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 …
Reading the World: An Interview with Ann Morgan
Photo: Aida Silvestri Ann Morgan is a writer based in the UK who has inspired readers by her project, A Year of Reading the World. In 2012, she read a book from every country in the world and blogged about it. Her blog highlights the richness and diversity of books, including those not originally published …
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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 …
Walking with Ghosts—A Memoir: Gabriel Byrne
Published by Picador, 2020, 224 pages. “How many times have I returned in my dreams to this hill. It is always summer as I look out over the gold and green fields, ditches foaming with hawthorn and lilac, river glinting under the sun like a blade. When I was young, I found sanctuary here and …
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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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Walking Kabul: An Interview with Taran N. Khan
Photo: Jonathan Page Taran N. Khan’s book, Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul, won the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award and the 2020 Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Non-Fiction. The book is about Taran’s trips to Kabul from 2006 to 2013 during which she set out—against all advice—to walk …
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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 …
Becoming: Michelle Obama
Published by Viking, 2018, 448 pages. “When I was a kid, my aspirations were simple. I wanted a dog. I wanted a house that had stairs in it—two floors for one family. I wanted, for some reason, a four-door station wagon instead of the two-door Buick that was my father’s pride and joy.” Simple beginnings …
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