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Betrayal
By Adriaan Van Dis. 2010
Mulder, a Dutchman, returns at last to South Africa, his memories scattered by forty years and two strokes. Once he…
fought to free the country from apartheid; now he finds its people asking whether years of democracy have left them any better off. The village where his friend Donald - a comrade from his Fraternité days - lives is as segregated as ever: fishermen struggle to eke out a living and kids wreck their brains with crystal meth. Tensions are high: Donald wages a campaign against the local mayor; every day the whites add inches to their perimeter fences. So when Mulder and Donald attempt to help a young tik-head get clean against his will, their muddled good intentions can only be misunderstood...Olga: A Novel
By Prof Bernhard Schlink. 2018
A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart' New York Times'Brilliant... A tale of love and loss in…
20th century Germany' Evening Standard'A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance' Mail on Sunday'A poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time' Observer Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best.When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed.Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west.This is the story of that love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.Three Strong Women
By Marie NDiaye. 2009
Forty-year-old Norah leaves Paris, her family and her career as a lawyer to visit her father in Dakar. It is…
an uncomfortable reunion - she is asked to use her skills as a lawyer to get her brother out of prison - and ultimately the trip endangers her marriage and her relationship with her own daughter, and drives her to the very edge of madness. Fanta, on the other hand, leaves Dakar to follow her husband Rudy to rural France. And it is through Rudy's bitter and guilt-ridden perspective that we see Fanta stagnate with boredom in this alien, narrow environment. Khady is forced into exile from Senegal because of poverty, because her husband is dead, because she is lonely and in despair. With other illegal immigrants, she embarks on a journey which takes her nowhere, but from which she will never return.Liberty (The Africa Trilogy)
By Jakob Ejersbo. 2009
The novel behind the new Danish TV series starring The Killing's Sofie Gråbøl, available on All 4 / Walter PresentsTwo…
young men from very different backgrounds. Christian is the son of Danish ex-pats; Marcus works as a house boy for a Swedish family, hoping they will eventually take him back to Europe with them. Their friendship defines a divided continent. When they decide to go into business together - a teenage dream of playing at discos - they unwittingly set a collision course. But will it be love or money that tears the two apart? Spanning a decade from the dawn of the 1980s, the story of Marcus and Christian's dissolving friendship plays out amid a vast cast of characters, all fighting to make their way in a country defined by corruption. As the Tanzanian authorities and European aid agencies compete to line their own pockets, the rise of 'the disease' threatens to lay waste to an already stricken continent.Freetown
By Otto De Kat. 2018
"He was a Fula. I say 'was', because I haven't seen him for a long time. I don't know if…
he's still alive or where he might be. He just disappeared."Maria is independent, unconventional and unafraid. She is trying to find an explanation for the disappearance of Ishmael, a refugee from Sierra Leone who came to her door as a newspaper boy and stayed for seven years. He was like a son to her. Vincent is a psychologist. Once he and Maria had an all-encompassing relationship, but since their break-up he has been living in a kind of haze. One day, Maria asks for his help. In the encounters that follow, Ishmael is pushed into the background by a rekindling of the old love between Vincent and Maria. The stories and memories that resurface come to replace the sadness at the loss of the boy. But despite the distraction of their new situation, Ishmael proves impossible to forget.Otto de Kat is known for concise novels that are beautifully observed, subtle and precise, and Freetown is no exception. Translated from the Dutch by Laura WatkinsonMonsieur Linh and His Child
By 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.Songs for the Flames
By Juan Gabriel Vásquez. 2018
Being economical with the truth allows a photographer to understand something of which she would have preferred to have remained…
ignorant. A chance meeting at a regimental reunion obliges a veteran of the Korean War to confront his past. A walk-on part in a Polanski film finds the narrator searching the director's face for signs of the aftermath of Sharon Tate's murder. The internet search for a book published in 1887, leads a writer to discover the life of a passionate woman.The characters in Songs for the Flames are men and women touched by violence - sometimes directly, sometimes only tangentially - but whose lives are changed forever by an unexpected encounter or by the operation of incomprehensible forces. Sixteen years after his first collection, Juan Gabriel Vásquez returns to the form with an outstanding set of nine morally complex stories, fresh proof of his narrative versatility and his profound understanding of the lives of others.Tropic of Violence
By Nathacha Appanah. 2016
Marie, a nurse on the island of Mayotte, adopts an abandoned baby and names him Moïse, raising him as a…
French boy. As he grows up, Moïse struggles with his status as an "outsider" and to understand why he was abandoned as a baby. When Marie dies, he is left alone, plunged into uncertainty and turmoil, ending up in the largest and most infamous slum on Mayotte, nicknamed "Gaza".Narrated by five different characters, Tropic of Violence is an exploration of lost youth on the French island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Shining a powerful light on problems of violence, immigration, identity, deprivation and isolation on this island that became a French département in 2011, it is a remarkable, unsettling new novel that draws on the author's own observations from her time on Mayotte.Sad Janet
By Lucie Britsch. 2020
A whip-smart black comedy for fans of Fleabag and My Year of Rest and Relaxation'Loved this book' EMMA GANNON'Surprising and…
