A single mother carves out a new life with her toddler in 1970s Tokyo
Tag Archives: fiction
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Japan)
An International Booker Prize-shortlisted dystopian novel
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Japan)
a quick and deceptively unchallenging read that reminded me of a Japanese Eleanor Oliphant
The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe (1924-93, Japan)
A 1962 Japanese classic work of absurdist dystopia from Kobo Abe
The Promise by Damon Galgut (South Africa)
Damon Galgut’s Booker-winning ‘The Promise’ was without a doubt one of my books of the year.
Elif Shafak’s novel ’10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World’ (Turkey)
NORTH AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA This is a bit of a throwback post, as some of it was first posted by me in 2019, and was in fact my fifth ever review on the blog. I’m re-posting with some additional discussion of publication prospects in the West for Turkish authors, as part of …
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Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali (1907-48, Turkey)
A classic Turkish novella largely set in Weimar Berlin
In Youth is Pleasure by Denton Welch (UK)
Hallucinatory 1940s coming of age tell set in upper middle class England between the wars
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (Austria)
A quietly life-affirming study of the passage from childhood to old age of an unassuming man, shortlisted for the International Booker
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA I’m a bit behind with my reading plans, as I’ve unexpectedly been doing a lot of extra hours at work after someone left. Until their replacement starts, I’ve been handed all their authors and their workload to deal with, along with my own, although the end does seem to be in sight, even …
Continue reading “The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)”
Reading and Watching the World: Books, Film and Art 