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By Ernest Hemingway. 1947
Ernest Hemingway witnessed many of the seminal conflicts of the twentieth century--from his post as a Red Cross ambulance driver…
during World War I to his nearly twenty-five years as a war correspondent for The Toronto Star--and he recorded them with matchless power. This landmark volume brings together Hemingway's most important and timeless writings about the nature of human combat. Passages from his beloved World War I novel, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, about the Spanish Civil War, offer an unparalleled portrayal of the physical and psychological impact of war and its aftermath. Selections from Across the River and into the Trees vividly evoke an emotionally scarred career soldier in the twilight of life as he reflects on the nature of war. Classic short stories, such as "In Another Country" and "The Butterfly and the Tank," stand alongside excerpts from Hemingway's first book of short stories, In Our Time, and his only full-length play, The Fifth Column. With captivating selections from Hemingway's journalism--from his coverage of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22 to a legendary early interview with Mussolini to his jolting eyewitness account of the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944--Hemingway on War collects the author's most penetrating chronicles of perseverance and defeat, courage and fear, and love and loss in the midst of modern warfare.By Sinan Antoon. 2016
Sinan Antoon returns to the Iraq war in a poetic and provocative tribute to reclaiming memory Widely-celebrated author Sinan Antoon’s…
fourth and most sophisticated novel follows Nameer, a young Iraqi scholar earning his doctorate at Harvard, who is hired by filmmakers to help document the devastation of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During the excursion, Nameer ventures to al-Mutanabbi street in Baghdad, famed for its bookshops, and encounters Wadood, an eccentric bookseller who is trying to catalogue everything destroyed by war, from objects, buildings, books and manuscripts, flora and fauna, to humans. Entrusted with the catalogue and obsessed with Wadood’s project, Nameer finds life in New York movingly intertwined with fragments from his homeland’s past and its present—destroyed letters, verses, epigraphs, and anecdotes—in this stylistically ambitious panorama of the wreckage of war and the power of memory.By Shahad Al Rawi. 2018
A HEART-RENDING TALE OF TWO GIRLS GROWING UP IN WAR-TORN BAGHDAD Baghdad, 1991. The Gulf War is raging. Two girls,…
hiding in an air raid shelter, tell stories to keep the fear and the darkness at bay, and a deep friendship is born. But as the bombs continue to fall and friends begin to flee the country, the girls must face the fact that their lives will never be the same again. This poignant debut novel reveals just what it's like to grow up in a city that is slowly disappearing in front of your eyes, and how in the toughest times, children can build up the greatest resilience.By Quan Manh Ha and Joseph Babcock. 2020
In this anthology, Vietnamese writers describe their experience of what they call the American War and its lasting legacy through…
the lens of their own vital artistic visions. A North Vietnamese soldier forms a bond with an abandoned puppy. Cousins find their lives upended by the revelation that their fathers fought on opposite sides of the war. Two lonely veterans in Hanoi meet years after the war has ended through a newspaper dating service. A psychic assists the search for the body of a long-vanished soldier. The father of a girl suffering from dioxin poisoning struggles with corrupt local officials.The twenty short stories collected in Other Moons range from the intensely personal to narratives that deal with larger questions of remembrance, trauma, and healing. By a diverse set of authors, including many veterans, they span styles from social realism to tales of the fantastic. Yet whether describing the effects of Agent Orange exposure or telling ghost stories, all speak to the unresolved legacy of a conflict that still haunts Vietnam. Among the most widely anthologized and popular pieces of short fiction about the war in Vietnam, these works appear here for the first time in English. Other Moons offers Anglophone audiences an unparalleled opportunity to experience how the Vietnamese think and write about the conflict that consumed their country from 1954 to 1975—a perspective still largely missing from American narratives.By Paulus Hochgatterer. 2020
"This is a beautiful book, a masterpiece of brevity and depth" New European"This tense novella builds to a final reckoning"…
The TimesIn October 1944, a thirteen-year-old girl arrives in a tiny farming community in Lower Austria, at some distance from the main theatre of war. She remembers very little about how she got there, it seems she has suffered trauma from bombardment. One night a few months later, a young, emaciated Russian appears, a deserter from forced labour in the east. He has nothing with him but a canvas roll, which he guards like a hawk. Their burgeoning friendship is abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a group of Wehrmacht soldiers in retreat, who commandeer the farm.Paulus Hochgatterer's intensely atmospheric, resonant novel is like a painting in itself, a beautiful observation of small shifts from apathy in a community not directly affected by the war, but exhausted by it nonetheless; individual acts of moral bravery which to some extent have the power to change the course of history.Longlisted for the Austrian Book Prize 2017, this subtle, evocative novella will appeal to readers of Hubert Mingarelli's A MEAL IN WINTER and Jenny Erpenbeck's THE END OF DAYS. Translated from the German by Jamie BullochBy Muhsin Al-Ramli. 2019
