International fiction
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
Originally published in Arabic in 2014, Iraqi author Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. And it does what it says on the packet: it’s about a man-made, sewn-together corpse that terrorises Baghdad. Set during…
Apple and Knife by Intan Paramaditha
Apple and Knife is an engrossing collection of short stories by Intan Paramaditha, translated into English from Indonesian for the first time by Stephen J. Epstein. I found myself so absorbed in the tales that I repeatedly lost track of…
The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews
Erin, 19, goes on a solo journey across the world to live alone in the Alaskan wilderness à la Christopher McCandless, or Henry David Thoreau. Or Jack London. And Bear Grylls is doing it too … In fact, it’s about…
Look At Me by Mareike Krugel
Look At Me is Mareike Krügel’s fourth novel, and her first to be translated into English. It opens with Katharina being called in to pick up her daughter, Helli, from school, after Helli suffers from one of her self-inflicted nosebleeds…
The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells
Benedict Wells’ novel The End of Loneliness had already sold over 250,000 copies in Germany when it was translated into English. With statistics like that, I was curious and somewhat cautious that this novel would not live up to this…
The Dictionary of Animal Languages by Heidi Sopinka
In 2009 Heidi Sopinka travelled to Mexico City to interview the artist Leonora Carrington. She spent two whole days talking about love, art and loss. It was by this meeting that the book The Dictionary of Animal Languages was inspired…
Don't Skip Out On Me by Willy Vlautin
Willy Vlautin is one of those dependable writers who has staked out his territory and is sticking to it. He writes about characters on the American fringe. People who are fighting a losing game against the system: orphans, drifters, war…
The Only Story by Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes’ writing has always dealt with the complicated notions of history and truth. We saw this clearly in his Man Booker Prize-winning title, The Sense of an Ending, which prompts the reader to ask whether truth is fundamentally…
Oliver Loving by Stefan Merrill Block
There are many ways to describe the titular Oliver Loving – his mother’s favourite son, a beloved older brother to Charlie, and an aspiring poet. He has also been comatose (perhaps even brain-dead) for close to ten years. At seventeen…
The Melody by Jim Crace
It was always going to be a tough act for Jim Crace to follow. I’d only just finished reading the astonishing Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, when I picked up The Melody to review. But of course, considering…
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