International Fiction reviews
Macbeth by Jo Nesbo
Crime fiction and thrillers aren’t my preferred reading, so I’ve never been tempted to read a Jo Nesbo novel before. This would no doubt have remained the case had I not been curious to see how he wo…
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
The House of Impossible Beauties charts the glitter and heartbreak of the tumultuous 1980s in New York. Inspired by the iconic documentary Paris is Burning and the real House of Xtravaganza, Joseph C…
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Given the fact of the seemingly relentless media revelations of exploitation in all sorts of industries, I can’t think of a better time to read a smart book about uneven power dynamics. Lisa Halliday…
Circe by Madeline Miller
Ann Patchett calls Madeline Miller’s new novel ‘an epic spanning thousands of years that’s also a keep-you-up-all-night page turner’. Circe definitely had me reading into the early hours of the morni…
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi
You can and will be tempted to read Disoriental in one very long sitting, well, at least Side A. Yes, Disoriental keeps you off balance from the first page of contents, a novel organised as an album.…
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-m…
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 th…
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 Dictiona…
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 again…
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 …
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