Fiction in translation
HopeRoad Publishing Ltd The Cost of Sugar
Book SynopsisThe Cost of Sugar is the historical story of Jewish family planters and their slaves in Suriname. Now a major motion picture, The Cost of Sugar gives an engrossing account of eighteenth century Suriname at the time when the country was ruled by the Dutch. The hypocrisies behind the veneer of a respectable colonial life are revealed through the eyes of two Jewish step sisters, Elza and Sarith, descendants of the settlers of New Jerusalem of the River' known today as Jodensavanne. Their pampered existences become intertwined with the fate of the plantations as the slaves decide to fight against the violent repression they have endured for too long...Cynthia McLeod presents a frank expose of life in a Dutch colony when sugar was king and demanded the consummate allegiance of all - colonists and slaves - regardless of the tragic consequence.Trade Review"An invaluable history of Suriname, a best seller" (DE TELEGRAAF) "The most popular novel of the Dutch Suriname literature is still The Cost of Sugar" (NRC HANDELSBLAD)
£13.62
Pushkin Press Traveller of the Century
Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize A novel of philosophy and love, politics and waltzes, history and the here-and-now, Andrés Neuman's Traveller of the Century is a journey into the soul of Europe, penned by one of the most exciting South-American writers of our time. 'Every year hundreds of books are published but rarely comes a book that reminds us of why we loved reading in the first place, that innermost quest for words and dreams. Traveller of the Century is a literary gem' Elif Shafak A traveller stops off for the night in the mysterious city of Wandernburg. He intends to leave the following day, but the city begins to ensnare him with its strange, shifting geography. When Hans befriends an old organ grinder, and falls in love with Sophie, the daughter of a local merchant, he finds it impossible to leave. Through a series of memorable encounters with starkly different characters, Neuman takes the reader on a hypothetical journey back into post-Napoleonic Europe, subtly evoking its parallels with our modern era. At the heart of the novel lies the love story between Sophie and Hans. They are both translators, and between dictionaries and bed, bed and dictionaries,they gradually build up their own fragile common language. Through their relationship Neuman explores the idea that all love is an act of translation, and that all translation is an act of love. 'A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart' — Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Guardian A big, utterly captivating murder mystery and love story, full of history and politics and the hottest sex in contemporary fiction — Daily Telegraph 'A thought-provoking historical romance, in which sex and philosophy mingle to delightful effect.' — Ángel Gurría Quintana, Financial Times, Best Books of 2012 Novel of the century — Lawrence Norfolk Andrés Neuman (b.1977) was born in Buenos Aires and later moved to Granada, Spain. Selected as one of Granta magazine's Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, Neuman was included in the Hay Festival's Bogotá 39 list. He has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. He received the Hiperión Prize for Poetry for El tobogán, and Traveller of the Century won the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize in 2009.Trade ReviewA beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart The Guardian A big, utterly captivating murder mystery and love story, full of history and politics and the hottest sex in contemporary fiction The Telegraph A work of true beauty and scintillating intelligence by a writer of prodigious talents... books as stimulating, erudite and humane as this do not come along very often The Independent The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman and a few other blood brothers of his -- Roberto Bolano Very few novels in world literature can build up an atmosphere as deftly and convincingly as the Traveller of the Century has done. This is a wonderful novel of ideas. It is a story of love, loneliness and journeys, spiritual and intellectual. Andres Neuman's story will envelop you like a morning fog and when you have finished reading, when the fog dissolves, you might see the world differently. Every year hundreds of books are published but rarely comes a book that reminds us of why we loved reading in the first place, that innermost quest for words and dreams. Traveller of the Century is a literary gem. -- Elif Shafak Rarely comes a novel that blends poetry, history, philosophy, semantics, politics, a murder mystery - and love, that too - with such skill... Neuman takes his readers on a literary pilgrimage, back to the essence, and reminds us why we loved stories so much even as little children: the ability and the freedom to be elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere -- Elif Shafak [Traveller of the Century] so delighted and captivated the jury that it deserved public recognition -- Boyd Tonkin Independent An all-encompassing reinvention of the 19th-century novel through the knowing eyes of the 21st... contains - jurors concurred with relish - some of the best sex in fiction of our own century -- Maya Jaggi, chair of IMPAC Award judging panel Guardian
£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions Nocilla Lab
Book SynopsisA landmark in contemporary Spanish literature, Agustín Fernández Mallo’s Nocilla Trilogy – Nocilla Dream, Nocilla Experience, and Nocilla Lab – presents multiple narratives of people and places that reflect the world in the digital age. In this third, standalone volume, we find the author bedridden in Thailand after being knocked down by a motorbike, an accident which fortuitously gave him the time and space to begin writing the trilogy. Seven years later, when he travels with his girlfriend to Sardinia, they come across an old penitentiary that has been converted into an agritourism site. In a tour de force reminiscent of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel, a story of suspense and exploration unfolds in the uninhabited hotel. From autofiction to horror story to graphic novel, Nocilla Lab is a fitting conclusion to one of the most daring literary experiments of the twenty-first century.Trade Review‘With the tools of a scientist and the nose of a poet, Fernández Mallo dissects the materials he finds anywhere and everywhere (libraries and garbage dumps, real cities and virtual realities, audiovisual archives and personal memories) to construct, from these fragments, thoughts, and classifications, collages that could only be the fruit of illogic, dreams, accidents.’ — Jorge Carrión, 4Columns ‘Sometimes puzzling, even inexplicable, but rich. Just the thing for fans of Cortázar – and Borges, too.’ — Kirkus‘Reading Nocilla Lab is an enjoyable challenge, a mental exercise that moves between formats and genres in the most unpredictable ways. […] The different layers Agustín Fernández Mallo puts together make up a literary experience that will no doubt be an unforgettable one for whoever embarks on this journey.’ — Laila Obeidat, The London Magazine
£12.34
Tilted Axis Press The Devils' Dance
