Conversations with Rilke by Maurice Betz
Translated by Will Stone Review by Karen Langley Aside from his verses, Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke is probably best known to the English-speaking world for his prose work, The…
The Brittle Age, by Donatella Di Pietrantonio
Translated by Ann Goldstein Review by Rob Spence In the mountainous rural region of Abruzzo, a local community is blighted by an event of brutal savagery. Thirty years later, its…
City of Fiction by Yu Hua
Translated from the Chinese by Todd Foley Review by Frances Spurrier Lin Xiangfu was on edge that evening. Moonlight streamed down through the hole in the roof like a sparkling column…
Nothing Grows by Moonlight by Torborg Nedreaas
Translated by Bibbi Lee Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a spate of newly translated fictions being made available by Penguin Classics in their ‘Demy’ series; these works…
Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida
Translated by Hayden Trowell Review by Rob Spence Quirky Japanese literature seems to be all the rage these days. Every British bookshop seems well-stocked with Tokyo-based stories about cats or…
A Man of Few Words by Carlo Greppi
Translated by Howard Curtis Review by Karen Langley, 6 Mar 2025 Italian author and chemist Primo Levi is possibly one of the best-known commentators on the Holocaust; he began writing…
The Last of the Aldinis by George Sand
Translated by George Burnham Ives Review by Rob Spence Opposite the title page of this new edition of George Sand’s novel is a list of her works of fiction. It…
Abandonment by Erminia Dell’Oro
Translated by Oonagh Stransky Review by Annabel Such is my woeful lack of knowledge of African history, I had no idea that Eritrea had been colonized by Italy in the…
Mammoth by Eva Baltasar
Translated by Julia Sanches Review by Michael Eaude Ice and Fire Mammoth is the third novel in Eva Baltasar’s big-selling trilogy, each featuring young women in search of love with…
Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes
Translated by Frank Wynne Review by Annabel I would never have predicted that Virginie Despentes, creator/director of the 2000 rape-revenge novel and film Baise-moi, author of the superb ‘State of…
And Time Was No More: Essential Stories and Memories, by Teffi
Edited and annotated by Robert Chandler Review by Karen Langley The last decade or so has seen a resurgence of interest in Russian émigré writing with a host of forgotten…
The Time of Cherries by Montserrat Roig
Translated by Julia Sanches Review by Michael Eaude Lemons and Cherries Most reviews I write are of Catalan fiction translated to English. I often wonder whether my commitment to learning…
Shiny Prize Season – A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare – International Booker Prize
Translated by John Hodgson Review by Karen Langley The International Booker Prize is one of the more high profile literary awards, and its stated aim is to introduce readers to…
Shiny Prize Season – The Details by Ia Genberg – International Booker Prize
Translated by Kira Josefsson Review by Susan Osborne While enduring a light fever, the unnamed narrator of Ia Genberg’s The Details is seized with the urge to read the novel…
What Do I Know? by Michel de Montaigne
Translated by David Coward Review by Karen Langley The essay as a form of writing has existed for centuries, and one of its pre-eminent practitioners was the French author Michel…
Shiny Prize Season – Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck – International Booker Prize
Translated by Michael Hofmann Review by Susan Osborne Jenny Erpenbeck’s novels offer much food for thought on the events that have shaped modern Germany. Opening in 1986, Kairos charts an…
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
Translated by Anthea Bell Review by Terence Jagger Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna, but lived in England, the USA and Brazil, where he apparently died in a double suicide…
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Translated by Hilda Rosner Reviewed by Harriet Siddhartha had one single goal – to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow – to let the…
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…
The Evenings by Gerard Reve
Translated by Sam Garrett Review by Rob Spence In Amsterdam, just after the Second World War, Frits, a young office worker, lives a dreary and unfulfilling existence. He lives in…
My Men by Victoria Kielland
Translated by Damion Searls Reviewed by Harriet This extraordinary, powerful novel begins in Norway, in 1876, and it begins as it means to go on: Brynhild’s head was wrapped in…
The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji
Translated by Ho-Ling Wong Review by Terence Jagger This is another of Yukito Ayatsuji’s homages to the British Golden Age of mystery writing, like The Decagon House Murders I reviewed…
Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood Review by Karen Langley Summer reading tastes vary, but for me there’s nothing better than settling down with a satisfying mystery novel, particularly of the Golden…
The House on the Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone
Translated by Oonagh Stransky Review by Rob Spence The British are not receptive to literature in translation. Sure, any decent bookshop will have a smattering of foreign classics – Proust,…