Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto
On its first publication, The Castle of Otranto (1764) was attributed to a translation by William Marshall from the Italian of Onuphrio Muralto. Supposedly found “in the library of an…
Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Fowzia Karimi: Small Pieces
To see the meeting in print of Micheline Aharonian Marcom and Fowzia Karimi feels like destiny fulfilling itself. True, Karimi has previously illustrated Marcom’s The Brick House (2017), but in…
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow: All the Little Bird Hearts
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s All the Little Bird-Hearts (2023) follows an account of one memorable summer that irreparably changed its narrator’s life, Sunday, is an autistic woman with notable quirks: she enjoys…
Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory
The Wasp Factory (1984) by Iain Banks centres on the narration of Frank Cauldhame, a teen living in an isolated house on a remote island in Scotland. Frank’s a psychopath…
James J. McIntyre: Jimmy Two Guns
Jimmy McIntyre was a criminal lawyer in Scotland sentenced to three years in prison in 1997. Jimmy Two Guns: The Life and Crimes of a Gangland Lawyer (2023) is his…
Berta Dávila: The Dear Ones
“No other change in life demands so much in return,” writes the unnamed narrator in Berta Dávila’s The Dear Ones (2022, tr: Jacob Rogers, 2023). The change in question is…
Andy Hamilton: Longhand
Andy Hamilton is a well-kent name from British TV and radio, having given us, among other things, shows like Drop the Dead Donkey (1990-1998) and Outnumbered (2007-2016). Longhand (2020) is…
Jules Verne: The Underground City
In 1859 Jules Verne left France for the first time and visited Scotland. He looked over Edinburgh from Arthur’s Seat (his first ‘mountain’), visited Glasgow, and took the train to…
Iolanda Batallé: I’ll Do Anything You Want
I’ll Do Anything You Want (2013, tr: Maruxa Relaño & Martha Tennent, 2023) by Iolanda Batallé is the tale of Nora, a painter who, after twenty-five years in a regular…
Maithreyi Karnoor: Sylvia
When we first meet the eponymous character of Maithreyi Karnoor’s debut, Sylvia (2021) she’s a freelance travel writer working on an article about baobab trees in India. These trees, with…