Translated from French by Shaun WhitesidePublished by W&N, 2022, 144 pages. Original version published in 2011. Giverny: a beautiful, picturesque village in France, known for its most famous resident, the impressionist painter Claude Monet, who is famous for his paintings of water lilies. Artists and tourists flock to the village to see the beautiful gardens …
Category: Fiction
The Far Field: Madhuri Vijay
Published by Grove Press UK, 2019, 432 pages. “If I do speak, if I do tell what happened six years ago in that village in the mountains, a village so small it appears only on military maps, it will not be for reasons of nobility. The chance for nobility is over. Even this, story or …
The Shadow King: Maaza Mengiste
Published by Canongate Books, 2020, 448 pages. “The newspapers say that the [Italian] soldiers marched to Axum and took the city without a single shot being fired. … They claim that…Adua was finally, proudly, taken by the Italians on 5 October 1935 and the tiny, nondescript village welcomed the invaders with bowed heads and ululations. …
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth: Daniel Mason
Published by Mantle, 2020, 240 pages. This is an intriguing collection of short stories, many of them set in the 1800s. A doctor finds himself blanking out regularly. The seizure is heralded by the smell of chestnuts. When he comes to, he finds that, instead of passing out, he had carried on with what he …
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Tyll: Daniel Kehlmann
Translated from German by Ross BenjaminPublished by riverrun, 2020, 352 pages. Original version published in 2017. The jester or trickster is a ubiquitous figure, popping up in mythologies, literature, street theatre, and in playing cards and tarot. He (it’s almost always a man) is an entertainer, mentally and physically agile, and able to speak truth …
Please Look After Mom: Kyong-Sook Shin
Translated from Korean by Chi-young KimPublished by W&N, 2011, 272 pages. Original version published in 2009.Review by Susanne Karine Gjønnes South Korea has gone through an unprecedented journey from a developing country to one of the world's largest economies in only a few decades. This transformation has led to generations growing up and living completely …
Rebecca: Daphne du Maurier
Published by Virago / Hachette, 1938, 432 pages. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” That one sentence is so evocative of this book, partly thanks to the 1940 Hitchcock film with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. There is something haunting about Rebecca—both the book and the title character. Rebecca is narrated by …
Wife of the Gods: Kwei Quartey
Published by Random House, 2009, 319 pages. Set in Ghana, this is the first in a series featuring Detective Inspector Darko Dawson. Gladys Mensah is found dead in the forest near Ketanu. Her body, seemingly untouched, is discovered by Efia, a trokosi or a “wife of the gods”. In reality, Efia is one of the …
Fly Already: Etgar Keret
Translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston, Nathan Englander, Jessica Cohen, Miriam Shlesinger and Yardenne GreenspanPublished by Riverhead Books, 2019, 209 pages. Original version published in 2018. A child encourages a man to jump off the top of a building, believing that the man is a superhero and will fly. A man keeps the compacted wreck …
The New Wilderness: Diane Cook
Published by Oneworld Publications, 2020, 416 pages. This book is set in a dystopian future in the United States at a time when all the natural resources have been used up by humans. Cities are polluted, the air is almost unbreathable, and children are dying as a result. One of these sick children is Beatrice’s …
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