June 6, 2017 Maigret Goes to School by Georges Simenon 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…
August 18, 2016 The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoevsky 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,…
August 10, 2016 Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali Translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe Reviewed by Simon Madonna in a Fur Coat, was first published in Turkish in 1943. This translation…
April 12, 2016 The Flight by Gaito Gazdanov Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley As well as being the driving force behind the Stefan Zweig revival, Pushkin Press has also…
December 9, 2015 Pushkin Vertigo – titles by Piero Chiara & Leo Perutz Reviewed by Victoria Pushkin Vertigo, the new crime imprint from Pushkin Press has got off to a flying start with its first batch of…
October 8, 2015 The Miner by Natsume Soseki In a new translation by Jay Rubin Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite Shiny new publisher: Aardvark Bureau, the new Gallic Books imprint headed up by…
April 14, 2015 The Man in a Hurry by Paul Morand Translated by Euan Cameron Reviewed by Karen Langley The modern world is very much based on speed, with gadgets and technology conspiring to deliver…
April 10, 2015 The Book of Margery Kempe 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…
January 27, 2015 In the Twilight by Anton Chekhov 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…
January 23, 2015 The Fires of Autumn by Irène Némirovsky 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…
January 21, 2015 Notes on a Cuff by Mikhail Bulgakov 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,…
October 16, 2014 The Buddha’s Return by Gaito Gazdanov 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,…
October 10, 2014 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy A New Translation by Rosamund Bartlett Written by Helen Rappaport Taking on one of the great novels of the nineteenth century is a huge…
October 6, 2014 Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabó Translated by George Szirtes Reviewed by Victoria Best I often shy away from books in translation, afraid they will sound clunky and odd. But…
July 22, 2014 The Listener by Tove Jansson 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…
July 10, 2014 The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik 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…
July 9, 2014 Belkin’s Stories by Alexander Pushkin 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…
April 25, 2014 Tristano: A Novel by Nanni Balestrini Translated by Mike Harakis Reviewed by Helen Parry The philosophy that a text is created by the reader as well as the writer is…
April 10, 2014 Autobiography of a Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky 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…