The follow-up to the internationally acclaimed The President's Gardens"Al-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of the Tigris he…
creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative, brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters" Susannah Tarbush, Banipal On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war, how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of time before her father's murderers come for her. The only way to survive is to take a slice of Iraq for herself. But ambition is the most dangerous drug of all, and it could just seal Qisma's fate.Translated from the Arabic by Luke LeafgrenREVIEWS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S GARDENS'Though firmly rooted in its context, The President's Gardens' concerns are universal. It is a profoundly moving investigation of love, death and injustice, and an affirmation of the importance of dignity, friendship and meaning amid oppression. Its light touch and persistent humour make it an enormous pleasure to read' Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian.The President's Gardens evokes the fantastical, small town feel of One Hundred Years of Solitude Tom Gordon, Financial Times'No author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting' Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction PrizeBy Linh Dinh. 2010
Linh Dinh is already one of the secret masters of short fiction. Love Like Hate is something like a traditional…
cross-cultural novel that's been shocked into life by Dinh's uncanny ability to tell us stories we didn't even know we wanted to hear. -- Ed Park, editor of The BelieverIn Love Like Hate, Linh Dinh weaves a dysfunctional family saga that doubles as a portrait of Vietnam in the last half century. Protagonists Kim Lan and Hoang Long marry in Saigon during the Vietnam War, uniting in a setting that allows Dinh's dark, deadpan humor to flourish. Describing his mushrooming cast of characters in unsentimental and sometimes absurd ways, Dinh embraces contradictions with the surreal exuberance of Matthew Sharpe and the stylistic élan of Italo Calvino.By Beverly Gologorsky. 1999
An emotionally charged story of passionate love, unfulfilled desire, and an American dream gone totally awry, Beverly Gologorsky's poignant, unadorned…
novel lays bare the destructive impact of the Vietnam War on the wives, lovers, and children of veterans. This haunting story of devotion and loss will speak to anyone who has suffered the effects of an unwinnable war.By Sally Carrighar. 1953
By Muhsin Al-Ramli. 2019
The follow-up to the internationally acclaimed The President's Gardens"Al-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of the Tigris he…
creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative, brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters" Susannah Tarbush, Banipal On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war, how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of time before her father's murderers come for her. The only way to survive is to take a slice of Iraq for herself. But ambition is the most dangerous drug of all, and it could just seal Qisma's fate.Translated from the Arabic by Luke LeafgrenREVIEWS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S GARDENS'Though firmly rooted in its context, The President's Gardens' concerns are universal. It is a profoundly moving investigation of love, death and injustice, and an affirmation of the importance of dignity, friendship and meaning amid oppression. Its light touch and persistent humour make it an enormous pleasure to read' Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian.The President's Gardens evokes the fantastical, small town feel of One Hundred Years of Solitude Tom Gordon, Financial Times'No author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting' Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction PrizeBy Mikael Niemi. 2021
"So much to relish here . . . the plot is gripping, there's a beautifully handled thread on reading and…
writing, and the writing is just lovely!" DIANE SETTERFIELD, author of Once Upon A River"The year's most memorable narrator . . . An unusual and intriguing crime story" SUNDAY TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR"Niemi succeeds in constructing a story that works as a murder mystery and as a compelling study of a dangerously inward-looking community" SUNDAY TIMES"A riveting, psychologically astute mystery . . . It is not to be missed" BOOKLIST"An original and gripping crime story" THE TIMES**NOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER**It is 1852, and in Sweden's far north, deep in the Arctic Circle, charismatic preacher and Revivalist Lars Levi Læstadius impassions a poverty-stricken congregation with visions of salvation. But local leaders have reason to resist a shift to temperance over alcohol.Jussi, the young Sami boy Læstadius has rescued from destitution and abuse, becomes the preacher's faithful disciple on long botanical treks to explore the flora and fauna. Læstadius also teaches him to read and write - and to love and fear God. When a milkmaid goes missing deep in the forest, the locals suspect a predatory bear is at large. A second girl is attacked, and the sheriff is quick to offer a reward for the bear's capture. Using early forensics and daguerreotype, Læstadius and Jussi find clues that point to a far worse killer on the loose, even as they are unaware of the evil closing in around them. To Cook a Bear explores how communities turn inwards, how superstition can turn to violence, and how the power of language can be transformative in a richly fascinating mystery."Superb suspense . . . Simply a great literary experience!" V.G. (Sweden) "A masterpiece of narrative" La Vanguardia (Spain)"A philosophical novel, a crime novel, a historical novel and a coming-of-age story complement one another" La Stampa (Italy)"One is transported into a strange time and a fascinating world that is both beautiful and brutal" Politiken (Denmark)"Formidable delivery . . . Unlike anything else you have read . . . An incredible novel" AdresseavisenTranslated from the Swedish by Deborah Bragan-TurnerBy Philippe Claudel. 2005
