidTrade ReviewI doubt you will read a better book this year * Val McDermid *Intelligent, complex, with a gripping plot and deeply intriguing characters. The author's early death is a great los * Philip Pullman *What a cracking novel! I haven't read such a stunning thriller debut for years. Brilliantly written and totally gripping * Minette Walters *

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Book SynopsisNOVEMBER 24, 2004The day of the tragedy. The end of a brotherhood.The Baltimore Boys. The Goldman Gang. That was what they called Marcus Goldman and his cousins Woody and Hillel. Three brilliant young men with dazzling futures ahead of them, before their kingdom crumbled beneath the weight of lies, jealousy and betrayal. For years, Marcus has struggled with the burdens of his past, but now he must attempt to banish his demons and tell the true and astonishing story of the Baltimore Boys.The stunning new novel from the author of the global bestseller, The Truth about the Harry Quebert AffairTranslated from the French by Alison AndersonTrade ReviewSweeping, clever, heartbreaking and memorable. The perfect summer read -- Henrietta Richman * Grazia *Veers between nostalgia for what could have been and regrets for what can never be. Captivating and beautifully conceived -- Pascale Frey * Elle *A striking insight into America's weird class system, and a movingstory of brotherhood and family rivalry -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times *A literary phenomenon -- Astrid de Larminat * Figaro *Once again, Dicker brilliantly combines all the elements that first enticed his legions of readers -- Julie Malaure * Le Point *Immense and detailed . . . The backstory is all-consuming and will not let you skip a single paragraph -- Rachael Revesz * Independent *Joël Dicker really knows how to tell a great story -- Stéphanie des Horts * Valeurs Actuelles *The Dicker who wrote The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair was a magician, a juggler. The Dicker of The Baltimore Boys has no need of such tricks. He is not just a good writer, he is a great writer -- Antonio d’Orrico * Corriere della Serra *A titan of a novel. Nabokovian. Highly recommended -- Laura Fernández * El Cultural de El Mundo *A new masterstroke from Joël Dicker. The ace up his sleeve -- Pierre-Yves Grenu * Culturebox *My goodness, this Joël Dicker can really spin a yarn -- Marianne Grosjean * Tribune de Genève *Really compelling. A multi-layered family saga that behaves like a thriller * Frankfurter Neue Presse *A novel with the power to enthral its readers and whose characters will remain fixed in your memory * ORF *A top-class literary thriller that smoothly outclasses its rivals -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times on The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair *It's like 'Twin Peaks' meets Atonement meets In Cold Blood - the French thriller everyone is talking about -- Gaby Wood * Daily Telegraph on The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair *An expertly realised, addictive Russian doll of a whodunit -- Fanny Blake * Daily Mail on The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair *The book of the year * Simon Mayo on The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair *

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Book Synopsis''It was at the time when I was wandering around hungry in Kristiania, that strange city no one leaves before it has set its mark on them...'' Hunger is the first-person story of a young man desperately trying to establish himself in the city as a writer, living in shabby lodgings where he can seldom afford to pay the rent, eating almost nothing, and engaging spasmodically and manically with landladies, eccentric elderly men, policemen, shopkeepers, pawnbrokers, and others on the way. He wanders around the streets, sits on benches trying to write, spends a night locked in a pitch-dark police cell, thinks, slides into remarkably inventive reveries, speculates on his mental health, his ethical comportment, his relation to the divinity, the topics he might write about. The traces of a consistent narrative logic are uncertain and blurred; the voice of the narrator keeps shifting between pragmatic appraisal of his situation, wild fantasies, manic outbursts, anger, and despair. This is a stoTable of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Translation Select Bibliography A Chronology of Knut Hamsun Hunger Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisMichiko Aoyama was born in 1970 in Aichi Prefecture, Honshu, Japan. After university, she became a reporter for a Japanese newspaper based in Sydney before moving back to Tokyo to work as a magazine editor. What You are Looking for is in the Library was shortlisted for the Japan Booksellers' Award, was a Time Book of the Year, a Times bestseller and a New York Times Book of the Month. It has sold two million copies and is being published in over thirty territories. Her new healing fiction title The Recovery Hippo at Hinode Park will be published internationally. Aoyama lives in Yokohama, Japan.

