Translated from French by Helen StevensonPublished by Serpent's Tail, 2025, 207 pages. Original version published in 2022. “Once you’ve been laid in the earth, time will start to do its work, and for all their good intentions, the people who knew you will gradually forget, till one dry season comes when not a soul ventures …
Category: Fiction
Theft: Abdulrazak Gurnah
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025, 246 pages This is the story of three young Tanzanians: Karim, Fauzia and Badar, and their relationship with each other. Karim’s mother Raya lives in Zanzibar and is forced into marrying a much older man by her parents. When she walks out of her marriage, she leaves Karim with her …
The Double: José Saramago
Translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull CostaPublished by The Harvill Press, 2004, 292 pages. Original version published in 2002. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, a history teacher, is depressed. His colleague, the Mathematics Teacher (never named), suggests he watch a light video to cheer himself up. The video he recommends is one made five years ago called …
Butter: Asako Yuzuki
Translated from Japanese by Polly BartonPublished by 4th Estate / Ecco, 2024, 452 pages. Original version published in 2017. Rika Machida is an ambitious journalist working at the Shūmei Weekly. She has been trying to get an exclusive interview with Manako Kajii, a woman being held in the Tokyo Detention House for killing three of …
Skinwalkers: Tony Hillerman
Published by HarperCollins, 1986, 299 pages Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is sleeping in his trailer when he is woken by his neighbour, a feral cat, who comes in through the cat flap in the door. The cat comes into his trailer only when something scares it. Chee gets out of bed …
Espejo Roto: Mercè Rodoreda
Translated from Catalan into Spanish by Pere GimferrerPublished by Austral, 2002, 413 pages. Original version published in 1975. Published in English as Broken Mirror, translated by Josep Miquel Sobrer, University of Nebraska Press, 2006. The book opens with a visit to a jeweller. Teresa Goday—the beautiful daughter of a fishmonger—is at the jeweller’s shop with …
Calling for a Blanket Dance: Oscar Hokeah
Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2022, 258 pages A story told by several family members, Calling for a Blanket Dance centres around Ever, a man with a Cherokee-Kiowa mother (Turtle) and a Mexican father (Everado). But it is also a story about the Geimausaddles, Ever’s family. Turtle’s mother, Lena Stop, is a Cherokee, …
A Florentine Death: Michele Giuttari
Translated from Italian by Howard CurtisPublished by Abacus, 2007, 357 pages. Original version published in 2005. A man is brutally murdered in a shop in Greve, a town near Florence. Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, head of the Squadra Mobile, is called to investigate. The victim, Stefano Micali, worked at a shop selling religious artefacts. He …
The Owl, The River and the Valley: Arupa Patangia Kalita
Translated from Assamese by Mitra PhukanPublished by Penguin, 2025, 338 pages. Stories in the original version published over several years. “Certainly, their parents must have given these women a name. Those names were lost in the river of time. What indeed did they have that would allow them to hold their names firmly in their …
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The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck: Tarquin Hall
Published by Severn House, 2025, 214 pages Most Private Investigator Vish Puri is getting ready to go to London to receive the International Detective of the Year award. He and his wife Rumpi are looking forward to the week-long trip and plan to make a holiday of it. Unfortunately, nothing works out the way Puri …
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