James Kelman: What I Do
Kelman is a meticulous chronicler of working class Glaswegian men, raising them from the gutter to give them literary representation. His work draws on the output from both European existentialists…
Antonio Tabucchi: Requiem: A Hallucination
Requiem: A Hallucination (1991, tr: Margaret Julia Costa, 1994) is the only book Tabucchi (1943-2012) wrote in Portuguese rather than his native Italian. In a way it’s something of sad…
Bel Olid: Wilder Winds
Wilder Winds (2018, tr: Laura McLaughlin, 2022) is a slim volume packing sixteen short stories that whizz by on the page but linger on the mind. Set in various locations…
Georgi Gospodinov: Natural Novel
Natural Novel (1999, tr: Zornitsa Hristova, 2005) is the story of one man’s handling of his divorce after his wife announces she’s pregnant with his friend’s child. The way he…
Robert Edric: Field Service
Robert Edric has almost thirty novels to his name, a couple of which have been long-listed for The Booker Prize, and yet I rarely see much chatter about him or…
P.G. Wodehouse: The Pothunters
Regarded as one of the greatest literary humorists, PG Wodehouse produced over seventy novels and plenty of short stories over his long life. Originally serialised in early 1902, The Pothunters…
Isaac Asimov: Foundation
Just as the Roman Empire declined, the Galactic Empire is facing its own obsolescence after more than twelve thousand years. Beyond that humanity faces a new Dark Age spanning thirty…
Ornela Vorpsi: The Country Where No One Ever Dies
Memories of an Albanian childhood supply the collection of vignettes that amount to Ornela Vorpsi’s debut, The Country Where No One Ever Dies (2005), translated from the Italian by Robert…
Atiq Rahimi: The Patience Stone
There’s an old Persian myth about a black stone that, when confessed to, absorbs and absolves, until the day comes when it can take no more and explodes. This is…
Tove Ditlevsen: Childhood
By the time she was ten years old Tove Ditlevsen knew she wanted to be a poet. The biggest obstacle to that dream was the times in which she lived.…