Jules Verne: The Underground City
In 1859 Jules Verne left France for the first time and visited Scotland. He looked over Edinburgh from Arthur’s Seat (his first ‘mountain’), visited Glasgow, and took the train to Loch Lomond and on,...
View ArticleAndy Hamilton: Longhand
Andy Hamilton is a well-kent name from British TV and radio, having given us, among other things, shows like Drop the Dead Donkey (1990-1998) and Outnumbered (2007-2016). Longhand (2020) is his second...
View ArticleBerta Dávila: The Dear Ones
“No other change in life demands so much in return,” writes the unnamed narrator in Berta Dávila’s The Dear Ones (2022, tr: Jacob Rogers, 2023). The change in question is having a child and from the...
View ArticleJohana Gustawsson: Yule Island
Yule Island (2023, tr: David Warriner, 2023), is Johana Gustawsson’s first novel set wholly in Sweden since relocating there from her native France. Taking on Nordic mythology to furnish its...
View ArticleYukio Mishima: The Frolic of the Beasts
While I actually finished The Frolic of the Beasts (1961, tr: Andrew Clare, 2018) by Yukio Mishima way back at the end of January, I’ve sat on it, wondering what to actually say about it. The truth is...
View ArticleJon Fosse: Scenes from a Childhood
Scenes From a Childhood (tr: Damion Searls, 2018) is a selection of Jon Fosse’s short fiction that spans 1987 through 2013. It contains five pieces that showcase the Nobel laureate’s work, and each is...
View ArticleGonzález Macías: A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World
In an epigraph, referring to Jules Verne’s posthumous novel, The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905), González Macías tells how Verne never set foot in Argentina, where the novel was set, but...
View ArticleWilliam McIllvanney: Laidlaw
Love or hate the term, William McIlvanney became the father of ‘Tartan Noir’ after his fourth novel, Laidlaw (1977). Many of today’s Scottish crime writers, like Ian Rankin, cite its influence....
View ArticleHanna Komar: Ribwort
Hanna Komar’s Ribwort (2022, tr: 2023) is a poetry collection that calls for healing, using the titular plant as a metaphor for soothing emotional wounds. It’s a bilingual edition, showing the poems...
View ArticleGemma Amor: The Folly
Morgan never believed her father killed her mother. She spent the last six years of her life actively campaigning for his release, which eventually resulted in a mistrial ruling and his subsequent...
View ArticleSaraid de Silva: Amma
Amma (2024) by Saraid de Silva is a time-hopping, peripatetic debut novel that explores the matrilineal line of a single family over three generations. Though it chronologically runs from 1951 through...
View ArticleColin MacIntyre: When the Needle Drops
Musicians penning novels is nothing new. Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave have done it to considerable acclaim. Morrissey’s “unpolished turd” took a beating while Pete Townshend’s recent effort was seen to...
View ArticleJon Fosse: Boathouse
“I don’t go out anymore, a restlessness has come over me, and I don’t go out.” is how Baard, the narrator of Jon Fosse’s Boathouse (1989, tr: May-Brit Akerholt, 2017), begins his minimal account of...
View ArticleMark Valentine: Lost Estates
Mark Valentine’s collection of short stories, Lost Estates (2024) is bookended by two long tales that begin with journeys through an England abundant in history and arcana and ultimately end in the...
View ArticleRamsey Campbell: Demons by Daylight
Demons by Daylight (1973) was Ramsey Campbell’s second collection of short stories, following on from The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants (1964). Truth be told, I’ve never really got...
View ArticleSian Northey: This House
The titular abode of Sian Northey’s This House (2011, tr: Susan Walton, 2024) is Nant yr Aur, a solitary cottage somewhere in rural North Wales. As a young girl, Anna Morris was fascinated by the...
View ArticleRita Bullwinkel: Headshot
Headshot (2024) is Rita Bullwinkel’s first novel, following on from her 2022 collection, Belly Up. It’s an exciting, somewhat experimental tale delivered in the structure of a boxing tournament for...
View ArticleR.B. Russell: Fifty Forgotten Books
Fifty Forgotten Books (2022) by R.B. Russell is as enjoyable as browsing in a dusty old book shop on a rainy day. Much of the book mirrors that experience, as Russell, the protagonist, takes us back...
View ArticleAlain Claude Sulzer: A Perfect Waiter
The role of a waiter is to perform unseen, to serve people and, barring the occasional nod or small talk, to be both discrete and unmemorable. They must give nothing of themselves away while attending...
View ArticleMark Morris (ed): After Sundown
After Sundown (2020) is the first from an annual non-themed horror anthology by Flame Tree Press. With no particular focus, editor Mark Morris has cast the definition of horror wide, ensuring that the...
View Article