Book SynopsisOn New Years' Eve 1938, the writer Abdulla Qodiriy is taken from his home by the Soviet secret police and thrown into a Tashkent prison. There, to distract himself from the physical and psychological torment of beatings and mindless interrogations, he attempts to mentally reconstruct the novel he was writing at the time of his arrest - based on the tragic life of the Uzbek poet-queen Oyhon, married to three khans in succession, and living as Abdulla now does, with the threat of execution hanging over her. As he gets to know his cellmates, Abdulla discovers that the Great Game of Oyhon's time, when English and Russian spies infiltrated the courts of Central Asia, has echoes in the 1930s present, but as his identification with his protagonist increases and past and present overlap it seems that Abdulla's inability to tell fact from fiction will be his undoing. The Devils' Dance - banned in Uzbekistan for twenty-seven years - brings to life the extraordinary culture of 19th century Turkestan, a world of lavish poetry recitals, brutal polo matches, and a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse Islam rarely described in western literature. Hamid Ismailov's virtuosic prose recreates this multilingual milieu in a digressive, intricately structured novel, dense with allusion, studded with quotes and sayings, and threaded through with modern and classical poetry. With this poignant, loving resurrection of both a culture and a literary canon brutally suppressed by a dictatorship which continues today, Ismailov demonstrates yet again his masterful marriage of contemporary international fiction and the Central Asian literary traditions, and his deserved position in the pantheon of both.Trade Review"Hamid Ismailov has the capacity of Salman Rushdie at his best to show the grotesque realization of history on the ground." - Literary Review
£15.16
Red Circle Authors Limited The Chronicles of Lord Asunaro
£10.66
Red Circle Authors Limited One Love Chigusa
£10.66
Scribe Publications Higher Ground
Book SynopsisYou only have yourself to blame, you might say, but that’s not true. Some decisions take you down one path, and others another … It’s all about power. Resi is a writer in her mid-forties, married to Sven, a painter. They live, with their four children, in an apartment building in Berlin, where their lease is controlled by some of their closest friends. Those same friends live communally nearby, in a house they co-own and have built together. As the years have passed, Resi has watched her once-dear friends become more and more ensconced in the comforts and compromises of money, success, and the nuclear family. After Resi’s latest book openly criticises stereotypical family life and values, she receives a letter of eviction. Incensed by the true natures and hard realities she now sees so clearly, Resi sets out to describe the world as it really is for her fourteen-year-old daughter, Bea. Written with dark humour and clarifying rage, Anke Stelling’s novel is a ferocious and funny account of motherhood, parenthood, family, and friendship thrust into battle. Lively, rude, and wise, it throws down the gauntlet to those who fail to interrogate who they have become.Trade Review‘Stelling is brilliant on the quantum universe of parenting, the sheer unpredictability of it … The novel moves effortlessly between time periods in recent German history and builds up the composite picture of a generation that has too often seen many of its ideals disappear into trust funds … compelling.’ -- Michael Cronin * The Irish Times *‘A bitterly funny and honest examination of what it means to look at oneself in the mirror and what happens to relationships in the midst of a transforming society.’ * Happy Magazine *‘German author Anke Stelling makes her English language debut with a swingeing screed against the privilege and hypocrisy of those who sell their souls to get ahead … A merciless tirade of a novel about class, so energised by rage and wit it’s impossible to tear your eyes from the page.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Age *‘Stelling makes a blistering English-language debut with this incendiary screed about hypocrisy and privilege among a group of friends in Berlin... This biting class critique is hard to turn away from.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘It’s a fantastic translation, capturing Stelling’s candid, often ironic tone, as well as the narrator’s propensity for rhyme and wordplay. The book is very much embedded in the social landscape it’s set in, and so Jones’ decision to keep a flavour of the original German works particularly well.’ -- Annie Rutherford * Goethe Institute *‘Stelling is down-to-earth and quick with her criticism of the liberal elite … There is a deep satisfaction in watching [main character] Resi defy expectation and norm, frustrating those who wish she would just be thankful.’ -- Connor Harrison * Necessary Fiction *‘[A]n apologia pro vita mea… this sad, angry, and occasionally funny book works as a portrait of modern Germany and its social mores.’ -- Bethane Patrick * LitHub *‘This is an extremely funny book. All credit to translator Lucy Jones here, for the humour is largely in the writing, with rhythms, bathos and the subversion of expectations all delivering laughs. Stelling is an expert on the ways human beings deceive themselves and how we often betray these lies unconsciously … Higher Ground is a deftly structured, ingenious piece of fiction … The result is a hugely entertaining, satisfying and thought-provoking novel. A really wonderful read.’ -- Ann Morgan * A Year of Reading the World *‘Higher Ground is an absorbing novel that kept me interested from start to finish. Laced with dark humour, it’s very contemporary, skewering complacency and hypocrisy among the moneyed classes in Berlin … It’s often laugh-out-loud funny, and it’s often wise as well, even when she’s sending herself up.’ -- Lisa Hill * ANZ LitLovers *
£14.24
Scribe Publications The Picture Bride
Book SynopsisCould you marry a man you’ve never met? Three Korean women in 1918 make a life-changing journey to Hawaii, where they will marry, having seen only photographs of their intended husbands. Different fates await each of these women. Hong-ju, who dreams of a marriage of ‘natural love’, meets a man who looks twenty years older than his photograph; Song-hwa, who wants to escape from her life of ridicule as the granddaughter of a shaman, meets a lazy drunkard. And then there’s Willow, whose 26-year-old groom, Taewan, looks just like his image … Real life doesn’t always resemble a picture, but there’s no going back. And while things don’t turn out quite as they’d hoped, even for Willow, they do find something that makes their journey worthwhile — each other.Trade Review‘Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories. I loved Willow from the first page to the last. Loved her courage, and her tenacious, yet caring, beautiful soul. The Picture Bride is the ultimate story of the power of friendship — a must read!’ -- Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Three Sisters‘It’s a compelling story and Lee Geum-yi movingly describes the women’s journeys.’ -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mail *‘A transporting and immersive story that will enthral historical fiction readers. Poignant and moving, its unforgettable characters will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.’ -- Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba‘A fascinating journey into the world of Korean “picture brides” whose lives take unexpected turns as they land on distant shores. A beautiful testimony to those women bold and determined enough to leave behind all that was familiar, seeking a better life.’ -- Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and The Book of Lost Friends‘The stories of these women's lives in Hawai’i and the sugar industry there becomes, in Lee’s skilled hands, a vehicle for a narrative about the Korean struggle for independence from Japan and how it was refracted through the diaspora.’ * Asian Review of Books *‘This novel honours those powerful Korean women, who took a chance on a new life in a distant land … Told in gentle, empathetic prose that sheds new light into a neglected corner of American history, The Picture Bride is an immigrant story, but it is moreover a love story.’ * Asymptote Journal *‘Heartfelt, beautiful, and immersive, The Picture Bride is a fascinating historical fiction book.’ * The Register-Herald *‘An engaging picture of a time and a place.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘Written with great historical detail about Korean immigrants in Hawai‘i, Geum-yi’s beautiful novel weaves an extraordinary tale.’ * Booklist *‘This work of historical fiction is Korean novelist Lee’s first book to be translated into English … Historical fiction buffs and readers interested in little-known history will enjoy.’ * Library Journal *‘This moving novel takes readers into the world of Korean “picture brides” … [A] total must-read.’ * Katie Couric Media *‘The Picture Bride is an accessible and moving read, no matter your prior knowledge of Korean culture or history in the early 20th century. … Though their tale is marred by hardship, [it] is ultimately an inspirational story that celebrates the enduring bonds of female friendship.’ * Better Reading *‘An impeccably written piece of historical fiction, The Picture Bride presents an exquisite portrait of womanhood and the bonds of friendship and family.’ -- Alastair Mabbott * The Herald *‘The Picture Bride shines … illuminating crucial but obscure events along Korea’s turbulent path to nationhood.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Sydney Morning Herald *
£13.49
FUM D'ESTAMPA PRESS Ruth
Book SynopsisHow does one experience things from the viewpoint of the other sex? It is this question that has led to Vildot’s creation of Ruth, the genre-defining story of a sex change told by the protagonist through a series of letters to an anonymous friend. Far from the condemnatory gaze or noise of those who understand life as nothing but outward appearances, Ruth demonstrates the sentimental and intellectual intimacy of a man transitioning into a woman, and describes a profund, touching process in which frustrations, ideas of liberty and changes of identity are interwoven. Without descending into easy morbosity or exhibitions of sensationalist tendencies, Ruth represents Guillem Viladot’s indignation at both masculine and feminine sensibilities, while championing diversity of thought, love, liberty, and, most importantly, desire.Trade Review‘Guillem Viladot is a rebel: insatiable and untiring.’ -Àlex Susanna, editor at Columna ediciones ‘A writer not content with writing poems or prose simply to invoke beauty, but who ever looked to stretch the limits of literary creativity.’ -Pau Echauz, La Vanguàrdia
£14.60
Open Letter Why I Killed My Best Friend
£12.59
Open Letter Rock, Paper, Scissors
Book Synopsis
£14.39
Open Letter Rochester Knockings
Book Synopsis
£14.39
Open Letter Bardo Or Not Bardo
Book Synopsis
£13.29
Open Letter The Brother
£12.59
Open Letter Chronicle Of The Murdered House
Book SynopsisThis never-before-translated classic of Brazilian literature is a Faulknerian saga depicting the unraveling of a traditional patriarchal family.
£15.29
Open Letter The Invented Part
Book SynopsisA whirlwind tour of writers and muses, madness and genius, friendships, broken families, and alternate realities.
£16.19
Open Letter Night School: A Reader for Grownups
Book SynopsisA tongue-in-cheek textbook for how to live in our modern age.
£14.39
Wind&Bones Books Taigael Stories from Taiwanese Gaelic
£13.30
£16.59
Brill Robert van Gulik and His Chinese Sherlock Holmes: The Global Travels of Judge Dee
Book SynopsisIn the post-war mid-century Robert van Gulik produced a series of stories set in Imperial China and featuring a Chinese Judge: Judge Dee. This book examines the author’s unprecedented effort in hybridising two heterogenous crime writing traditions – traditional Chinese gong’an (court-case) fiction and its Anglo-American counterpart – bringing to light how his fiction draws elements from these two traditions for plots, narrative features, visual images, and gender representation. Relying on research on various sources and literary traditions, it provides illumination of the historical contexts, centring on the cultural interaction and connectedness that occurred during the multidirectional global flows of the Judge Dee texts in both western and Chinese markets. This study contributes to current scholarship on crime fiction by questioning its predominantly Eurocentric focus and the divisive post-colonial approach often adopted in accessing works concerning foreign peoples and cultures.Trade Review"Brill's dynamic peer-reviewed series Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature has since the mid-1990s been publishing monographs and edited collections on a range of subfields within the capacious field of comparative literature. The nearly 100 scholarly monographs published as part of Textxet engage rigorously with theories of literature, world literature, and literature and thought from around the globe, frequently from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives. Soon to be fully digitized and accessible, Textxet has contributed significantly to the study of comparative literature, broadly conceived, in Europe and North America, and to literature studies more broadly, particularly in the discipline's many emerging subfields. Publishing the work of both established scholars and recent Ph.D.'s, Textxet gives scholars of all generations a platform for sharing their best work, and inspiring vigorous scholarly conversations" --Karen Thornber, Harvard University, USA, author of Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care(2020)Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures Introduction 1 Anglophone Crime Fiction and Diversified Ethnicity 2 Global Crime Fiction 3 Orientalism, Hybridity, and Globalisation 1 A Man of Three Lives: Life, Scholarship and Judge Dee Fiction 1 Sources of Biographical Information 2 Early Years and Education 3 Diplomatic Career 4 A Man of Letters and Scholarship 5 Judge Dee as Biographical Writing: Diplomacy, Scholarship, and Fiction 2 Gong’an Literature: A Literary Tradition 1 Gong’an Literature in the Song and Yuan Dynasties (960–1368) 2 Gong’an in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) 3 Gong’an in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) 4 Narrative Pattern: Story Recycling 3 Globalising Judge Dee: Halved Translation and Hybridised Narrative 1 Van Gulik’s Adaptation: Translation and Creation 4 The Globalised Judge Dee: Hybridised Representation of Gender and Sexuality 1 Gendering Crime Fiction: The Classic and the Hard-Boiled 2 Representing the Male: Hybridised Detective Hero and Authorial Identification 3 Representing the Female: Hybridised Eroticism 4 The Combined Male Gaze: Scopophilic, Voyeuristic, and Sadistic 5 Localising the Global: Judge Dee Returns Home and the Chinese Translations 1 Introducing Western Detective Fiction: The First Tidal Wave 2 Translating Western Detective Fiction: The Second Tidal Wave and the Translation of Van Gulik’s Judge Dee Series 3 Localised Rewriting: The Influence of Ideologies 4 Localised Rewriting: The Dominant and the Personalised Poetics Conclusion Bibliography Index
