Imogen is Reading and Watching the World: On Books, Film, Art & More
I'm a UK-based editor for a major publisher. I'm making it my off-duty duty to experience FIVE books, FIVE films, art, TV, music and food from every country in the world (where feasible). See drop down menus for my progress.
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 …
Continue reading “Review no 27: Han Kang, Human Acts (South Korea)”
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.
AFRICA Translated from the French by Melanie Mauthner I serendipitously found my copy of this book in a secondhand bookshop in Herne Hill, South London, which I’ve found to be an unexpected and excitingly ripe source of obscure works of fiction in translation. The husband – amusingly but perhaps a bit meanly – suggested that …
Continue reading “Review no 21: Scholastique Mukasonga, Our Lady of the Nile (Rwanda)”
EUROPE Translated from the Danish by Tiina Nunally (vols 1&2) and Michael Favala Goldman (vol 3) Penguin Books recently published Tove Divletsen’s autobiographical Copenhagen Trilogy as a beautiful three-volume set, entitled Childhood, Youth and Dependency (in Danish Barndom, Ungdom and Gift). They are gorgeous editions, and a pleasure to own, but it is a little …
Continue reading “Tove Ditlevsen (1917-78), The Copenhagen Trilogy (Denmark)”
Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell AMERICAS AND THE CARIBBEAN This is a short sharp shock of a book, a hallucinatory horror story that builds up a constant hum of excruciating tension over its 150 pages. Published in Spanish as Distancia de rescate (Rescue Distance), the modern gothic, body-swap novella is apparently inspired by …
Continue reading “Review no 16: Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream (Argentina)”
Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal EUROPE **** “I loved this book. It’s cool in both senses of the word, understated yet exciting …. The characters still haunt me.” – Ruth Rendell It wasn’t until I went to an amazing exhibition on the life and work of Tove Jansson at Dulwich Picture Gallery in …
Continue reading “Review no 1: Tove Jansson (1914-2001) , The True Deceiver (Finland)”
Imogen is Reading and Watching the World: On Books, Film, Art & More 