Search results for ""Author Julia Sherwood""

A haunting novel of post-Soviet Slovakia, centering on an enigmatic one-sided conversation. “So, as you see, I am familiar with the case. However, we can’t discuss it unless you learn more about some other court cases, so that you can compare your father’s trial with other, more baffling cases, and see it in the context of the madness that reigned at the time.” Ján Johanides’ riveting Slovak novel immediately thrusts you into the midst of a bewildering second-person dialogue, bestowing the reader with the role of a silent partner in a one-sided conversation with a mysterious archivist. As the story unfurls piece by piece, it becomes clear that the archivist, who can’t seem to stay on topic, has both a tragic history and the key to unlocking your family’s darkest secret, a secret that may or may not involve the Czechoslovak secret police, American and Soviet intelligence, Israeli politics, and a tire full of dollars. ​ Set after the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, But Crimes Do Punish is awash with paranoia, revealing how the madness of the Communist era continues to bleed into the instability of the present. Written in 1995, this haunting novel—the first work of Slovak fiction published by Karolinum Press—evokes the spirit of John le Carré and the style of Carlos Fuentes while illuminating issues that still plague post-Communist Europe.

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Blanka takes a summer job at a centre for people with physical disabilities in the French city of Marseille, where her encounter with their severe conditions ends badly. A deeply unsettling, visceral tale of a young woman unravelling, evolving from carer to cared for. A novel about our own inability to escape ‘our own private cages’, imprisoned by fear, anxiety and mistrust, no less than indifference to others. The author: IVANA DOBRAKOVOVÁ (1982) graduated from Bratislava's Comenius University with a degree in English and French (translation and interpretation). She is based in Turin where she works as a freelance translator from French and Italian into Slovak, currently working on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. She debuted in 2009 with her short story collection Prvá smrť v rodine (The First Death in the Family), followed by the novel Bellevue (2010). Her most recent collection of short stories Toxo appeared in 2013. She has won several literary competitions, including Poviedka 2008, and all three of her books have been shortlisted for the Anasoft Litera prize. In 2019, she was awarded the EU Prize for Literature.

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Andrič and his girlfriend Laura have been seeing each other for a long time now but it isn’t clear what each sees in the other. Self-absorbed, delusional or just a regular couple? ‘Big Love is primarily a critique of contemporary society, in which the triumph of liberal democracy has increased rather than diminished the Kafkaesque aspects of life.’ – Charles Sabatos.

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Alfonz Trnovsky, a genial and respected general practitioner in Breany, a small (fictitious) town in western Slovakia, spent his whole life pretending to be radiantly happy and contented, while the reality was quite different. He turned a deaf ear to his conscience as the 20th century hurtled by: four political regimes, the Holocaust, the political trials of the 1950s, the secret police before and after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia...and the women he loved. But whose are the bones his son accidentally stumbles on buried in the garden? As he sets out to unravel this mystery, the son discovers other skeletons in his father's cupboard. His quest includes a detour to the Prado in Madrid, where the father's favourite Goya paintings, the Black Series, are now exhibited after being removed from the walls of its original location, known as the Casa del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man).

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Traditional African narrative forms combined with European modernism. The stories comprising The Healer, Marek Vadas’s first collection, which was originally published in 2006, are steeped in the culture, rituals, and traditions of Africa, blurring the boundaries between dream and reality and peopled with characters whose gender, shape, skin color or even memories may change at a stroke. Nevertheless, Vadas refuses to exoticize this world, and many of the stories, told in pared-down language, blend mythical elements with realistic depictions of harsh living conditions, economic deprivation, and colonial oppression. The narratives unfold from the perspective of their protagonists—children (often orphaned), and men struggling to make ends meet and trying in vain to resist the allure of strong women endowed with magic powers. As a Slovak writer focusing on the African continent, Vadas is a rare voice that helps to build bridges between very different cultures, and now his writing is introduced to the global anglophone readership.

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