£95.20
Rupa Publications India Pvt Ltd. THE GREATEST PUNJABI STORIES EVER TOLD
£34.76
HarperCollins Publishers The Short End of the Sonnenallee
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
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The Misunderstanding
Book SynopsisFrom the author of the bestselling Suite Française.A compelling story of infatuation, passion and self-destructive loveYves Harteloup is a disappointed young man, scarred by the war. He returns for the summer to the rich, comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye, where he spent blissful childhood holidays. There he becomes infatuated by a beautiful, bored young woman, Denise, whose rich husband is often away on business. Intoxicated by summer nights and Yves’ intensity, Denise falls passionately in love, before the idyll has to end and Yves must return to his mundane office job. In the mournful Paris autumn their love founders on mutual misunderstanding and Denise is driven mad with desire and jealous suspicion until, acting on her sophisticated mother’s advice, she takes action...which she may regret forever.Trade ReviewHow easy it is to be drawn into this superb period novel * The Connexion *An irresistible talent * Guardian *Dazzling... Extraordinary... A wonder * Irish Times *Shows remarkable understanding of the mysteries of the human heart and the social, familial and economic pressures that pull two lovers apart, even as passion draws them closer -- Michael Arditti * Daily Mail *This is an astonishingly mature work of art. This study in the fleeting nature of happiness is immaculately translated by Sandra Smith -- Paul Bailey * Independent *
£999.99
Vintage Publishing Police
Book SynopsisAn edge-of-your seat Harry Hole page-turner you won''t be able to put down. ''Nesbo is several steps ahead of you in this endlessly twisting, multi-layered thriller'' Sun The police urgently need Harry Hole. A killer is stalking Oslo''s streets. Police officers are being slain at the scenes of crimes they once investigated, but failed to solve. The murders are brutal, the media reaction hysterical. But this time, Harry can''t help anyone. For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the centre of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry can''t protect anyone. Least of all himself.*JO NESBO HAS SOLD OVER 55 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE**Watch out for KILLING MOON, the new Jo Nesbo book, out now*Trade ReviewFilled with the right mix of disturbed villains, corruption and deranged scenarios to make it completely terrifying. Exactly what you want from a Nesbo novel * RTE Guide *Nesbo is a clever writer and plotter. Over the years he has built a brilliant cast of supporting characters to orbit Hole and now it is their time to shine… Yet again, Nesbo has succeeded in producing a multi-layered and intertwining story that makes your head spin, while delivering a masterclass in suspenseful writing * Sunday Express *Policeman Harry Hole is flawed, but all the more perfect because of it… Nesbo keeps everything hanging in the balance, just the way his fans like it * UK Regional Press Syndication *Police is a story replete with gory events, dark musings and a little social commentary * Sunday Business Post *Boasts the customary ability to render attempts at work and sleep futile until it is finished * Daily Telegraph *
£9.47
Vintage Publishing Cockroaches
Book SynopsisHarry Hole is back in a gripping twist-packed read.''One of Nesbo''s most accomplished novels'' Financial TimesHarry is on a special mission.Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It''s clear that the Ambassador''s family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk.He needs to solve a crime and avoid a scandal.When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated. The man who gave him the tape goes missing, and Harry realises that failing to solve a murder case is by no means the only danger that faces the unwary.But in an unfamiliar city, who can you trust?*JO NESBO HAS SOLD OVER 50 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE**Watch out for KILLING MOON, the new Jo Nesbo book, out now*Trade ReviewAs with the Australian setting of The Bat, Hole's first outing, we're again terra incognita (Asia here); Cockroaches, organised with greater concentration than its predecessor, turns out to be one of Nesbo's most accomplished novels * Financial Times *Cockroaches will thrill Harry Hole addicts. It's classic fast-paced, edge-of-the-seat style * UK Press Syndication *It's fun to see Nesbo finding his feet with Hole...and he weaves a large cast and a complex plot into a satisfying plunge into a filthy south-east Asian underbelly, ripe to bursting with corruption, exploitation and cruelty * Metro *If you’ve never read any Jo Nesbo, now is the perfect time to check out his excellent Harry Hole series * Essentials *As with the Australian setting of The Bat, Hole’s first outing, we’re again terra incognita (Asia here); Cockroaches, organised with greater concentration than its predecessor, turns out to be one of Nesbo’s most accomplished novels * Financial Times *
£9.30
Profile Victoria
Book SynopsisA miller's son, Johannes, falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Victoria. The novel follows them through adolescence, as Johannes struggles with the social hierarchy and becomes a successful author, and Victoria is forced into marrying Otto, a lieutenant, to save the troubled family economy.A lyrical excursion into unconsummated love, love that is described memorably as 'Blood and Blossoms'.
£11.62
Little, Brown Book Group Love Letters from Paris the most enchanting read
Book Synopsis''Enchanting. Reading Barreau is like having me-time with your best friend'' NINA GEORGE, author of The Little Paris Bookshop''Heart-breaking . . . touching and magical until the very last page'' ELLEJulien Azoulay is famous around the world for his beautiful romance novels. But last year, he stopped believing in love. When his beloved wife Hélène died, leaving him alone to raise his young son, Julien lost his faith in the happier side of life - and with it his ability to write. But Hélène was clever. Before she died, she made Julien promise to write her one letter for each year of her life . . . and now, in this moment, in the most famous cemetery in Paris, Julien stands with his painful first letter in his hand. Here, even though Julien wouldn''t believe it, something wonderful is going to happen . . . Come with us down the narrow streets, past the cosy red bistro on Rue Gabrielle, all t
£13.29
WW Norton & Co Kafkas Selected Stories
Book SynopsisIn 1945, W. H. Auden remarked that Kafka stands in the same relation to his century as Shakespeare does to his—Kafka is the representative of the twentieth century, the poet who gives it its voice.
