Rapture by Iliazd
Translated by Thomas J. Kitson Reviewed by Karen Langley The early 20th century was a time of great change and upheaval; it produced wars and revolutions, but also a great…
Translated by Thomas J. Kitson Reviewed by Karen Langley The early 20th century was a time of great change and upheaval; it produced wars and revolutions, but also a great…
Translated by Thomas Teal Reviewed by Kate Gardner This penultimate collection of Finnish literary giant Jansson’s short stories has taken 26 years to be published in an English translation, but…
Translated by Linda Coverdale Reviewed by Harriet What was he doing there? A hundred times, in the middle of an investigation, he’d had the same feeling of helplessness or, rather,…
Translated by Dora O’Brien Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky is best known in the west for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons/Devils/The Possessed and…
Translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe Reviewed by Simon Madonna in a Fur Coat, was first published in Turkish in 1943. This translation is the first time this Turkish…
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley As well as being the driving force behind the Stefan Zweig revival, Pushkin Press has also done fans of Russian authors a…
Reviewed by Victoria Pushkin Vertigo, the new crime imprint from Pushkin Press has got off to a flying start with its first batch of releases. Not surprisingly, perhaps, when you…
In a new translation by Jay Rubin Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Shiny new publisher: Aardvark Bureau, the new Gallic Books imprint headed up by Scott Pack, formerly publisher at The…
Translated by Euan Cameron Reviewed by Karen Langley The modern world is very much based on speed, with gadgets and technology conspiring to deliver all kinds of information and media…
Translated by Anthony Bale Reviewed by Harriet Margery Kempe (c.1373-after 1439) was an extraordinary woman, and this is an extraordinary book. It’s often referred to as the first autobiography to…
Translated by Hugh Aplin Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Anton Chekhov, although possibly best known for his plays like The Cherry Orchard, is also the acknowledged master of the short…
Translated by Sandra Smith Reviewed by Harriet The Fires of Autumn, first published in France in 1957, is the most recent of Irène Némirovsky’s novels to be translated into English….
Translated by Roger Cockrell Reviewed by Karen Langley When Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s magnum opus The Master and Margarita was finally published, decades after his death, it took the literary world by…
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Following the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, many of that country’s beleaguered citizens escaped abroad, setting up émigré communities in cities…
A New Translation by Rosamund Bartlett Written by Helen Rappaport Taking on one of the great novels of the nineteenth century is a huge challenge for any Russian translator. Even…
Translated by George Szirtes Reviewed by Victoria Best I often shy away from books in translation, afraid they will sound clunky and odd. But this 1963 novel by renowned Hungarian…
Translated by Thomas Teal Reviewed by Simon Thomas It’s always interesting to see the genesis of a favourite writer. In Issue 1 of Shiny New Books, I was able to…
Translated by Deborah Dawkin Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I read the press release for The Blue Room (published in Norwegian in 1999, and now published by Periene Press in a translation by…
Translated and with commentary by Roger Clarke Reviewed by Karen Langley Alexander Pushkin is, of course, Russia’s national poet. Tragically killed in a duel in 1837, his influence still permeates…
Translated by Mike Harakis Reviewed by Helen Parry The philosophy that a text is created by the reader as well as the writer is well known and widely shared these…
Translated by Joanne Turnbull Reviewed by Karen Langley Soviet Russia’s Best-Kept Literary Secret Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky could accurately be described as the lost writer of Russia’s Soviet era. Born in the…