Traumatized by memories of his war-ravaged country, his son and daughter-in-law dead, Monsieur Linh travels to a foreign land to…
bring the child in his arms to safety. To begin with, he is too afraid to leave the refugee centre, but the first time he braves the freezing cold to walk the streets of this strange, fast-moving town, he encounters Monsieur Bark, a widower whose dignified sorrow mirrors his own. Though they have no shared language, an instinctive friendship is forged; but Monsieur Linh's stay in the dormitory is only temporary. Sooner or later he and his child must find a permanent home.Delicate and restrained, but with an extraordinary twist, Monsieur Linh and His Child is an immensely moving novel of perfect simplicity, by the author of Brodeck's Report.By Natasha Randall. 2020
A disturbing portrait of a modern American family'Imagine Richard Yates becoming fascinated by Donald Antrim before writing Revolutionary Road and…
you'll have some idea of Love Orange. One of the most satisfying novels you will read this year. This book rules' Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms'I enjoyed every minute of it' Chris Power, author of Mothers'A stunningly accurate portrayal . . . shining with vivid dialogue and observation' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters'[A]n exuberant, comic, irresistibly dark examination of contemporary anxieties' Vanity Fair'An exquisite balance of humour and pathos' LunateAn extraordinary debut novel by Natasha Randall, exposing the seam of secrets within an American family, from beneath the plastic surfaces of their new 'smart' home. Love Orange charts the gentle absurdities of their lives, and the devastating consequences of casual choices. While Hank struggles with his lack of professional success, his wife Jenny, feeling stuck and beset by an urge to do good, becomes ensnared in a dangerous correspondence with a prison inmate called John. Letter by letter, John pinches Jenny awake from the "marshmallow numbness" of her life. The children, meanwhile, unwittingly disturb the foundations of their home life with forays into the dark net and strange geological experiments. Jenny's bid for freedom takes a sour turn when she becomes the go-between for John and his wife, and develops an unnatural obsession for the orange glue that seals his letters...Love Orange throws open the blinds of American life, showing a family facing up to the modern age, from the ascendancy of technology, the predicaments of masculinity, the pathologising of children, the epidemic of opioid addiction and the tyranny of the WhatsApp Gods. The first novel by the acclaimed translator is a comic cocktail, an exuberant skewering of contemporary anxieties and prejudices.By Muhsin Al-Ramli. 2016
One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Kite Runner in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. "A contemporary tragedy of epic proportions. No…
author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting". Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Iraqi Christ. On the third day of Ramadan, the village wakes to find the severed heads of nine of its sons stacked in banana crates by the bus stop.One of them belonged to one of the most wanted men in Iraq, known to his friends as Ibrahim the Fated.How did this good and humble man earn the enmity of so many? What did he do to deserve such a death?The answer lies in his lifelong friendship with Abdullah Kafka and Tariq the Befuddled, who each have their own remarkable stories to tell.It lies on the scarred, irradiated battlefields of the Gulf War and in the ashes of a revolution strangled in its cradle.It lies in the steadfast love of his wife and the festering scorn of his daughter.And, above all, it lies behind the locked gates of The President's Gardens, buried alongside the countless victims of a pitiless reign of terror.Translated from the Arabic by Luke LeafgrenBy Philippe Claudel. 2005
Traumatized by memories of his war-ravaged country, his son and daughter-in-law dead, Monsieur Linh travels to a foreign land to…
bring the child in his arms to safety. To begin with, he is too afraid to leave the refugee centre, but the first time he braves the freezing cold to walk the streets of this strange, fast-moving town, he encounters Monsieur Bark, a widower whose dignified sorrow mirrors his own. Though they have no shared language, an instinctive friendship is forged; but Monsieur Linh's stay in the dormitory is only temporary. Sooner or later he and his child must find a permanent home.Delicate and restrained, but with an extraordinary twist, Monsieur Linh and His Child is an immensely moving novel of perfect simplicity, by the author of Brodeck's Report.By Muhsin Al-Ramli. 2019
The follow-up to the internationally acclaimed The President's Gardens"Al-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of the Tigris he…
creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative, brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters" Susannah Tarbush, Banipal On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war, how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of time before her father's murderers come for her. The only way to survive is to take a slice of Iraq for herself. But ambition is the most dangerous drug of all, and it could just seal Qisma's fate.Translated from the Arabic by Luke LeafgrenREVIEWS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S GARDENS'Though firmly rooted in its context, The President's Gardens' concerns are universal. It is a profoundly moving investigation of love, death and injustice, and an affirmation of the importance of dignity, friendship and meaning amid oppression. Its light touch and persistent humour make it an enormous pleasure to read' Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian.The President's Gardens evokes the fantastical, small town feel of One Hundred Years of Solitude Tom Gordon, Financial Times'No author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting' Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction PrizeBy Paulus Hochgatterer. 2017
"This is a beautiful book, a masterpiece of brevity and depth" New European"This tense novella builds to a final reckoning"…
The TimesIn October 1944, a thirteen-year-old girl arrives in a tiny farming community in Lower Austria, at some distance from the main theatre of war. She remembers very little about how she got there, it seems she has suffered trauma from bombardment. One night a few months later, a young, emaciated Russian appears, a deserter from forced labour in the east. He has nothing with him but a canvas roll, which he guards like a hawk. Their burgeoning friendship is abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a group of Wehrmacht soldiers in retreat, who commandeer the farm.Paulus Hochgatterer's intensely atmospheric, resonant novel is like a painting in itself, a beautiful observation of small shifts from apathy in a community not directly affected by the war, but exhausted by it nonetheless; individual acts of moral bravery which to some extent have the power to change the course of history.Longlisted for the Austrian Book Prize 2017, this subtle, evocative novella will appeal to readers of Hubert Mingarelli's A MEAL IN WINTER and Jenny Erpenbeck's THE END OF DAYS. Translated from the German by Jamie BullochBy Edan Lepucki. 2014
The highly acclaimed, instant New York Times bestseller that '[gives] expression to a generational anxiety about the near future, one…
rooted in the threat of environmental crisis...The experience of reading California brings validation to anyone who sits upright in the middle of the night struck with the instability of the human project on this planet: others are awake, too' GuardianThe sunshine state lies in darkness.Los Angeles is in ruins, left to the angels now.And the world Cal and Frida have always known is gone.Cal and Frida have left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable despite the isolation and hardships they face. Consumed by fear of the future and mourning for a past they can't reclaim, they seek comfort and solace in one other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown but unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realise this community poses its own dangers. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust.A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent,California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and irrepressible resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love.By Harry Thompson. 2005
The 15th anniversary edition of a brilliant, action-packed and gripping novel of Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle - longlisted…
for the Man Booker Prize. New introduction from Daisy Goodwin.'A master storyteller' Sunday TimesIn 1831 Charles Darwin set off in HMS Beagle under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that would change the world. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men, and the twin obsessions that tear them apart, leading one to triumph, and the other to disaster.'An outstandingly good first novel. A page-turning action-adventure combined with subtle intellectual arguments. The meticulous research enriches this fascinating tale' Sunday TelegraphBy Muhsin Al-Ramli. 2017
One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Kite Runner in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. "A contemporary tragedy of epic proportions. No…
author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting". Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Iraqi Christ. On the third day of Ramadan, the village wakes to find the severed heads of nine of its sons stacked in banana crates by the bus stop.One of them belonged to one of the most wanted men in Iraq, known to his friends as Ibrahim the Fated.How did this good and humble man earn the enmity of so many? What did he do to deserve such a death?The answer lies in his lifelong friendship with Abdullah Kafka and Tariq the Befuddled, who each have their own remarkable stories to tell.It lies on the scarred, irradiated battlefields of the Gulf War and in the ashes of a revolution strangled in its cradle.It lies in the steadfast love of his wife and the festering scorn of his daughter.And, above all, it lies behind the locked gates of The President's Gardens, buried alongside the countless victims of a pitiless reign of terror.Translated from the Arabic by Luke Leafgren