£22.78
Faber & Faber Harsh Times
Book SynopsisTHE NEW NOVEL FROM THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE"A wildly enjoyable book; the 85-year-old Vargas Llosa is as sharp and mordantly funny as ever." Financial Times"A compelling and propulsive literary thriller." Hari Kunzru, New York Times Book Review"A splendidly rich and absorbing novel." The Scotsman"Compelling . . . full of intrigue, backstabbing and shifting power dynamics." Irish TimesGuatemala, 1954. A CIA-supported military coup topples the government. Behind this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changed the development of Latin America: that those in power encouraged the spread of Soviet communism in the Americas. Mario Vargas Llosa has written a drama on a world stage, in which some persecutors end up as victims of the very plot they helped construct. Ironic and sensual, provocative and redemptive, Harsh Times is a story of international conspiracie
£19.00
Penguin Random House India The Cock Is the Culprit
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£14.20
Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd See How Much I Love You
Book Synopsis
£9.99
Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd The Devil in the Flesh
Book Synopsis The Devil in the Flesh, one of the finest, most delicate love stories ever written, is set in Paris during the last year of the First World War. The narrator, a boy of 16, tells of his love affair with Martha Lacombe, a young woman whose soldier husband is away at the front. With an accuracy of insight that is almost ruthless, he describes his conflicting emotions?the pride of an adolescent on the verge of manhood and the pain of a child thrust too fast into maturity. The liaison soon becomes a scandal, and their friends, horrified and incredulous, refuse to accept what is happening?even when the affair reaches its tragic climax.
£8.95
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) English Poetry and Modern Arabic Verse
Book SynopsisGhareeb Iskander is an Iraqi poet and translator living in London. He has published numerous collections of poems including Gilgamesh's Snake and Other Poems which won Arkansas University's Arabic Translation Award for 2015 (published by Syracuse University Press in 2016). He translated Derek Walcott's poems into Arabic. He received his PhD from SOAS, University of London, UK.Trade Review'This book is less a work of literary criticism than a dialogue between poets. Iskandar, himself a poet, is at his best when he is tracing the grain of multiple translations, phrase by phrase, illuminating subtle differences, between the aesthetic possibilities of English and Arabic, and between the visions of individual poets.' -- Michael Beard, Emeritus Professor of English, University of North Dakota, USAGhareeb Iskander’s English Poetry and Modern Arabic Verse is an erudite and insightful journey into the creative process, a methodic study of how translations of mainly Eliot and Whitman by major Arab poets guided their hands and led them to inaugurate a new poetics in Modern Arabic poetry. A valuable reference work for students of translation theory and Arabic poetry. -- Adnan Fuad Haydar, Professor of Arabic Literature, University of Arkansas, USATable of ContentsTable of contents Introduction 1. Modern Arabic Poetry and English Poetry 2. The Arabic Waste Lands 3. Translating Whitman’s Song of Myself into Arabic 4. Al-Sayyab’s Translational Contribution Conclusion Bibliography
£29.99
Schocken Books The Sons
Book SynopsisFrom one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, the author of The Trial: Three stories he published in his lifetime, including his best-known tale, “The Metamorphosis.”I have only one request, Kafka wrote to his publisher Kurt Wolff in 1913. ''The Stoker,'' ''The Metamorphosis,'' and ''The Judgment'' belong together, both inwardly and outwardly. There is an obvious connection among the three, and, even more important, a secret one, for which reason I would be reluctant to forego the chance of having them published together in a book, which might be called The Sons.
£11.69
New Directions Publishing Corporation The Book of Words
Book SynopsisA searing novella about coming of age in a land of tyranny, by one of Germany's most brilliant young authors.Trade Review"Her restrained unvarnished prose is overwhelming." -- Nicole Krauss"Jenny Erpenbeck should be praised for asking us to learn from the marginalized what the majority apparently will not see." -- London Times Literary Supplement"Jenny Erpenbeck is a rising star of the German literary scene." -- Cosmopolitan
£11.99
New Directions Publishing Corporation Ghosts
Book SynopsisThe most unsettling and stunning of Aira's short novels published by New Directions.Trade Review"Wonderful... Ghosts is an incitement to the sensuality of thought, of wonder, of questioning, of anticipation." -- Thomas McGonigle - Los Angeles Times"A languorous, surreal atmosphere of baking heat and quietly menacing shadows... puts one in mind of a painting by de Chirico." -- The New Yorker"Once you’ve started reading Aira, you don’t want to stop." -- Roberto Bolaño"Utterly astonishing." -- San Francisco Chronicle"Aira's literary significance, like that of many other science fiction writers, comes from how he pushes us to question the porous line between fact and fantasy, to see it not only as malleable in history, but also blurred in the everyday. The engrossing power of his work, though, comes from how he carries out these feats: with the inexhaustible energy and pleasure of a child chasing after imaginary enemies in the park." -- Los Angeles Review of Books"Ghosts has some serious bite, for such a little book. Within it Aira likens literature to a building that has never been built, to an architect's dream. And though he never comes out and says it, I get the sense that for him the reader is always a ghost, haunting the unbuilt and the imagined, flying through time to attend to the party on the page." -- Emily Keeler - The Rumpus
£11.99
New Directions Publishing Corporation Satantango
Book SynopsisFrom the winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize A dark, haunting masterpiece by the author of The Melancholy of Resistance and Seiobo There BelowTrade Review"He offers us stories that are relentlessly generative and defiantly irresolvable. They are haunting, pleasantly weird, and, ultimately, bigger than the worlds they inhabit." -- The New York Times Book Review"The excitement of Krasznahorkai's writing is that he has come up with his own original forms - and one of the most haunting is his first, Satantango. There is nothing else like it in contemporary literature." -- Adam Thirwell - The New York Review of Books"Satantango is a monster of a novel: compact, cleverly constructed, often exhilarating, and possessed of a distinctive, compelling vision - but a monster nonetheless...The grandeur is clearly palpable." -- The Guardian"Krasznahorkai is alone among European novelists now in his intensity and originality. One of the most mysterious artists now at work." -- Colm Tóibín"Profoundly unsettling." -- James Wood - The New Yorker"His inexhaustible yet claustrophobic prose, with its long, tight, weaving sentences, each like a tantalising tightrope between banality and apocalypse, places the author in a European tradition of Beckett, Bernhard, and Kafka." -- James Hopkin - The Independent
