#RivetingReviews September 2025 – Introduction by West Camel

Welcome to September’s #RivetingReviews. 

With the publishing world in overdrive, and ‘Super Thursday’ looming on 9 October – the date when the big publishers release their biggest titles – #RivetingReviews provides a moment of reflection, as our reviewers discuss what they’ve been reading in translation over the past few months. 

Crime features big on our list this quarter – a reflection of its continuing popularity with readers, and publishers. 

Inevitably, and joyfully, we’re in the Nordics, with ELNet’s own Max Easterman examining Karin Smirnoff’s latest post-Stieg Larsson Millennium-series novel, John Munch exploring Roy Jacobsen’s The Unworthy, and Barry Forshaw discussing Icelander Ragnar Jónasson and his new title. 

Ewa Sherman, not averse to a crime novel herself, takes on non-fiction about the Nordics this time, with Elin Anna Labba’s investigation into the devastating story of the Sámi displacements, translated by our own Fiona Graham. 

Paul Burke remains in Scandinavian with his review of French thriller-writer Olivier Norek’s exploration of the Finnish War, while Sonja van der Westhuizen enjoys another French crime-novel, Michel Bussi’s Lying in Wait. 

We have more Scandi writing in the form of short stories, in updated translations, from the first female Nobel laureate, Selma Lagerlöf, championed by Catherine Jenkins – a new Riveting Reviewer, who we welcome to the fold. We have another rediscovery in the form of a short-fiction collection, this time from Slovak Leopold Lahola, abundantly appreciated by Harper Dafforn – another welcome new reviewer. And we stay in Slovakia for this month’s poetry review: Anna Blasiak enjoys a new collection by Eva Luka. 

September is also #WorldKidLit month, and we celebrate with reviews of children’s books translated from Czech, Dutch and Portuguese, provided by Lori Sieling, Deborah Iwabuchi and Nanette McGuinness. Thanks, as always to the World Kid Lit team for organising these. 

We cover two books from Italy this time: first, Paul Burke examines a panoramic exploration of post-World War Two politics from filmmaker Giaime Alonge; then Jennifer Sarha looks at the first publication in English from cult gay writer Pier Vittorio Tondelli. 

Mandy Wight looks at another queer writer, this time Didier Eribon, from France, and his philosophical memoir about decline and death of his mother. Mandy also reviews German-Iranian author Shida Bazyar’s novel of exile and loss of culture. And we’re back in France for Tom Taylor’s review of Jérôme Prieur’s unusual biography, Zombie Proust. 

We’re in Spain for Eleanor Updegraff’s review of the latest novel from the Catalan Irene Solà, and for Riveter-in-Chief Rosie Goldsmith’s review of Rosa Ribas’s eerie and compulsive new work. 

Rosie treats us with a second review this month, this time of Georgi Gospodinov’s Death and the Gardener. Rosie is interviewing both Ribas and Gospodinov at Cheltenham Literary Festival this year. 

And speaking of Rosie, it’s right to celebrate the fact that it is ten years since the first review – of Elena Ferrante – that Rosie published on the European Literature Network website. It’s an achievement, and testament to Rosie, Anna, and all of us in the Network, that in this industry and climate, we’re still publishing reviews of literature in translation. 

If you’d like to help us continue our work, please buy copies of the books we’ve reviewed from our dedicated Bookshop.org page, and we’ll make a few pennies, and/or make a donation through our website.

The next reviews will be published on 13 December, when Max Easterman will be editing them. If you have a European book in English translation that you’d like to cover for us then, get in touch on reviews@eurolitnetwork.com. The deadline for submission is 5 December. 

Enjoy these reviews, and the literary autumn ahead. 

—West Camel