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Book SynopsisBrutal and overwhelming, Confession wrestles with the legacy of Argentina’s past and the passions of one young girl.When Mirta López looks out the dining room window, she sees a slim, self-possessed older boy on his way back from school. It’s 1941 in provincial Argentina, and the sight has awakened in her the first uncertain, unnerving vibrations of desire. Naturally, she confesses. But she cannot stop herself.Over thirty years later, in 1977, that same young man is a general, leading the ruling military junta of a country, and a cell of young revolutionaries plot an audacious attack on him, and the regime.Writing from the present into the past, Martín Kohan maps the contours of Argentina’s 20th century, but finds his centre in one woman – devout, headstrong, lit up with ideas of right and wrong – not the grand historical figures of her lifetime’s omnipresent, brutalizing history. And yet, there is great beauty in Confession , its decades and landscapes, and the legacy of love and guilt, pieties religious and civic, that play out in one family and against the background of dictatorship’s traumas.Trade Review"An expertly structured, morally complicated, and surprisingly timely blend of fact and fiction." —Kirkus"Beguiling." —Publishers Weekly"A wonderful book."" —Fiona Mozley , author of ELMET and HOT STEW"The prose of Argentinian writer Martín Kohan, above all in the most recent books, conveys a clinical precision and cool distance. From one novel to another, however, the effects are different."" —Edmundo Paz Soldán , author of TURING'S DELIRIUM and NORTE"Confession delves into Kohan’s poetics in an agile and determined manner, preserving his affectionate distance from the intimate affairs of his characters, as well as his freedom vis-à-vis militant writing" —Latin American Literature Today"A must-read." —Morning Star"A stupendous novel." —El País"One of Argentina’s greatest living writers." —La gaceta literaria"A fantastic writer whose texts question established ideas." —Letras Libres"Kohan works with tradition and with the Borgesian idea of the traitor and the hero. He chooses three situations and explores them minutely." —La Nación"Kohan’s novel understands and helps to understand; it delimits, records, pursues and reaches the most slippery crevices of history." —Letralia"The end result is a fluid, disturbing novel, one that neither resorts to low blows nor commonplaces when it comes to the military regime and the disappeared, but puts its finger on that concept that still causes unease when spoken aloud: civilian complicity." —La primera piedra"Hypnotic prose. A writer who owns a literary universe and a style all his own; a writer of unquestionable solidity." —El periódico"Martín Kohan is becoming an obligatory name in Argentinian literature." —Pagina/12"With a gift for totally natural dialogue, Kohan writes with an elegant lightness, paying great attention to rhythm. His specialty is the measured, exact word. Impeccable" —El Mundo************Praise for Martín Kohan"The worthy successor of Borges, Sábato and Bioy Casares." —Le Devoir"An expertly structured, morally complicated, and surprisingly timely blend of fact and fiction." —Kirkus"Beguiling." —Publishers Weekly"Hypnotic prose. A writer who owns a literary universe and a style all his own; a writer of unquestionable solidity." —El periódico"A must-read." —Morning Star"A stupendous novel." —El País"One of Argentina’s greatest living writers." —La gaceta literaria"A fantastic writer whose texts question established ideas." —Letras Libres"Kohan works with tradition and with the Borgesian idea of the traitor and the hero. He chooses three situations and explores them minutely." —La Nación"Kohan’s novel understands and helps to understand; it delimits, records, pursues and reaches the most slippery crevices of history." —Letralia"The end result is a fluid, disturbing novel, one that neither resorts to low blows nor commonplaces when it comes to the military regime and the disappeared, but puts its finger on that concept that still causes unease when spoken aloud: civilian complicity." —La primera piedra"Martín Kohan is becoming an obligatory name in Argentinian literature." —Pagina/12************