£11.99
New Directions Publishing Corporation I Am the Brother of XX
Book SynopsisAs concentrated as bullets, new stories by the inimitable Fleur JaeggyTrade Review"Finely distilled and evocative stories." -- BBC"Jaeggy is a master of the short form; her essays are charged with a nearly combustible vitality, her stories without fail are compact and devastating. Long after the pleasure of reading is over, their little hooks tug at — what is it, the heart or the mind? I Am the Brother of XX bears the thematic hallmarks of Jaeggy’s fiction...stony family relations and theology that is not merely unorthodox but downright perverse. Jaeggy’s prose is superb (and as superbly translated) as ever, her characteristic desolation as self-possessed as it is recherche´." -- Financial Times"Jaeggy's astute compression of narrative detail is at once serene and startling. Beneath a placid, opalescent surface lurks a threat or violence that may or may not be realized, but which contributes to the profound impression that people and their lives are unpredictable, coursing with icy, barren wildness." -- Los Angeles Review of Books"Swiss-Italian Jaeggy, a master of the short form, again creates something unforgettable with these otherworldly stories, translated by Gini Alhadeff. They frame haunting, dreamlike moments: a 13th-century woman senses the taste of “Christ’s foreskin … tender as egg skin and very sweet”; an orphan burns alive the aristocrat who took her in “for the blasted glory of it”; a family is cursed by a possessed mandrake root. Told in Jaeggy’s characteristically jagged prose, these dark stories of madness, loss and murder are urgent and evocative. Central to each are surreal images reminiscent of paintings by Leonora Carrington or Max Ernst: “her hands, like the claws of a crustacean, clutched at a little mound of dust”. This is an intensely beautiful and original collection that bristles with a strange and often disturbing magic." -- Claire Kohda Hazelton - The Guardian"The fictional stories [ofI Am the Brother of XX] deal with by now familiar motifs of arson, ill health, insomnia, suicide, isolation, hauntings, vendettas and murder: some are Gothic tales of the supernatural, featuring ghosts and saints and mandrakes....And death haunts: the death of Sissi, Empress of Austria, assassinated on the shores of Lake Geneva in 1898; the suicide of the Austrian poet and painter Adalbert Stifter, who cut his throat in Linz in 1868." -- Margaret Drabble - The New Statesman"Startling and original—so disturbing and so haunting." -- Cathleen Schine - The New York Review of Books"Stark, surprising prose. It’s hard to capture in a line or two the strange precision of Jaeggy’s prose. Darkness seems never far away." -- Martin Riker - The New York Times Book Review"This book is twisted and hypnotizing and, somehow, downright lovely. Reading it is not unlike diving naked and headlong into a bramble of black rosebushes, so intrigued you are by their beauty: it’s a swift, prickly undertaking, and you emerge the other end bloodied all over." -- Daniel Johnson - the Paris Review"Jaeggy's prose gleams like cut gems." -- Tess Lewis - The Riveter"A wonderful, brilliant, savage writer." -- Susan Sontag"Fleur Jaeggy’s pen is an engraver’s needle depicting roots, twigs, and branches of the tree of madness—extraordinary." -- Joseph Brodsky"Nothing rivals its intensity." -- The Los Angeles Review of Books"How a novel could be so chilly and so passionate at the same time is a puzzle, but that icy-hot quality is only one of the distinctions of Sweet Days of Discipline." -- April Bernard - Newsday"Jaeggy seems to have crushed a glass in her palm and tweezed out a few shards for the page. Her prose is indeed extraordinary...it is also frightening." -- Sasha Archibald - The Rumpus
£11.99
Quercus Publishing Good Offices
Book SynopsisWhen Father Almida is summoned to an audience with the parish''s principal benefactor, a stand-in is found in Father Matamoros, a drunkard with an angel''s voice whose sung mass is mesmerizing to all. But Matamoros hides a darker side, and when the church''s residents throw a feast for him he encourages them to lose all their inhibitions and give free reign to their most Bacchanalian desires. A satire on the iniquities of the Catholic church in Colombia, Good Offices is at once comic, surreal and startling, a novel that will linger long in the mind. Trade Review'Moving from offbeat humour to soaring spiritual ecstasy, it has both pathos and punch' Maya Jaggi, Guardian. * Guardian *'A novella about hope and the possibility of realising it ... written with brio, and with vivid illuminating touches ... It reads beautifully' Allan Massie, Scotsman. * Scotsman *'The Catholic Church takes a real kicking in this slim yet invective-packed satire ... lays bare the hypocrisy of the Church in richly descriptive sentences' Sunday Business Post. * Sunday Business Post *'A fable of vice and desire as comic as it is disturbing' Lucy Scholes, Sunday Times. * Sunday Times *'An entertaining and engaging read, with arresting images that linger in the mind long after the book has been returned to the shelf' Wayne Gooderham, Time Out. * Time Out *'a ripe and atmospheric satire on ecclesiastical hypocrisy' Sunday Telegraph. * Sunday Telegraph *
£7.99
Quercus Publishing In the Gold of Time
Book SynopsisSet between Normandy and Arizona, In the Gold of Time is a seductive tale of silences and dark, half-revealed secrets, and a haunting elegy for innocence lost in a lost world. A young father holidays by the sea near Dieppe with his reproachfully perfect wife and their twin daughters. Returning from the local shop, he meets an eccentric old lady, Alice Berthier, who lives with he mute sister, Clémence. Their mysterious house is full of old photographs and strange objects - sacred ceremonial masks once belonging to the Hopi, a tribe of Native Americans from Arizona. Haunted by memories of a tragic past, Alice takes comfort in her new companion, and he, in turn, is drawn into her mysterious world. As his family recedes into the background, her stirring tales of the Hopi and the Arizona desert become the only salve to his despondent soul. Trade Review'Poetic and fascinating ... an uplifting book' Elle. * Elle *
£12.34
Quercus Publishing The Acid Test
