A wide-ranging, best-selling novel set in Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt that is more socially conservative than it thinks it is
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Review no 107: On Time and Water by Andri Snaer Magnason (Iceland)
Uncomfortable read on climate change in Iceland and the likelihood of impending environmental disaster
Review no 85: The Discomfort of the Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Netherlands)
Child-perspective, sometimes shocking story of grief, set on a Dutch dairy farm
Review no 84: Golden Child by Claire Adam (Trinidad and Tobago)
Thought-provoking and moving examination of poverty and parental ambition, which unspools with page-turning intensity
Review no 77: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (Cyprus)
The trashiest of trashy crime thrillers.
Review no 68: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Ghana)
AFRICA Homegoing was published in 2016 to much praise. Gyasi was born in 1989 in Ghana, but grew up mainly in the USA. However, Homegoing, her first novel, was apparently inspired by a trip back to the country of her birth in 2009. At first the novel was a little disorientating, as the story cut …
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Review no 30: Irmgard Keun (1905-82), The Artificial Silk Girl (Germany)
Sexually adventurous, ditzy, Weimar-era heroine Doris has quite the adventures in 1930s Berlin.
Review no 27: Han Kang, Human Acts (South Korea)
FAR EAST, SOUTH ASIA AND AUSTRALASIA Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith When it came to choosing a female South Korean writer, there was really no choice to be made. Han Kang is a previous winner of the Man Booker International Prize, and two of her novels recently made it onto the top 5 …
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Review no 26: Tété-Michel Kpomassie, An African in Greenland (Togo)
“Unbelievable!” he exclaimed. “How can a man fall off a sled? It’s not possible, yet you, you managed to do it. I saw you rolling down like a seal’s bladder, and I couldn’t believe my eyes!”
Hanne Ørstavik, Love (Norway)
I loved this short, sharp shock of a novel. Think you’re a bad mother? It’s ok, you’re not as bad as Vibeke.
Imogen is Reading and Watching the World: On Books, Film, Art & More 