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Book SynopsisExperience a major new literary universe in the making'I read The Morning Star compulsively and stayed awake all night after finishing it' Brandon TaylorNine lives will be forever changed . . .One long night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Kathrine, a priest, is flying home from a Bible seminar, questioning her marriage. Journalist Jostein is out drinking for the night, while his wife, Turid, a nurse at a psychiatric care unit, is on a nightshift when one of her patients escapes.Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears blazing in the sky, and so begins a series of mysterious events. For these six, and three others, life is about to become ever more surprising and unruly...'Brilliant storytelling' Independent'Addictive' Daily Telegraph'Captivating' ObserverTrade ReviewKnausgaard retains the ability to lock you, as if in a tractor beam, into his storytelling... Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive. -- Dwight Garner * New York Times *Grippingly crafted storytelling... prose that is keenly aware of the value of suspense and surprise... [The Morning Star] has that beguiling, elusively compulsive quality that Knausgaard seems to have made his own. -- Andrew Anthony * Observer *I read The Morning Star compulsively, and stayed awake all night after finishing it... The novel's revelation is not that something terrible is coming for us all but that it is already in our midst. -- Brandon Taylor * New Yorker *Knausgaard's sentences, in Martin Aitken's translation, are both plainly direct and lyrically, emotionally elevated . . . Symphonic. -- Heidi Julavits * New York Times Book Review *A true Scandinavian epic... Knausgaard's brilliant storytelling is as bright as the celestial body from which the book takes its title. -- Roddy Brooks * Independent *

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

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Book SynopsisIntroducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-SmithCelebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of obsession and the price of the past.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA beautiful, shattering novel about desire and shame, about passionate youth and the regrets of age. -- Olivia Laing, bestselling author of 'Crudo' and 'The Lonely City'A stunning and heart-gripping tale -- André Aciman, author of 'Call Me by Your Name'An intense, unforgettable novel, alive with the ache of longing and loss. -- Sarah Waters, bestselling, award-winning author of 'The Little Stranger'It has been years since anything moved me as much as Lie With Me. It will become a classic -- Jonathan Coe, bestselling author of 'Middle England'A deeply moving depiction of first love, both tender and elegiac. -- John Boyne, bestselling author of 'A Ladder to the Sky'A timeless love story. Molly Ringwald's translation is as clear and beautiful as the story it depicts. You'll read it in a night, but its exquisite heartbreak will linger. -- David Ebershoff, author of 'The Danish Girl'The uncanny thrill of Philippe Besson's Lie With Me rises up from Molly Ringwald's elegant translation with the intensity of meeting a stranger on a train who tells you a single unforgettable story and then leaves. And his voice haunts me still -- Alexander Chee, author of 'How to Write an Autobiographical Novel' and 'The Queen of the Night'An elegiac tale of first, hidden love between two teenage boys who have no chance of a shared future, "Lie with Me" sold more than a hundred thousand copies in France, where it won several prizes and is being made into a movie. -- Lauren Collins * New Yorker *Lie With Me is an exquisite whisper that lingers long after you've finished reading it -- Kevin Kwan, author of 'Crazy Rich Asians'Devastating and tender; this is the book I wish I'd read when I was 15, and a book I'm glad to have as a companion now -- Andrew McMillan, award-winning author of 'Physical'A lovely novel, a painful story of love and loss. . . Lie with Me succeeds as a novel because of Besson's graceful writing, beautifully translated by Ringwald. Besson is a gifted stylist, and he infuses Philippe's story with the right notes of sadness and longing. * NPR *This gorgeous, aching novel captures all of the fear and freedom of young desire. . . may well be the best gay love story in contemporary fiction. I dare you to read it without crying. -- Christopher Bollen, author of 'The Destroyers'This is a gorgeous fever dream of a book. Ringwald's translation does elegant justice to Besson's balance of beauty and despair, and to his interrogations of memory and longing. Lie With Me positively glows in the dark. -- Rebecca Makkai, author of 'The Great Believers'A bittersweet love story, told from the perspective of a gay man remembering his first romantic affair as a teenager in a small town in the south of France in 1984. * Wall Street Journal *At first erotic and joyous, ultimately elegiac and haunting, Lie With Me is a deceptively slender book as big as life itself -- Rumaan Alam, author of 'That Kind of Mother' and 'Rich and Pretty'In spare yet evocative prose, elegantly translated by Molly Ringwald, Philippe Besson relates the erotic awakening of two adolescent boys in a small French town in the 1980s. Lie With Me captures their world with the grainy poignancy of an old high school yearbook, while movingly conveying the quintessential human dramas of longing, love, and letting go. -- Caroline Weber, author of 'Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-siècle Paris'The French Brokeback Mountain * Elle *A man looks back at his first love, a forbidden homosexual affair during his last year of high school in a small French town in the 1980s. Though a screenwriter and playwright, Mr. Besson does not rely on direct dialogue but reconstructs conversations from a fog of memories in this coming-of-age story. A French best seller likened to "Call Me By Your Name" and "Brokeback Mountain," the novel marks the first English translation by the actress and writer Ms. Ringwald, a longtime Francophile. * Wall Street Journal, The 10 Books You’ll Want to Read This Spring *Molly Ringwald translated this French Call Me By Your Name-esque novel about two teenagers in 1984 Bordeaux as they fall in love in the shadows, leaving one of them to reflect on the relationship many years later * OprahMag.com, 30 of the Best LGBTQ Books in 2019 *There's much book-to-filmstar appeal in this moving, well-plotted tale: Elle dubbed it "the French Brokeback Mountain"; there's something of Call Me by Your Name's Elio in Philippe, who lives in the books he reads and writes; and actress and writer Ringwald ably translates. * Booklist *Moving ... Besson's writing and Ringwald's smooth translation provide emotional impact. * Publishers Weekly *Universally touching * Le Parisien *Besson is a thoughtful writer who can strike home with vivid imagery. . . [and] deftly translated [by Ringwald]. * Booklist *This Year's Call Me by Your Name... While the starring peach of Call Me by Your Name was the perfect metanym for that lush and gauzy tale, Lie With Me unpeels like a springy orange. The boys' relationship is bare but segmented, each encounter entirely isolated from the others, with only a thin membrane to keep all that tart juice from bursting out. . . [A] moving and graceful novel * Vulture *A story of queer adolescence in rural France in the 1980s, Besson's "Lie With Me" is a primer on the tenacity of desire... Molly Ringwald, by delightful coincidence an icon of '80s John Hughes films, provides a limpid translation that preserves all the earnest mystery of teenage sex... Besson keeps his study in intimacy fresh through nimble plot twists, in which the present disturbs a certain version of the past, creating repercussions for the future. Equal parts André Aciman and Marguerite Duras, "Lie With Me" poignantly reflects on why some memories fade and others do not. * New York Times *A slender, sad, acute novel... absolutely excellent -- Sarah Perry, bestselling author of THE ESSEX SERPENT and MELMOTHFull of Proustian echoes, this story of gay adolescence deals with complex issues of class, shame and secrecy * Guardian *A poignant tale that captures the intensity of first love with all its sadness, longing and regret * Daily Mail *A clear-sighted and passionate coming-of-age narrative. Detailing in elegant and plain prose the anxious and intense first falling-in-love between two schoolboys, Lie With Me has a tenderness and insight that is reminiscent of the writings of Garth Greenwell. This novel can be read in a matter of hours, but its impact, like the love affair it details, will echo in the mind * Irish Times *Moving, intense, sad and sensuous * Attitude *

