Silver Pebbles is the second book in the Inspector Peter Hunkeler series to be deftly translated into English by Mike Mitchell. It finds the Basel police inspector a little older,
In Finnish writer Antti Tuomainen’s much-acclaimed third novel The Healer (2011), Helsinki is almost submerged under torrential rain, and the whole of society – from its infras
New Year is a relatively straightforward novel: Henning, a family man approaching middle age, undertakes a mountain bike ride in Lanzarote on 1 January. As he makes the climb, he r
Swiss author Peter Stamm’s new collection of twelve short stories, his first collection in a decade, is engaging, elusive and deceptively subversive. Nothing is quite as it seems
As colours go, pink is usually considered quite sweet and innocent. Ballet shoes, candy floss, maybe even ‘millennial pink’, the unofficial name that emerged from the pale-pink
The appearance of Les inséparables in France last year inspired much early discussion: why had the novel been left unpublished by the author? How did it compare to Mémoires d’u
Once, while on my university year abroad in Paris, I remember taking myself off to the theatre one evening to watch a performance of one of my final-year set texts. The experience
Babakar, an obstetrician living in Guadeloupe, leads a somewhat solitary life. With no wife or children, his work takes centre stage. However, one day, this all changes. At the ver
The Just is the story of Jan Zwartendijk – and five others – who jointly and severally worked to give many thousands of Jews safe passage out of Lithuania, Poland and even Aust
Towards the end of the 1950s the French philosopher Michel Foucault spent several months in Poland, having been put in charge of the University of Warsaw’s Centre Français. Acco