Book SynopsisWhen the mutilated body of Mayra Cabral de Melo is found in a dusty field, Detective Edgar Lefty Mendieta has personal reasons for bringing the culprit to justice. Mayra, a well-known stripper, had no shortage of ardent, deluded and downright dangerous admirers, and Lefty himself is haunted by the night he spent in her company.As Mexico''s drug war ramps up, Lefty''s pursuit of a gallery of jealous and powerful suspects, all with a murderous glint in their eye, leads him to Samantha Valdés, the godfather''s daughter, who is battling to retain her father''s empire. And as the mystery deepens, the bodycount rises.Trade ReviewOne of the biggest names in Mexican literature . . . A true novelist . . . No one has captured the exciting and passionate nature of the Mexican vernacular like him -- Arturo Pérez-ReverteIf you are fed up with formulaic noir novels and looking for something fresher, Élmer Mendoza . . . could be the answer * Sunday Times *Presents Mexico in a darkly surrealist light: corrupt politicos, a plague of narco-crime and only battered detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta on the side of the angels * Independent *Mendoza conveys a clear sense of life in Culiacan through the violence of the competing cartels and a simmering expectation and acceptance of corruption * Publishers Weekly *Essential reading. * Sunday Express. *A vivid glimpse into an ultraviolent world of macho posturing, unorthodox policing and ruthless criminality. * Guardian. *
£14.24
Quercus Publishing The First Man A Commandant Michel de Palma
Book Synopsis Commandant Michel de Palma, known by his colleagues as ''the Baron'', has chosen early retirement and plans to travel the world. But he is dragged back into the force when a case that has haunted him for a decade erupts once more. Resurfacing from Le Guen''s Cave, a prehistoric grotto thirty-eight metres below sea level outside Marseilles, France, an experienced diver mysteriously gets into difficulties. Meanwhile, Thomas Autran, a serial killer with a peculiar interest in the supernatural, suffering from a dangerous form of schizophrenia, is once again on the run. Ancient cave paintings, savage murders committed according to a precise ritual: a return to the first ages of humanity, the era of the great Palaeolithic hunters. And despite the gory trail left at each crime scene, de Palma must first understand the child, the secrets of a family, a story of exploitation - and revenge - before he can track down the First Man. Trade ReviewKeeps up the pace, twisting and turning to ensure you don't stop flipping those pages - Buzz on The Voice of the SpiritsIntriguing and enjoyable - Eurocrime on Voice of the Spirits
£9.99
Quercus Publishing The Girl in the Spiders Web A Dragon Tattoo story
Book SynopsisThe girl with the dragon tattoo is back: Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return in the #1 bestselling continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series.Trade ReviewLagercrantz has constructed an elegant plot around different concepts of intelligence . . . his continuation, while never formulaic, is a cleaner and tighter read than the originals . . . Without ever becoming pastiche, the book is a respectful and affectionate homage to the originals. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian. *As I read Lagercrantz's The Girl in the Spider's Web, I found that I kept forgetting for several pages at a time that I wasn't reading genuine Larsson . . . One devours Larsson's books for the plots, the action, the anger, and most of all for Lisbeth Salander . . . Lagercrantz has caught her superbly, and expertly spun the sort of melodramatic yarn in which she can thrive. -- Jake Kerridge * Daily Telegraph. *Fans of Stieg Larsson's captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction - the genius punk hacker Lisbeth Salander and her sometime partner, the crusading investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist - will not be disappointed . . . Salander and Blomkvist have survived the authorship transition intact and are just as compelling as ever. -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times. *Elegantly paced, slickly executed, and properly thrilling. -- Alison Flood * Observer *First, the conclusion. David Lagercrantz has done well . . .The Girl in the Spider's Web conveys the essence and atmosphere of Larsson's Millennium novels. He has captured the spirit of their characters and devised inventive plots, most of them suitably exaggerated . . . On the evidence of Spider's Web, most Millennium fans will want to continue following their Lisbeth. -- Marcel Berlins * The Times. *Lagercrantz's real achievement here is the subtle development of Lisbeth's character; he allows us access to her complex, alienated world but is careful not to remove her mystery and unknowability. Lisbeth Salander remains, in Lagercrantz's hands, the most enigmatic and fascinating anti-heroine in fiction. -- Barry Forshaw * Financial Times. *Rest easy, Lisbeth Salander fans - our punk hacker heroine is in good hands . . . Swedish crime novelist David Lagercrantz takes the reins with prowess, not only mimicking Larsson's shamelessly pulpy prose, but admirably expanding the deliciously depraved world of the novels. -- Patrick Ryan * USA Today. *
£10.67
Quercus Publishing The Awkward Squad MacLehose Press Editions
Book SynopsisSuspended from her job as a promising police officer for firing one bullet too many, Anne Capestan is expecting the worst when she is summoned to H.Q. to learn her fate. Instead, she is surprised to be told that she is to head up a new police squad, working on solving old cold cases.Though relieved to still have a job, Capestan is not overjoyed by the prospect of her new role. Even less so when she meets her new team: a crowd of misfits, troublemakers and problem cases, none of whom are fit for purpose and yet none of whom can be fired.But from this inauspicious start, investigating the cold cases throws up a number of strange mysteries for Capestan and her team: was the old lady murdered seven years ago really just the victim of a botched robbery? Who was behind the dead sailor discovered in the Seine with three gunshot wounds? And why does there seem to be a curious link with a ferry that was shipwrecked off the Florida coast many years previously?TranslTrade ReviewThis summer's crime read * Cosmopolitan *You will not want to tear yourself away ... Extremely original -- Jean-Louis Debré * Le Point *A scintillating read ... we are already hooked * Elle *From her first novel, Sophie Hénaff proves that she can really pull the trigger * Paris Match *Original and amusing, it's French noir with a sly smile. * The Times *A delightful creation, the members of her team amusing and the book lively. -- Marcel Berlins * The Times *Amusing and interesting ... this very enjoyable tale has deservingly won several French literary prizes -- Jessica Mann * Literary Review *
£12.34
Quercus Publishing Stick Together