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Book Synopsis THE UNFORGETTABLE KOREAN BESTSELLER CAPTIVATING READERS ACROSS THE WORLD This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free, and comes up with a plan to escape into the wild—and to hatch an egg of her own. An anthem for individuality and motherhood, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly has captivated millions of readers in Korea. Now the novel is making its way around the world, where it has the potential to inspire generations of readers the way Jonathan Livingston Seagull or The Alchemist have. And with Nomoco’s evocative illustrations throughout, this first English-language edition beautifully captures the journey of an unforgettable character in world literature. 'Bewitching… a fabular bestseller told from the point of view of a homeless hen, which will make grown men and women cry.' Independent Trade Review'Already regarded as a modern classic… A fable for our time, outstanding in the quality of its layered, lyrical prose.' Carousel‘Bewitching… a fabular bestseller told from the point of view of a homeless hen, which will make grown men and women cry.’ Independent, 'Books of the Year''Will bring a tear to many a young eye.' School Librarian'Has charms for all ages.' Glasgow Herald“It has the plain language of a folktale but also its power of dark suggestion.” -- NPR.org, “The Best Books Coming Out This Week”“Beautifully and simply written . . . Sprout [is] one of the most likable protagonists of the year. With her defiance of the rules, curiosity and tireless efforts, Sprout stays with and inspires the reader long after the slim story is finished.” -- Bookreporter“Perfect to read in a single sitting, although the story’s loving spirit is sure to linger. It’s also the ideal gift to share with anyone and everyone who holds a place in your heart.” -- BookDragon"An adroit allegory about life..in the vein of classics like Charlotte's Web and Jonathan Livinvston Seagull...A subtle morality tale that will appeal to readers of all ages." * Kirkus Review *"A simply told but absorbing fable...Spare but evocative line drawing...add to the subtle charm." * Publishers Weekly *'The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly breaks down the boundaries between the animal and the human and takes us on the intensely personal journey of a lonely hen whose simple, fierce desires guide her to surprising places. This entertaining and plaintive tale is South Korea’s Charlotte’s Web for youth and adults alike.' Krys Lee, author of Drifting House'Everything wonderful about the world is contained in this small gem of a novel, which brims with dream-fulfilling adventures and the longing that underlies love.' Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times-bestselling author of Please Look After Mom'A note-perfect masterstroke of a novella that captures the contemporary indignation we often accept in tempering our own ambitions, so that we can at least lead undramatic lives.' Toronto Star

