The Second Rider by Alex Beer
Translated by Tim Mohr Review by Gill Davies The Second Rider is the first novel in a projected new series by the Austrian writer, Alex Beer. It is set in…
Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar by Yuri Tynianov
Translated by Susan Causey, Translation editor Vera Tsareva-Brauner Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a large number of works by Russian authors newly translated into the English language;…
Vernon Subutex 2 by Virginie Despentes
Translated by Frank Wynne Review by Basil Ransome-Davies Almost two decades ago I saw a French movie called Baise-moi. It contained, besides much simulated violence, what Wikipedia fastidiously calls ‘several…
The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin
Translated by Lisa Hayden Reviewed by Karen Langley You awake in a hospital bed. You have no memory of who you are or how you came to be there, apart…
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi
Translated by Tina A Kover Review by Marina Sofia With a blurb promising a story of growing up in exile and even the title cleverly playing on words ‘disoriented’ and…
Retribution Road by Antonin Varenne
Translated by Sam Taylor Review by Gill Davies Having become rather jaded with the predictability of the crime fiction genre and wearied by the sheer number published, I’ve been interested…
The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers
Translated by Margaret Bettauer Dembo Reviewed by Gill Davies The novel is set in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and was first published in German in 1942. Seghers was a…
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…
House of Beauty by Melba Escobar
Translated by Elizabeth Bryer Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Each time I walk into town from my house I pass at least one nail/beauty salon/spa/bar/studio (the titles variously inflect the…
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
Translated by Geraldine Harcourt Reviewed by Annabel This latest addition to Penguin Classic’s expanding list of new translations in an upmarket paperback format is a beguiling novella following the story…
The Golovlevs by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin
Translated by I.P. Foote Review by Karen Langley Back in SNB #13 I reviewed “The History of a Town” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, one of the great Russian satirists of the 19th…
Savages: The Wedding by Sabri Louatah
Translated by Gavin Bowd Reviewed by Annabel This debut novel is the first volume of Louatah’s planned Saint-Étienne quartet named after the French city in which its protagonists reside. Saint-Étienne…
The Russian Soul: Selections from A Writer’s Diary by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Introduced by Rosamund Bartlett Translated by Kenneth Lantz / Olga Shartse Reviewed by Karen Langley Notting Hill Editions will probably need no introduction to readers of Shiny New Books. The…
Lullaby by Leïla Slimani
Translated by Sam Taylor Reviewed by Harriet Moroccan born novelist Leïla Slimani is not the first woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, though she’s only…
The Apothecary’s Shop by Roberto Tiraboschi
Translated by Katherine Gregor Reviewed by Terence Jagger In early twelfth century Venice set we our scene, although the cod historical touch is maybe just a little unfair, there is…
The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk
Translated by Ekin Oklap Review by Rob Spence A new novel by Orhan Pamuk is always an event, and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s an absorbing story, set in the…
Demian by Hermann Hesse
Translated by W. J. Strachan Reviewed by Karen Langley Is it the destiny of mankind to be pulled constantly back and forth between the two poles of good and evil,…
Shadows and Sun by Dominique Sylvain
Translated by Neil Caistor Reviewed by Terence Jagger I enjoyed this book, set amongst the French police in Paris and in Abidjan, but that’s not to say I really followed…
A Love Story by Émile Zola
Translated by Helen Constantine Reviewed by Harriet Here on Shiny we’ve reviewed several of the new Oxford World Classics editions of the novels of Émile Zola: Money, Earth and The…
Return to the Dark Valley by Santiago Gamboa
Translated by Howard Curtis Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies I found a molten quality in this novel (if it is a novel). It burns off the page, as they say. It…
Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky, edited by Bryan Karetnyk
Reviewed by Karen Langley In the anniversary year of the 1917 Russian Revolution a number of books have been issued which look at that tumultuous event and its effect on…
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting
Translated by Paul Russell Garrett Reviewed by Harriet For me my mother was a scent, she was a warmth. A leg I clung to. A breath of something blue; a…
Can You Hear Me? by Elena Varvello
Translated by Alex Valente Review by Annabel Can you hear me? is no ordinary psychological thriller – to pigeonhole it into that sub-genre would be to ignore large parts of…
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
Translated by Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce Review by Annabel French author Antoine Laurain has already got himself an army of fans (or should that be ‘armée’!) thanks to Gallic…