Last year I spent a month at Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat near Edinburgh. Fellows (as the participants are called) come…

June 2018
It’s not often that you pick up a book that grabs you from the very first page, holds you in…
Often, without much thought (and quite insensitively), we consider other cultures to be intrinsically different from our own; we imagine…
A drawing pinned to the wall of 11-year-old Leila’s attic bedroom shows a tiny dark spot in the midst of…
Pascal Quignard is one of my favourite authors. But whenever I can get hold of a new book by him,…
Poet Ana Blandiana is of that rare breed that has been laurelled with both literary and humanitarian singularity. Her career…
There are three narratives in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Like a Falling Shadow: an account of James Earl Ray, the murderer…
In her native Germany, evening-class teacher Brigitte Glaser lived a quiet life, writing regional crime and culinary-themed fiction in her…
This month I am honoured to begin my tenure as the European Literature Network’s Riveting Reviews Editor, taking over the…