‘Those who leave can never return’

A review of A Light Still Burns by Selim Özdoğan, translated by Ayça Türkoğlu and Katy Derbyshire It certainly isn’t the flashiest of series, but it is precisely because it doesn’t shout about its own merits that Selim Özdoğan’s Anatolian Blues trilogy has been such a delight to read over the past three years. This

‘Hell was inside me’ [book review]

A review of Other People’s Beds by Anna Punsoda, translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem With Other People’s Beds, her first work of fiction, Catalan author Anna Punsoda offers us a tale of the body. In the smarting, spiky prose of her first-person narrative voice, she explores what it is to exist physically

‘Debating race and wrong’ [book review]

A review of Identitti by Mithu Sanyal, translated from the German by Alta L. Price ‘Nowadays nobody’s a serious intellectual until they’ve sat in the eye of a shitstorm.’ So says Nivedita, a German-Polish-Indian student and influential blogger who writes about race, identity and post-colonial studies under the name of Identitti in Mithu Sanyal’s novel

‘Crossing languages and collecting butterflies’ [book review]

Putin’s Postbox by Marcel Beyer, translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire German writer Marcel Beyer is a man of many talents. For the past three decades he has been publishing poetry, fiction and essays, translating poetry by Gertrude Stein and Michael Hofmann, and helping to shape the German-speaking literary scene in his roles as

‘Whether it could be borne’ [book review]

A review of The Bureau of Past Management by Iris Hanika, translated from the German by Abigail Wender The Bureau of Past Management doesn’t exist, but, after reading Iris Hanika’s excellent novel of the same name, I certainly wish it did. This vast institution at the heart of the German capital – nation, even –

‘If you water dashed hopes’ [book review]

A review of Forty Lost Years by Rosa Maria Arquimbau, translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush Read just a few pages of Forty Lost Years and you’ll find it hard not to fall in love with Laura Vidal. Fourteen years old and an apprentice dressmaker, the narrator of Rosa Maria Arquimbau’s overlooked masterpiece has

‘The war didn’t seem much like a war’ [book review]

A review of The Others by Raül Garrigasait, translated from the Catalan by Tiago Miller Ambitious young indie press Fum d’Estampa is rapidly making a name for itself by publishing carefully crafted Catalan literature in translation, often bringing little-known masterpieces back into the public eye in the process. Though less overlooked (it won the Best

‘Everyone in their rightful place’ [book review]

A review of Andrea Víctrix by Llorenç Villalonga, translated from the Catalan by P. Louise Johnson The high-rise streets are lit by lurid advertisements and a slogan flashing in neon letters above the constant stream of traffic: ‘PROGRESS CANNOT BE STOPPED.’ This is Turclub – proper name Tourist Club of the Mediterranean – the setting

‘God bless sedation’ [book review]

A review of Permafrost by Eva Baltasar, translated from the Catalan by Julia Sanches A translator’s note is something that really ought to be included in every work of translated literature. Though I have come across more recently, it seems still to be an uncommon practice, yet even the shortest one can offer the reader

‘Those carefree, glittering summers’ [book review]

A review of The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Selim Özdoğan, translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire and Ayça Türkoğlu Between 1961 and 1973, nearly 900,000 Turkish men and women left their homes to work in West Germany. This constant stream of migration was the result of a deal closed by the two governments; Germany badly