May 2021 #RivetingReviews – Introduction by West Camel

Welcome to May’s #RivetingReviews. 

Our thanks once again to everyone who donated to our crowdfunding campaign last month. The total received will enable us to continue our work to promote the best European writing. And that work includes providing you each month with these #RivetingReviews. 

We are awash with International Booker titles this month: yours truly wonders whether Éric Vuillard’s shortlisted The War of the Poor is even a novel, while Rosie Eyre’s breath is held as she reads another shortlisting, David Diop’s At Night All Blood is Black. Our very own Anna Blasiak takes on the shortlisted Maria Stepanova, while Johanna McAlmont enjoys a longlisted title – Jaap Robbens’ Summer Brother. The winner of the prize is announced on 2 June. 

Dymphna Flynn reviews more French literature, in the form of Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal, who our Riveter-in-Chief, Rosie Goldsmith, interviewed for the French Institut this week. 

We have two Spanish books reviewed this month: Alice Banks is impressed by Agustín Fernández Mallo’s ‘triptych’, while Paul Burke returns to take on Víctor del Árbol’s latest literary thriller. And we have more crime, in the form of the first English translation of a book by the Swiss Hansjörg Schneider, reviewed by Max Easterman. 

Enjoy these incisive reviews, and please share and comment on them through social media and in your discussions with friends. Our network depends on our members and readers promulgating our work as much as it does their financial support. 

If you’d like to review for us, please read our guidelines – https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-rules/ – and then contact us on our NEW email address: reviews@eurolitnetwork.com.

Until next month.

—West Camel