Book SynopsisAfter their successful solving of three cold cases and exposing corruption at the very highest level of the Paris police force, Anne Capestan''s squad of misfits and no-hopers should be in a celebratory mood. However, now despised by their colleagues at 36 quai des Orfèvres and worried for their future, morale has never been lower among the members of the Awkward Squad.Capestan does her best to motivate her troops, but even she cannot maintain a cheerful façade when she has to investigate the murder of Commissaire Serge Rufus, the father of her ex-husband. Worse, it soon appears that his murder is linked to two other victims, both of whom were warned by the killer before they struck . . .Trade ReviewA delightful creation, the members of her team amusing and the book lively -- Marcel Berlins * The Times *Amusing and interesting ... this very enjoyable tale has deservingly won several French literary prizes -- Jessica Mann * Literary Review *Original and amusing, it's French noir with a sly smile -- Karen Robinson * The Times Crime Club *You will not want to tear yourself away ... Extremely original -- Jean-Louis Debré * Le Point *From her first novel, Sophie Hénaff proves that she can really pull the trigger * Paris Match *A scintillating read ... we are already hooked * Elle *
£14.24
Quercus Publishing The Longest Night
Book SynopsisA masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting - Daily MailSince the liberation of the Netherlands, Emma Verweij has been living in Rotterdam, in a street which became a stronghold of friendships for its inhabitants during the Second World War. She marries Bruno, they have two sons, and she determines to block out the years she spent in Nazi Berlin during the war, with her first husband Carl. But now, ninety-six years old and on the eve of her death, long- forgotten memories crowd again into her consciousness, flashbacks of happier years, and the tragedy of the war, of Carl, of her father, and of the friends she has lost. In The Longest Night, his impressive, reflective new novel after News from Berlin, Otto de Kat deftly distils momentous events of 20th-century history into the lives of his characters. In Emma, the past and the present coincide in limpid fragments of rare, melancholy beauty.<Trade ReviewA masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting. -- John Harding * Daily Mail *De Kat mixes great moral issues with historical events. This is his literary art. The Longest Night is melancholic and brilliantly written. -- Marianne Mielke * Radio Berlin. *Otto de Kat has created a small masterpiece. * Nürnberger Zeitung. *The De Kat Express takes you on a journey without borders. * NRC Handelsblad. *An exceedingly beautiful novel that you read breathless till the end. * E.O. Vision. *These are novels of subtle emotional distance . . . as physical as a blow to the heart -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *One of the Netherlands' most compelling literary voices * Irish Examiner *[A] powerful novel, exploring the impact of war through the lives of its memorable characters. * The Lady *
£14.24
Quercus Publishing The Last Days of El Comandante
Book SynopsisVenezuela 2012: The President''s illness casts a shadow over the lives of his citizens - he divides opinion, but life without him is almost unimaginable. Miguel Sanabria is a retired oncologist, ambivalent towards the President but caught between a virulently anti-Chávez wife and a equally vehement pro-Chávez brother. He is asked by his nephew to hide a mobile phone carrying secret footage that could shed new light on the President''s condition.His neighbour Fredy has found a fresh angle for a new book about Chávez, but to take advantage he must agree to a green-card marriage and leave his girlfriend and their son for two months, even as their landlady plots to repossess their home.In another apartment live nine-year-old María and her neurotic, near-agoraphobic mother. Taken out of school to be educated at home, María turns to internet chat rooms for company, while her mother''s fears about the city''s endemic violence are proved tragically prescient.Trade ReviewTyszka is a perceptive, original writer. -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times. *Enthralling . . . with its skilfully wrought atmosphere of suspense and energetic prose -- David Gallagher * Times Literary Supplement *The Venezuelan Ian McEwan. -- Booktrust.The best novel about charisma I've read in a long time. Everything it tells us rings true. * Babelia *His devilish ability to bring together distinct storylines that converge in the apotheosis of a brilliant finale is proof of Barrera's awareness of the finer points of deft and intelligent writing. * El Periódico. *Barrera's prose is clear, rousing, borne of authenticity when it comes to expressing the contradictions of human beings. * La Vanguardia. *Why is Alberto Barrera Tyzska's novel so good? Because, from the first phrase to the last, he keeps us interested, curious, and concerned for what will happen. Because this flair of his reveals a great deal of cultivation, study, and insight into the art of creating suspense. Because his ability to create a redoubtable literary space, which we inevitably associate with the International Sanatorium Berghof in The Magic Mountain, Leopold Bloom's Dublin, or mad Ahab's Pequod, is breathtaking. * El Nacional. *
£14.24
Quercus Publishing Kingdom of Twilight
Book SynopsisHISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH - THE TIMESOne night in autumn 1944, a gunshot echoes through the alleyways of a small town in occupied Poland. An S.S. officer is shot dead by a young Polish Jew, Margarita Ejzenstain. In retaliation, his commander orders the execution of thirty-seven Poles - one for every year of the dead man''s life. First hidden by a German couple, Margarita must then flee the brutal advance of the Soviet army with her new-born baby. So begins a thrilling panorama of intermingled destinies and events that reverberate from that single act of defiance. KINGDOM OF TWILIGHT follows the lives of Jewish refugees and a German family resettled from Bukovina, as well as a former S.S. officer, chronicling the geographical and psychological dislocation generated by war. A quest for identity and truth takes them from Displaced Persons camps to Lübeck, Berlin, Tel Aviv and New York, as they try to make sense of a changed world, Trade ReviewA novel about the aftermath of the war, the tribulations of uneasy peace and the violent birth of Israel . . . KINGDOM OF TWILIGHT is powerful and original -- Antonia Senior * The Times *Uhly skilfully unrolls an epic canvas yet rarely loses sight of the individual details that bring his characters to life -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *A gripping, thoroughly researched novel . . . Steven Uhly's Kingdom of Twilight should be at the centre of literary debate * Süddeutsche Zeitung *One of the most important and powerful novels of recent German literature * Deutschlandradio Kultur *
£9.99
