Published by Top Shelf, 2019, 208 pages. After the attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese on 7 December 1941, the US government declared that all people of Japanese origin were “enemy aliens”, including those who were US citizens. They were rounded up and incarcerated. The assumption was that their race made them “nonassimilable” and …
Growing Up in the Somali Desert: An Interview with Shugri Said Salh
Shugri Said Salh is a Somali writer, now living in San Diego, USA. Her memoir, The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert (2021) won the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, Multicultural and Indigenous Category; and was a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize; the 2021 CALIBA/Golden Poppy Award; as well as …
Continue reading Growing Up in the Somali Desert: An Interview with Shugri Said Salh
The Last Murder at the End of the World: Stuart Turton
Published by Raven Books / Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, 332 pages. It is the end of the world as we know it. A black fog has swept through the world, destroying every living thing in its wake: “the fog kills anything it touches...Unfortunately, it covers the entire earth, except for our island and half a mile …
Continue reading The Last Murder at the End of the World: Stuart Turton
Descent into Dystopia
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, published by Grove Press, 2023, 320 pages.The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, published by Hamish Hamilton, 2023, 645 pages. Review by Usha Raman The scariest dystopian novels are those that seem to be set on the inside edge of our times. Anyone who reads the daily news (or worse, watches …
Black River: Nilanjana Roy
Published by Pushkin Vertigo, 2022, 350 pages. The best crime fiction is more than just a whodunnit—it shines a light on the darker side of society. This is true of Nilanjana Roy’s Black River: it is dark, heart-breaking and ultimately redemptive. Munia is a little girl who lives with her father Chand, a farmer, in …
The Last Brother: Nathacha Appanah
Translated from French by Geoffrey StrachanPublished by Maclehose Press, 2010, 201 pages. Original version published in 2007. This is a story narrated by Raj, an old man looking back at a crucial period in his childhood, a time that changed his life forever. Raj grows up in Mapou, a village in the north of Mauritius, …
Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver
Published by Faber / HarperCollins, 2022, 548 pages. “My thinking here is to put everything in the order of how it happened, give or take certain intervals of a young man skunked out of his skull box, some dots duly connected. But damn. A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing. …
Tokyo Express: Seichō Matsumoto
Translated from Japanese by Jesse KirkwoodPublished by Penguin, 1971, 149 pages. Original version published in 1958. The bodies of a man and a woman are found on the beach on Kyushu. The way the bodies are lying, and the empty bottle of orange juice near them—which was found to contain cyanide—seems to point to a …
Monkey King—Journey to the West: Wu Cheng’en
Translated from Chinese by Julia LovellPublished by Penguin, 2021, 339 pages. First published in English in 1942, translated by Arthur Waley. Original version published in 1592. Some books never age but feel as fresh as if they were written yesterday. Monkey King is one of these: a Chinese classic, written in the 16th century. Its …
Continue reading Monkey King—Journey to the West: Wu Cheng’en
Fresh Dirt from the Grave: Giovanna Rivero
Translated from Spanish by Isabel AdeyPublished by Charco Press, 2023, 157 pages. Original version published in 2020. A mad aunt threatens to reveal a family secret; a Japanese woman forms a bond with her quiet lodger; and two orphans are taken in by their alcoholic aunt. These short stories by a Bolivian writer are a …
Talking About Books 