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Book SynopsisGeorges Perec (1936-82) won the Prix Renaudot in 1965 for his first novel Things: A Story of the Sixties, and went on to exercise his unrivalled mastery of language in almost every imaginable kind of writing, from the apparently trivial to the deeply personal. He composed acrostics, anagrams, autobiography, criticism, crosswords, descriptions of dreams, film scripts, heterograms, lipograms, memories, palindromes, plays, poetry, radio plays, recipes, riddles, stories short and long, travel notes, univocalics, and, of course, novels. Life: A User's Manual, which draws on many of Perec's other works, appeared in 1978 after nine years in the making and was acclaimed a masterpiece to put beside Joyce's Ulysses. It won the Prix Medicis and established Perec's international reputation.Trade ReviewRequired reading for anyone interested in the evolution of this modern master -- Andrew Motion * Observer *As a witty attack on consumerism Things is as much a parable of the Nineties as it is a story of the Sixties * Sunday Times *Perec's first novel is a masterpiece of elegaic mockery * Financial Times *Things, Perec's first novel, is an innovative, perceptive and even moving study of corrosive consumerism * Independent *[A Man Asleep is] grimly obsessing...one turns the pages with unlikely fascination -- Euan Cameron * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis'I heard our grandmother asking what we were doing.'"Say something!" she demanded, threatening to tear out our tongues. Little did she know that one of us was holding her tongue in her hand.'Deep in Brazil's neglected Bahia hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother's bed and, momentarily mystified by its power, decide to taste its metal. The shuddering violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever. Heralded as a new masterpiece and the most important Brazilian novel of this century, this fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in the Brazil's poorest region, three generations after the abolition of slavery in that country is at once fantastic and realist, covering themes of family, spirituality, slavery and its aftermath and political struggle.Trade Review[Brazil's] deep-rooted racial and economic injustices are laid bare in one of the most celebrated Brazilian debut novels of recent times. -- Financial Times Best Books of the Year 2023A leading voice among the Black authors who have jolted Brazil's literary establishment in recent years with imaginative and searing works that have found commercial success and critical acclaim * New York Times *One of the great novels of the year... -- João Céu e Silva * Diário de Notícias *A tour de force of injustice, tragedy, affection and human dignity reminiscent of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables or John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Vieira Júnior's book garnered top literary prizes in Portugal and Brazil. Its author has drawn comparisons to Jorge Amado, the giant of Brazilian letters who introduced the magic and plight of Afro-Brazilians to the world. * Americas Quarterly *Beautiful, powerful and moving, he presents us with great literature with a simplicity that torments * Pessoa Magazine *Vieira Junior conveys the girls' childhood confusion and wonder in hypnotic prose, and he brings the close-knit Água Negra to life. This heralds the arrival of a welcome voice. * Publishers Weekly *Among the laudable feats Vieira Junior accomplishes in this novel is the way it gradually moves from a highly specific story to one with implications for a region's entire working class. A stirring, lived-in novel of struggles both personal and societal. -- starred review * Kirkus Reviews *Crooked Plow is a powerful novel set among a Black Brazilian farming community living on the edge of existence, whose people are resilient against historical forces and the individuals who oppress them.Each of the novel's three parts has a different narrator, including Bibiana, Belonísia, and an encantada. These respective narrators lead to rich interiority; the characterizations are deep, and the novel is layered in its rendering of events. The sometimes nonchronological narration goes back in time to reveal people's secrets, building suspense as it moves toward its unsettling, fitting conclusion. * Foreword Reviews *This powerful debut novel charts the plight of Brazil's poorest farmers scrabbling for subsistence on the land their enslaved ancestors worked. Initially centered on two sisters whose lives are changed forever by a catastrophic accident, the book explores themes of generational poverty and political strife through the lens of family bonds and the eyes of a once-revered Afro-Brazilian divinity. A bestseller in Brazil and lauded with literary accolades, the engrossing story gives visibility to many who have traditionally been marginalized. -- Becky Meloan * The Washington Post *Vivid ... a saga that tells not just the story of two siblings, but the enduring dysfunction of a