We welcome in 2021 with Riveting Reviews from our now expanded ELNet team. Rosie Eyre and Alice Banks have joined our happy group, helping on all aspects of our work, including contributing some fascinating reviews. This month Rosie E (as opposed to Rosie G, of whom more later) tackles some of Gallic Book’s most recent French publications, while Alice investigates a Catalan novella and Swedish short stories.
My review this month breaks our self-imposed rules of only reviewing European writers. Colombian Pilar Quintana writes in Spanish, and The Bitch is so good, it demands that rules are broken for it.
Anna Blasiak raves about the latest Ulrike Almut Sandig collection to appear in English, and our Riveter-in-Chief, Rosie Goldsmith, completes our team’s reviews this month with her thoughts about the new novel from Paolo Giordano.
Johanna Elster Hanson is back with two reviews – of fairy tales from the Norwegian Grimms, and a difficult book by a difficult Nobel laureate: Knut Hamsun.
Paul Burke wrestles with Portuguese Afonso Cruz’s intricate and elusive Kokoschka’s Doll, while we’re paring up with our friends at Bookanista to present a review of Elena Ferrante’s latest by Mika Provata-Carlone.
Enjoy these enlightening reviews as we push through these darkling times. And please offer us reviews of your own. As we no longer have a budget, we commission, edit and publish these monthly selections for free, so making your own suggestions for contributions helps us enormously. Check we haven’t reviewed a title before, read the ‘rules’ – https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-rules/ – then contact me on west@westcamel.net.
Happy reading.
—West Camel