Reykjavik by Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Ragnar Jónasson Is it wise for presidents and prime ministers to try their hand at writing crime novels, however commercially tempting it may be? The Clintons, Bill and Hillary, both took on the challenge, but wisely left the heavy lifting to experienced novel
‘Have you tried exercising, vitamins or a better diet?’: a familiar refrain often heard by women seeking medical attention for exhaustion. In her first book translated into English, Hildur Knútsdóttir draws on female experience to create a chilling feminist horror that cuts dangerously close t
Have you ever seen photographs of rivers and streams meandering through the rugged terrain of Iceland? The way they create their own space, take ownership of obstacles and thrive in the beautiful, unexplored countryside? As I was reading Jón Kalmann Stefánsson’s latest audacious novel Your Absen
W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie. This tongue-twister – sound-twister – resounded in my head at the sight/name of Aneta Kamińska’s birthplace: Szczebrzeszyn. Not coincidentally, perhaps, as linguistic shapes and sounds strongly co-relate in Czernovitz-Charmovitz, which introduces
There is a melancholy at the heart of both Family and Borghesia, but in neither novella does the source of this sadness become clear until the story’s close. Published late in Ginzburg’s career, the sadness in Family appears to stem from the breakdown of the traditional family unit, and it
Katja Oskamp won the Dublin Literary Award in 2023 with her book Marzahn Mon Amour, the story of a writer-turned-chiropodist working in Marzahn, the biggest housing estate in formerly communist East Berlin. Half Swimmer, also set in East Berlin, is a collection of linked short stories, told by a fir
