Review: Saturn – Jacek Dehnel
Saturn by Polish author Jacek Dehnel is a historical novel based on the life of Spanish artist Francisco Goya. The shocking cover illustration shows one of Francisco Goya’s “Black Paintings” depicting...
View ArticleReview: Severe – Régis Jauffret
I was pleased to hear about Salammbo Press, a new publisher dedicated to publishing “the works of great contemporary novelists celebrated in their own country, but as yet unknown to British readers”....
View ArticleReview: A Private Venus – Georgio Scerbanenco
I’m writing this week about two examples of “Noir” crime fiction. On Monday I featured Severe by French writer Régis Jauffret. Today my featured book is an example of Italian Noir, A Private Venus by...
View ArticleReview: We’re Flying – Peter Stamm
Short stories come in so many different types you never know what you’re getting until you open the book and plough into the first two or three. Sometimes the main purpose of them is entertainment as...
View ArticleReview: The Dance of the Seagull – Andrea Camilleri
I apologise that my email notification system is not working very well at the moment. While some subscribers are receiving emails for every post, some are receiving none. I have tried and failed to...
View ArticleReview: Ljubljana Tales – New Europe Writers
Ljubljana Tales is published by New Europe Writers, a publishing enterprise dedicated to exploring the literary connections between the various European states, with an emphasis on those countries...
View ArticleReview: Diary of a Man in Despair – Friedrich Reck
It would be easy to let the title of this book put you off it: Diary of a Man in Despair, does not sound as though it’s going to be an entertaining read, but I share the view of Guy Savage of His...
View ArticleRevew: Balzac’s Omelette – Anka Muhlstein
This book ticks a number of boxes for me: - It describes the literary world of Paris in the 19th century; - It homes in on Honore de Balzac, a writer I have been reading for the last two or three...
View ArticleReview: From the Fatherland With Love – Ryu Murakami
From the Fatherland With Love is a vast novel (664 pages), written on an epic scale, an alternative reality novel describing the events surrounding the invasion of and economically bankrupt Japan by an...
View ArticleReview: Anatomy of a Night – Anna Kim
Anna Kim was born in South Korea but was brought up in Germany where her father was appointed a Professor of Fine Arts. She writes in German and her book Anatomy of a Night is one of the first four...
View ArticleReview: I Was Jack Mortimer – Alexander Lernet-Holenia
A new book from Pushkin Press is always welcome and in I Was Jack Mortimer, they have found a gem of a novel, written in 1933 but as fresh as anything written today. The book, a mixture of farce,...
View ArticleReview: Tales from the Underworld – Hans Fallada
In recent years their has been a resurgence of interest in the mid-20th century German writer Hans Fallada. His novel Alone in Berlin was an unexpected success when Penguin published a new translation...
View ArticleReview: Look Who’s Back – Timur Vermes
So, it’s today’s Germany, and Adolf Hitler finds himself waking up early one afternoon on a patch of undeveloped land. It was relatively quiet; I could not see any enemy aircraft flying overhead, or...
View ArticleReview: Death in Pont-Aven – Jean-Luc Bannalec
And what do we have here? The first novel in a crime series by a new French writer, Jean-Luc Bannalec? Well, not quite, for most literary journalists are agreed that M Bannelec is in fact Jörg Bong,...
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