nation. -- Oliver Basciano * ArtReview *A compelling chronicle ... Junior provides an immensely readable account of how men and women of no property have to deal with domestic, economic and state violence and of how story and language restore the dignity such people are so often denied -- Michael Cronin * Irish Times *Magic, social realism, and deep character studies grounded in a complex community are the hallmarks of this brilliant novel from a rising voice in Brazil. -- Molly Odintz * CrimeReads *A potential heir to the great Clarice Lispector, Vieira Junior, a Bahian native, sets his first story to appear in English among poor Afro-Brazilian tenant farmers...a contemporary Brazilian masterpiece. * The Center for Fiction *Five years after it was first published, 'the most important Brazilian novel of the century so far' finally makes its English-language debut. Believe the hype. -- Patrick Rapa * The Philadelphia Inquirer *Itamar Vieira Junior offers a salt-of-the-earth paean...a compelling vision of history's downtrodden and neglected. -- Anderson Tepper * The New York Times Book Review *Crooked Plow, with artistic clarity and beauty, presents racism and the spectre of slavery as the source of strife in the lives of contemporary Quilombolas ... A provocation to those who believe that simple perseverance will save the day. -- Angel Lambo * Frieze *[Crooked Plow] is rooted ... in the voices and languages of the sertão, in the names of the animals and plants, in the oral storytelling traditions of ancient communities, in the richness of the spirit world ... An impressive first novel by an important literary voice. -- Angel Gurría-Quintana * Financial Times *Crooked Plow brings to vivid light the harsh realities of tenant farmers exploited by land owners who enrich themselves on the backs of the workers and yet still take much of what little the farmers save for themselves. The novel resonates with the "sounds of animals, of rustling leaves, of flowing water. the sound[s] of the world" - an illuminating journey in a dark time. -- K. M. Sandrick * The Historical Novel Society *Vieira brings both sisters to electric life, but Belonísia's narration is especially immediate and moving. It would be a privilege to share a tongue with her. -- Lily Meyer * NPR *Crooked Plow is a powerful and piercing book that follows the lives of two sisters, their family, and a disembodied spirit in the hinterlands of Bahia, Brazil. The sisters, who use the same voice after an accident takes the ability to speak away from one of them, grow and follow their own life paths confronting poverty, racial injustice, and the threat of being removed from the land they are profoundly attached to. -- David Martinez * Full Stop *Subtle and profound ... Crooked Plow balances a portrait of inner lives with a thoughtful treatment of grand sociohistorical forces -- Franklin Nelson * Times Literary Supplement *Crooked Plow is a tour-de-force that deeply humanizes those who bear the unspeakable burdens of colonialism in the Americas, making their gestures appear through writing that pays close attention to hidden languages of care. -- Ana Laura Malmaceda * Words Without Borders *Vieira Junior emphasizes that legacy and history are not always a curse. Rather, their persistence is a form of resistance to the dehumanization wrought upon the family by slavery's shadow...The book's success in Brazil exemplifies a trend in the country's literary landscape toward novels told from the perspective of the historically oppressed. In the past five years, Vieira Junior has been an integral member of a group of Brazilian writers who, in depicting racism and slavery through the viewpoint of racial minorities and enslaved peoples, remind us of Brazil's painful colonial history while returning agency to those who suffered under its one-sided narration. -- Jimin Kang * The Nation *Translated into more than ten languages, Crooked Plow has received wide acclaim, both for its poignant story of social struggles and for the empathetic depiction of the quilombolas' lives and traditions. Also remarkable is its vivid imagery and the colorful vocabulary typical of Brazil's Northeast. These are aptly maintained in Johnny Lorenz's excellent translation, which employs various Portuguese words and expressions present in the original, thus avoiding unwieldy footnotes or glossaries while offering English-language readers a taste for the distinct language of the Brazilian sertão. -- Cristina Pinto-Bailey * World Literature Today *Lorenz's English translation deserves credit for conveying the understated lyricism and concentrated power of Vieira Junior's storytelling ... Crooked Plow is highly readable fiction, a flowing and clear novel that wears its experimentalism lightly while exploring a long history of exploitation and resistance. -- Cate Farr * Oxonian Review *Crooked Plow is a novel that shows us, through magic and murder, how the tongue can also be a fire in the greatest sense-one that can alter lives, spark movements and claim freedoms -- Laura Garmeson * Asymptote Journal *

