Cynics by Anatoly Marienhof
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley When faced with a totalitarian regime and a disintegrating world, how should the writer or artist respond? In many cases they turn…
The Cat by Georges Simenon
Translated by Ros Schwartz Review by Annabel Back in 2014, Penguin embarked on republishing all seventy of the Maigret novels in new translations over a period of a few years,…
The Penguin Maigret Capsule Collection – Maigret’s Holiday and Maigret’s Pickpocket – by Georges Simenon
Review by Annabel Starting back in 2013, Penguin began reissuing the novels of Georges Simenon in new or recent translations with distinctive photographic details on the covers. All 75 Maigrets…
The Siren’s Lament: Essential Stories by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) was a Japanese author known for his erotically charged stories, and is considered one of his country’s best-known modern…
Longing and Other Stories by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki
Translated by Anthony H Chambers and Paul McCarthy Review by Anna Hollingsworth In the UK, readers know their Murakamis and convenience store women. Jun’ichiro Tanizaki is much less known to…
The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir
Translated by Lauren Elkin Review by Karen Langley Simone de Beauvoir is probably best recognised nowadays for her ground-breaking feminist work The Second Sex, as well as her connections with…
An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen an upturn of interest in Russian émigré authors from the 20th century; there were, of course, famous names…
Revolutionary Women from Gallic Books
Reviewed by Karen Langley French literature doesn’t lack a wide range of great women writers; the names which spring most readily to mind are those like George Sand, Colette, and…
King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes
Translated by Frank Wynne Reviewed by Annabel I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the old, the bull dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckable, the…
The Coral Merchant: Essential Stories by Joseph Roth
Review by Eleanor Updegraff Translated by Ruth Martin Austrian author Joseph Roth is best known – if indeed he is known at all – for his sometimes relatively lengthy novels…
Chitambo by Hagar Olsson
Translated by Sarah Death Reviewed by Karen Langley When we think of Nordic fiction nowadays, we’re probably inevitably aware of the preponderance of Scandi-crime; it not only seems to have…
Crisis by Karin Boye
Translated by Amanda Doxtater Reviewed by Karen Langley When we think of Nordic fiction nowadays, we’re probably inevitably aware of the preponderance of Scandi-crime; it not only seems to have…
I Remember by Georges Perec
Introduced, Translated, Annotated, Edited and Indexed by Philip Terry and David Bellos Reviewed by Karen Langley Regular readers of Shiny New Books may recall the Bookbuzz piece earlier this year…
Fandango and Other Stories by Alexander Grin
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a wave of wonderful new translations of ‘lost’ Russian authors of the 19th and 20th century. Some have…
Kallocain by Karin Boye
Translated by David McDuff Review by Karen Langley Our modern world often seems to be getting very close to a dystopian nightmare, and most of our visions of that kind…
Abigail by Magda Szabo
Translated by Len Rix Reviewed by Harriet This novel, by the award-winning Hungarian novelist Magda Szabo, was first published in 1970. However, it is set in 1943-4, a crucial period…
Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem
Translated by Louis Iribarne Review by Karen Langley Polish writer Stanislaw Lem was a prolific author of science fiction works, the most well known of which is “Solaris” (which has…
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai Reviewed by Harriet This delightful reprint from Pushkin Press is widely viewed as one of Japan’s greatest murder mysteries. Amazingly this is its first English…
The Last Two Maigrets by Georges Simenon
Maigret and the Informer, translated by William HobsonMaigret and Monsieur Charles, translated by Ros Schwarz Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Simenon was a supercharged writing machine, a prodigious figure whose élan…
The Memoir of an Anti-Hero by Kornel Filipowicz
Translated by Anna Zaranko Review by Harriet It could be argued that Anglophone readers are living in a golden age of translated literature; all manner of smaller publishers are bringing…
Necropolis by Vladislav Khodasevich
Translated by Sarah Vitali Review by Karen Langley, The Russian Library series from Columbia University Press has thrown up some marvellous treasures of literature from Russia, several of which I’ve…
Sentimental Tales by Mikhail Zoshchenko
Translated by Boris Dralyuk Review by Karen Langley Russian satirical writing has a rich heritage, stretching all the way back to the time of Catherine the Great and continuing into…
A Dead Rose by Aurora Cáceres
Translation, Foreword & Notes by Laura Kanost Reviewed by Karen Langley The female form is often idealised in art and media, from classical sculptures through paintings and in more modern…
The Ropewalker and A People Without a Past by Jaan Kross
Translated by Merike Lepasaar Beecher Reviewed by Gill Davies Thanks to the wonderful Maclehose Press I have discovered another writer in translation who deserves to be much better known. Up…
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