Published by Simon & Schuster, 2016, 528 pages. It was in the early 80s that I first heard Bruce Springsteen. Looking for new music, I raided the tiny music shop in Secunderabad (India) and picked up Born to Run. I was hooked. The music spoke to me, although I was from a different culture and …
Voices from Chernobyl—The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster: Svetlana Alexievich
Translated from Russian by Keith GessenPublished by Picador / Dalkey Archive Press, 2005, 240 pages. Original version published in 1997. "Chernobyl is like the war of all wars. There's nowhere to hide. Not underground, not underwater, not in the air." On 26 April 1986, Energy Block No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station was …
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Italian Shoes: Henning Mankell
Translated from Swedish by Laurie ThompsonPublished by Vintage, 2009, 247 pages. Original version published in 2006.Review by Susanne Karine Gjønnes We find an aging man, living by himself on a Swedish island, where he has been in solitude since his retirement 12 years back. Once, he made a mistake he regrets so badly he has …
The MFA & the Literary Consultant: A dilettante’s procrastinations
The articles posted on this blog have so far concentrated exclusively on books and reading. With this article, Thomas Peak is turning the focus to the other side of the process—the writing. How should aspiring writers hone their craft? Thomas shares his thoughts on the pros and cons of creative writing courses and literary consultancies. …
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The Glorious Heresies: Lisa McInerney
Published by John Murray, 2015, 384 pages. An intruder breaks into Maureen Phelan’s apartment. Without thinking, she brains him with a Holy Stone, a religious relic. Worrying over the dead body and the blood seeping into the grout on the kitchen floor, she calls her son James, a gangster, to deal with the mess. James …
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling, John Thorne and John Tiffany
Published by Sphere, 2016, 352 pages. So you thought we’d come to the end of the Harry Potter story…well, think again. JK Rowling, with some help this time, has written another instalment. This one takes place 19 years after the events of the last Potter book, and the plot revolves around Harry’s second son, Albus …
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A Passion in the Desert: Thomas E. Kennedy
Published by Wordcraft of Oregon, 2007, 192 pages. The title of this book is borrowed from a story by Balzac about betrayal and mistrust, two threads running through the book. The third is love, with all its inadequacies and flaws. Fred Twomey is a creative writing professor, married with two sons. He has a reasonably …
My Father’s Zoo: Esther David
Published by Rupa Publications, 2007, 100 pages.Review by Sadhana Ramchander How many people you know grew up in a zoo? How many people you know have a father who started a zoo? This is the stuff of my own childhood dreams (before zoos became bad places), and I became very excited when I saw this …
The Neapolitan Novels: Elena Ferrante
Translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein(Publishing details at the end.)Review by Tom Peak The Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante’s four-piece masterwork, is rightly the literary sensation of its time. The epic narrative, sweeping over decades, gallivanting across the life of a neighbourhood—a city—a country—an epoch, rummaging through the lives of the two protagonists, a pair locked …
50 Must-Read Books in Translation
When we started the reading challenge two years ago, we planned to read, between us, a book from every country in the world. Books written originally in English didn't take us very far, so we either read in other languages (French, Spanish, German) or looked for literature in translation. Fortunately, translations into English are growing, …
