We’ve made you wait a long time for your fix of reviews of the best of European literature in translation – it was mid-July when we last administered it. We’ve had good reason to delay, though, as our autumn reviews hold some special treats, and we’re running them all at the end of the month.
September’s batch is our last ‘general’ reviews of the year, and we have a great set for you. We welcome back a star reviewer – Rein Raud, who tackles A Mess by Sigrún Pálsdóttir. Amanda Hopkinson and David Hebblethwaite also return to the Riveting fold; Amanda with two reviews – of the latest books by Vigdis Hjorth and Sylvie Weil; David with the most recent English translation of Marco Malvaldi.
We also have two new reviewers: author Bill Direen reviews a short-story collection from Serbian Srđan Srdić; and another author, Anthony Gardner, reviews Jenny Robertson’s new biography of Zofia Nałkowska.
Old hands Lucy Popescu, Alyson Coombes, Ewa Sherman and me take on, respectively, Maria Gerhardt, Estonian women’s literature, a Swedish spy thriller and a book of exile writing, while our partnership with Bookanista continues in the form of Mika Provata-Carlone’s review of Tatyana Tolstaya.
Another regular, Jennifer Sarah, does something a little different, though: she exhorts you all to read the work of Antal Szerb!
So why have we made you wait for these riches? At the end of October we’ll be publishing two special sets of Riveting Reviews: Slovak and Czech – to mark the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which falls a couple of weeks later.
Then, at the end of November we launch The German Riveter – in print, at an event at the British Library, and online, replacing our monthly reviews in both November and December. Our next general reviews will be published in January.
In the meantime enjoy this month’s impressive bunch of critiques and join us in October for our Czech and Slovak specials!
By West Camel
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