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Book SynopsisThis new translation includes Kafka's most famous story, The Metamorphosis, together with two other stories, The Judgement and In the Penal Colony, and Meditation and the autobiographical Letter to his Father. The edition includes a detailed introduction, notes, and other helpful items.Trade ReviewThis edition contains a fascinating introduction by Ritchie Robertson, offering Buddhist, Freudian and expressionist readings of the text. * Guardian online, WB Gooderham *Bracing surprises for buffs as well as an easy passage into the labyrinth for newcomers. * Boyd Tonkin, The Independent *Table of ContentsMeditation ; The Judgement ; The Metamorphosis ; In the Penal Colony ; Letter to his Father

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Book SynopsisAfter spending several years in a sanatorium recovering from an illness that caused him to lose his memory and ability to reason, Prince Myshkin arrives in St Petersburg and is at once confronted with the stark realities of life in the Russian capital – from greed, murder and nihilism to passion, vanity and love. Mocked for his childlike naivety yet valued for his openness and understanding, Prince Myshkin finds himself entangled with two women in a position he cannot bring himself to resolve. Dostoevsky, who wrote that in the character of Prince Myshkin he hoped to portray a “wholly virtuous man”, shows the workings of the human mind and our relationships with others in all their complex and contradictory nature. Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters, from the beautiful, self-destructive Nastasya Filippovna to the dangerously obsessed Rogozhin and the radical student Ippolit, The Idiot is one of Dostoevsky’s most personal and intense works of fiction.

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Book Synopsis ''One of those books that marks a reader''s life indelibly'' William Boyd''A compelling, dreamlike fable'' GuardianIn The Outsider, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. Meursault, his anti-hero, will not lie. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal.Trade ReviewProbably no European writer of his time left so deep a mark on the imagination —Conor Cruise O'Brien

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Book SynopsisThe unnamed narrator of the novel, a former government official, has decided to retire from the world and lead a life of inactivity and contemplation. His fiercely bitter, cynical and witty monologue ranges from general observations and philosophical musings to memorable scenes from his own life, including his obsessive plans to exact revenge on an officer who has shown him disrespect and a dramatic encounter with a prostitute. Seen by many as the first existentialist novel and showcasing the best of Dostoevsky's dry humour, Notes from Underground was a pivotal moment in the development of modern literature and has inspired countless novelists, thinkers and film-makers.Trade ReviewThe real nineteenth-century prophet was Dostoevsky, not Karl Marx. -- Albert Camus

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Book SynopsisHiro Arikawa (Author) HIRO ARIKAWA is the multi-million-copy bestselling author of THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES and THE GOODBYE CAT. Passing through a scenic mountainous region of Japan, the famous Hankyu line is a privately run railway that connects Osaka and Kyoto and is famous for its maroon-coloured vintage-style carriages. One of its much-visited stops is the city of Takarazuka, where the author of this book lives. Published twenty years ago, this enduring Japanese classic has sold 1.4 million copies and has been published worldwide.Philip Gabriel (Translator) Philip Gabriel is the author of Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature and Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature and has translated many novels and short stories by the writer Haruki Murakami and other modern writers. He is recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the TranslationTrade ReviewFull of warmth, wit and feline wisdom, this is a delight for all animal fans. But for cat lovers it’ll be sheer purr-fection * Daily Express *Arikawa’s writing is light and good-humored even when it deals with serious subjects like parenthood and death. * Asian Review of Books *Quirky and life-enhancing * THE TIMES, Biggest books for 2023 *

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Book SynopsisÉdouard Louis is the author of The End of Eddy, History of Violence, Who Killed My Father and A Woman's Battles and Transformations, and the editor of a book on the social scientist Pierre Bourdieu. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, making him one of the most celebrated writers of his generation worldwide.

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