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Dear Ida, A Change of Time (2019, tr. Martin Aitken. Original: En ny tid, 2015) is the record of a woman’s passage through grief. Told through diary entries…… Read more “Such shifting winds in life”
Tag: Contemporary
Happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural
Dear Marie-Helene, Much of the disturbing, off-kilter sense of humour in Parakeet: A Novel (2020) comes from a finely-drawn contrast between the strong sense of reality in…… Read more “Happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural”
It was under the sway of that force that I began to feel,
Dear Gabriela, A coming-of-age story, a road novel, a picaresque adventure, a piece of nature and travel writing, an epic, and a reinterpretation of Martín Fierro through a…… Read more “It was under the sway of that force that I began to feel,”
The truth is a kind of regardless
Dear Ali, Spring (2019) begins with chorus of angry voices, a collage of social media rants and headlines, disrupted in the end by a voice that seems…… Read more “The truth is a kind of regardless”
Things can be going on inside you without you even knowing
Dear Hanne, Love (2018, tr. Martin Aitken. Original: Kjærlighet, 1997), or the absence of it, unfolds on a single day in the lives of Vibeke and her eight-year…… Read more “Things can be going on inside you without you even knowing”
The world has dropped its petals
Dear Olga, Reading Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (2018, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Original: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych, 2009) is all about…… Read more “The world has dropped its petals”
There was no new order
Dear Natália, Controle (2019, ‘Control’, not translated yet) is a novel centred on an absence. Our protagonist, she’s lost control, and she’s clinging to the nearest passer-by:…… Read more “There was no new order”
Just a desire, begun
Dear Natália, Amora: Stories (2020, tr. Julia Sanches. Original: Amora, 2015) begins with ‘First Times’ and ends with ‘Profanation’ – and, for that alone, I knew this collection…… Read more “Just a desire, begun”
Their movement through life is invisible
Dear Jokha, Celestial Bodies (2018, tr. Marilyn Booth. Original: Sayyidat al-Qamar, 2010) revolves around a family and their household members, in an Omani village, in the late 20th…… Read more “Their movement through life is invisible”
Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only
Dear Ariana, Die, My Love (2017, tr. Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff. Original: Matate, Amor, 2012) is all about voice: a short musical piece of sustained rage,…… Read more “Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only”
A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time
Dear Auður, In Butterflies in November, tr. Brian FitzGibbon (2013. Original: Rigning í nóvember, 2004), you play with our sense of reality, bringing into light what is fundamentally odd…… Read more “A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time”
The all-seeing eye
Dear Claire, In Bitter Orange (2018), we are made accomplices of the main character’s voyeurism, caught in a claustrophobic atmosphere that grows ever more disturbing as we…… Read more “The all-seeing eye”
The view and the woods opening to a light that’s itself untrodden
Dear Ali, Winter (2017) is a novel full of the ambivalence embodied in this season: the dying of light that is also a promise of new light.…… Read more “The view and the woods opening to a light that’s itself untrodden”
Standing at this border where land and water meet
Dear Han Kang, The White Book, tr. Deborah Smith (2017. Original: 흰, 2016) is a meditation on colour. We start with a list of white things –…… Read more “Standing at this border where land and water meet”
My past life would be but a dream,
Dear Ottessa, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) seems to be a novel suffering from split personality: on the one hand, it is a book about…… Read more “My past life would be but a dream,”
We ourselves became the ghosts
Dear Sarah, Ghost Wall (2018) feels like one of those dreams where a character is trapped in a room whose walls keep getting narrower and narrower. We…… Read more “We ourselves became the ghosts”
My Year in Nonfiction 2018 | Essay collections & Memoirs
Hi, folks, Continuing with the discussion started a couple of posts back, about nonfiction trends in my reading this year, I’ve also noticed that I read a good amount of…… Read more “My Year in Nonfiction 2018 | Essay collections & Memoirs”
The old brag of my heart
Dear Maggie, I Am, I Am, I Am (2017) reads like a reliquary of the string of moments your bragging heart, in a way or another, snatched…… Read more “The old brag of my heart”
