‘There is too much past’ [book review]

A review of In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale ‘There is nothing more distancing than the documents of a dead person,’ writes Maria Stepanova late in her astonishing book In Memory of Memory. It is a sentence which by this time she has proved to be false,

‘Lavish and warped’ [book review]

A review of Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes It happens. Every now and again, a book comes along and takes my words away. That it should this year have been Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season, in the blistering English translation by Sophie Hughes, didn’t come as a great surprise.

‘I went chasing eclipses’ [book review]

A review of Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon Hard to write sentences – meaningful ones, anyway – about a work devoted to just that: the sentence. Hard to convey the experience of reading Brian Dillon’s magnificent new book, an inspirational volume of essays as skilfully sculpted as the sentences they examine. A quiet, perhaps

‘The only way to arrive at the truth’ [book review]

A review of Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette It could seem like a relatively minor book, Adania Shibli’s third novel. With its plain blue Fitzcarraldo cover and svelte 112 pages, Minor Detail comes across as unimposing, a novella to be consumed within the space of a couple of