William McIllvanney: Laidlaw
Love or hate the term, William McIlvanney became the father of ‘Tartan Noir’ after his fourth novel, Laidlaw (1977). Many of today’s Scottish crime writers, like Ian Rankin, cite its…
González Macías: A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World
In an epigraph, referring to Jules Verne’s posthumous novel, The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905), González Macías tells how Verne never set foot in Argentina, where the…
Jon Fosse: Scenes from a Childhood
Scenes From a Childhood (tr: Damion Searls, 2018) is a selection of Jon Fosse’s short fiction that spans 1987 through 2013. It contains five pieces that showcase the Nobel laureate’s…
Yukio Mishima: The Frolic of the Beasts
While I actually finished The Frolic of the Beasts (1961, tr: Andrew Clare, 2018) by Yukio Mishima way back at the end of January, I’ve sat on it, wondering what…
Johana Gustawsson: Yule Island
Yule Island (2023, tr: David Warriner, 2023), is Johana Gustawsson’s first novel set wholly in Sweden since relocating there from her native France. Taking on Nordic mythology to furnish its…
Jenny Kiefer: This Wretched Valley
Jenny Kiefer’s debut, This Wretched Valley (2024) is inspired by the Dyatlov Pass Incident but moves the underlying event away from the snowy Urals to the Kentucky woodlands. Starting in…
Bella Bathurst: The Lighthouse Stevensons
Between 1790 and 1940, eight members of the Stevenson dynasty were responsible for the design and construction of almost a hundred lighthouses that, to this day, still operate around the…
Robert Drewe: The Bodysurfers
Three generations of the Lang family take up many of the stories in Robert Drewe’s The Bodysurfers (1983), a work that leans in on the men, their faltering relationships, and…
Samanta Schweblin: Seven Empty Houses
Boxes, clothes, and the dead form a common thread in the stories of Samanta Schweblin’s Seven Empty Houses (2015, tr: Megan McDowell, 2022) which invite us into moments of the…
Jennifer Clement: A True Story Based on Lies
Women are at the heart of Jennifer Clement’s 2001 fiction debut, A True Story Based on Lies, which looks at the upstairs downstairs dynamics in wealthy Mexico City. Our gateway…