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Will Maclean: The Apparition Phase
Ghosts, creaky old mansions, seances, and the 1970s, are the surface level features of The Apparition Phase (2020), the debut novel from Will Maclean, a ghost story that straddles the line between the...
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David Albahari: Götz and Meyer
“Having never seen them, I can only imagine them” is how David Albahari’s narrator opens on the subject of Götz and Meyer, two non-commissioned officers, in this 1998 (tr. Ellen Elias-Bursać, 2004)...
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Peter Adolphsen: The Brummstein
Danish writer Peter Adolphsen‘s first work in English was his 2006 novel, Machine, which followed a drop of oil over the massive expanse of fifty-five million years, and somehow wrapped it all within...
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Jun’ichirō Tanizaki: The Key
The unnamed husband in Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s The Key (1956, tr. Howard Hibbett, 1960) has long maintained a diary, though as he opens his first entry for the new year, he sets out that he intends to...
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Tove Ditlevsen: Childhood
By the time she was ten years old Tove Ditlevsen knew she wanted to be a poet. The biggest obstacle to that dream was the times in which she lived. Born in 1917, the best her family could hope for her...
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Atiq Rahimi: The Patience Stone
There’s an old Persian myth about a black stone that, when confessed to, absorbs and absolves, until the day comes when it can take no more and explodes. This is The Patience Stone (2008, tr. Polly...
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Ornela Vorpsi: The Country Where No One Ever Dies
Memories of an Albanian childhood supply the collection of vignettes that amount to Ornela Vorpsi’s debut, The Country Where No One Ever Dies (2005), translated from the Italian by Robert Elsie and...
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Isaac Asimov: Foundation
Just as the Roman Empire declined, the Galactic Empire is facing its own obsolescence after more than twelve thousand years. Beyond that humanity faces a new Dark Age spanning thirty thousand years....
View ArticleNona Fernández: Space Invaders
The Pinochet years continue to inspire Chilean writers and Space Invaders (2013, tr: Natasha Wimmer, 2019) by Nona Fernández is one further addition to that canon. Here it’s a short fragmentary work...
View ArticleAnnie Ernaux: A Man’s Place
Attention (for those of us who hadn’t been looking that way) turns to Annie Ernaux after her Nobel Prize win and to the body of work that got her there. A Man’s Place (1983, tr: Tanya Leslie, 1992) is...
View ArticleAndrea Mayo: The Carnivorous Plant
It only takes two mirrors to build a labyrinth, said Borges, and in The Carnivorous Plant (2021, tr: Laura McGloughlin, 2022) metaphorical mirrors are hung “in front, behind, above and below” to...
View ArticleBrandon Sanderson: Elantris
Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris (2005) is an epic fantasy but also, unlike much in this vein, a standalone. I’d be lying if it weren’t the major appeal in choosing this over the commitment of multiple...
View ArticleLoranne Vella: What Will it Take For Me to Leave
What Will It Take For Me To Leave (2019, tr: Kat Storace, 2021) by Loranne Vella is one of the first offerings from Maltese specialists Praspar Press. It’s a set of short stories dealing with daily...
View ArticleJacob Kerr: The Green Man of Eshwood Hall
The Green Man of Eshwood Hall (2022) is the first of an unknown number by Jacob Kerr set in Northalbion, a fictional spin on Northumberland. Set over 1962, it’s a mostly enchanting tale of a young...
View ArticleJames Herbert: The Rats
When James Herbert’s The Rats (1974) arrived on the scene, it must have felt like a massive fuck you to much that had gone before. Regular anthologies of ghost stories harked to a pre-war cosiness...
View ArticleJames Herbert: The Fog
If James Herbert’s debut The Rats was a flawed horror classic, then his follow-up, The Fog (1975), seemed to right some of those wrongs while serving up more of the same. It’s a disaster thriller...
View ArticleThomas Hinde: The Day the Call Came
Thomas Hinde was the pen name of Sir Thomas Chitty, novelist for thirty years before ditching fiction for books on English country gardens and other pastoral pursuits. The Day the Call Came (1964) was...
View ArticleJoanna Corrance: John’s Eyes
In an age of wearable and smart technology John’s Eyes (2021), a novella by Joanna Corrance, imagines a near future where eyes can be wholly replaced with artificial versions. This isn’t the retinal...
View ArticleMaithreyi Karnoor: Sylvia
When we first meet the eponymous character of Maithreyi Karnoor’s debut, Sylvia (2021) she’s a freelance travel writer working on an article about baobab trees in India. These trees, with their...
View ArticleIolanda Batallé: I’ll Do Anything You Want
I’ll Do Anything You Want (2013, tr: Maruxa Relaño & Martha Tennent, 2023) by Iolanda Batallé is the tale of Nora, a painter who, after twenty-five years in a regular marriage, goes astray with a...
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