This month I am honoured to begin my tenure as the European Literature Network’s Riveting Reviews Editor, taking over the riveting reins from the redoubtable Rosie Goldsmith.
I’m equally, if not more, honoured that this month’s crop includes reviews from two prominent European writers. Rein Raud, the eminent Estonian author and academic, expresses his admiration for Pascal Quignard in his review of the French writer’s latest, Villa Amalia, while UK poet, critic and editor John Greening provides our feature review – of Icelandic poet Gerður Kristný’s novel-poem Drápa; a Reykjavík Murder Mystery, translated by Rory McTurk.
We enjoy more poetry, this time from Romania, by Ana Blandiana. And we have two French authors writing about situations in other countries that they know well: Burundi and an unnamed Muslim country (possibly based on the writer’s native Lebanon).
We have fictionalised accounts based around real-life events: the fate of Martin Luther King’s assassin, and the (possible) attempt on the life of Germany’s first post-war chancellor, Konrad Adenauer; and we stay in Germany for a heartbreaking, relevant children’s book examining the experience of refugees from Syria.
We’re hoping to expand our review coverage in the coming months – a definite and active response to the shrinking number of reviews in the print media, particularly of translated European literature. We’re looking for readable, personal, professional, well-written and well-argued opinion. And in particular we’d like to increase our store of very short, to-the-point recommendations.
So if you’d like to review for us, please read the #RivetingReview Rules and then get in touch with us via our contact page.
Next deadline: 9 July 2018.
By West Camel
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