irreverent...Be prepared for edginess, dark humor and profanity' NEW YORK TIMES'Hilarious, wise, wicked' CYNTHIA D'APRIX SWEENEYNamed one of the Best Books of the Summer by LitHub, The Millions, Refinery29, and Hey Alma.***Meet Janet. Janet is sad. Not about her life, about the world. Have you seen it these days? The thing is, she's not out to make anyone else sad. She's not turning up to weddings shouting that most marriages end in divorce. She just wants to wear her giant coat, get rid of her passive-aggressive boyfriend, and avoid human interaction at the rundown dog shelter where she works.That is, until word spreads about a new pill that promises cynics like her one day off from being sad. When her family stages an intervention, and the prospect of making it through Christmas alone seems like too much, Janet finally decides to give them what they want. What follows is life-changing for all concerned - in ways no one quite expects.Hilarious, provocative and profound, Sad Janet is the antidote to our happiness-obsessed world.***PRAISE FOR SAD JANET:'If you're a Halle Butler fan or like despair cut with humour, you'll love this' Leigh Stein, author of SELF CARE'As I was reading this, my partner kept asking why I was laughing. This book is dark and hilarious and will speak to everyone who's ever wondered why they spend time with humans and not just dogs' Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Starling Days and Harmless Like You'A tragicomic riot of a book - charging, foul-mouthed and tender, across the modern condition' Claudia Dey, author of Heartbreaker'Try reading Sad Janet ... It might just make you happy' Marcy Demansky, author of Very Nice'A biting, pitch-perfect novel about one woman's desire to stay true to herself in a world that rewards facile happiness ... a dazzling debut' Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney'The narrative voice of Janet in Britsch's debut novel is a skin-tingling combination of new and necessary' Booklist starred review'Loved this book... it made me lol via the dark humour and dry observations. An artful take on the "happiness economy"' Emma Gannon, author of Olive'I loved SAD JANET'S cynical humour. Superbly original, with spot-on one-liners. Brilliantly bleak, but with a spark of hope' Caroline Hulse, author of The AdultsThe Book of Science and Antiquities
By Thomas Keneally. 2018
A novel of breath-taking reach and inspired imagination, drawing on the discovery of Australia's oldest known human inhabitant. Shade lives…
peaceably with his second wife on the shores of a bountiful lake. Conscious of ageing but still vigorous, when called on by the spirit ancestors to sacrifice himself for the sake of his clan, he knows he must obey. Over 40,000 years later, Shade's skeleton is unearthed near the now dry Lake Learned in New South Wales. The sensational discovery of so-called 'Learned Man' rewrites the history of Australia and fuels the Aboriginal people's claim to be the land's rightful owners - and has a lasting impact on a young documentary maker, Shelby Apple, who gets caught up in the fate of Learned's remains. When Shelby, too, faces mortality and looks back on his life, Learned stands as an enduring spirit, a fellow player in the long, ever-evolving story of humankind.The Natural Way of Things: 'The Handmaid's Tale for our age' (Economist)
By Charlotte Wood. 2015
'Savage: think Atwood in the outback' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train'An unforgettable reading experience' Liane Moriarty,…
author of Big Little Lies'Ferocious... recalls the early Elena Ferrante' NPR'A masterpiece' Guardian'Devastating' EconomistShe hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, 'I need to know where I am.'The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised.He says, almost in sympathy, 'Oh, sweetie. You need to know what you are.'"Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a brokendownproperty in the middle of a desert.Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be therewith eight other girls, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious jailers.Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: ineach girl's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man.They pray for rescue but as the hours turn into days and the days into weeks and months,it becomes clear only the girls can rescue themselves. Winner, 2016 Stella PrizeWinner, 2016 Indie Book of the Year AwardWinner, Fiction Book of the Year, 2016 Indie Book AwardWinner, 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for FictionWinner, Reader's Choice, 2016 ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Shortlisted, 2016 Miles Franklin Literary AwardShortlisted, 2016 ABA Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice AwardLonglisted, 2017 International Dublin Literary AwardThe Sentiment of Reality: Truth of Feeling in the European Novel (Routledge Revivals)
By Michael Bell. 1983
Originally published in 1983, The Sentiment of Reality covers the rise and decline of the realist novel from the mid-eighteenth…
century to the mid-twentieth century. The book takes the form of an extended essay on two closely related themes in the history of the novel: first, the impact and aftermath of the eighteenth-century cult of sentiment and, secondly, the supplanting of illusionism by an aesthetic of mimesis. This forms the basis of an exploration of the emotional impact that fiction has on the reader. Using this analysis, the book defends the realist tradition against common contemporary criticism. The Sentiment of Reality combines a close reading of key moments in European fiction with a wide-ranging speculative treatment of historical and formal questions.Power, passion and a devastating fight for the crown - discover the gripping story of Oliver Cromwell's youngest daughter. Perfect…
for fans of Anne O'Brien, Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory 'A powerful and superbly researched historical novel' Andrew Taylor, author of The Last Protector1657. The youngest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, eighteen-year-old Frances is finding her place at England's new centre of power.Following the turmoil of Civil War, a fragile sense of stability has returned to the country. Her father has risen to the unprecedented position of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and Frances has found herself transported from her humble childhood home to the sumptuous palaces of Hampton Court and Whitehall, where she dreams of romance.But after an assassination attempt on the Cromwell family, Frances realises the precarious danger of her position - and when her father is officially offered the crown, Frances' fate becomes a matter of diplomatic and dynastic importance. Trapped in the web of court intrigue, Frances must make a choice. Allow herself to be a political pawn, or use her new status to take control - of her own future, and of her country's... ***Readers are swept away by The Puritan Princess:'There is much to enjoy in this evocation of a family whose lives are so upended by the convulsions of history' Antonia Senior, The Times'The Puritan Princess is a genuinely moving portrait of the tragedy of the Cromwells at the height of their power' S G MacLean, author of the Damian Seeker series'A beautifully written and captivating true story of personal love and loss... Malins inhabits her characters and brings them convincingly to life' James Evans, author of EMIGRANTS'The extraordinary, revealing and moving relationship between Oliver Cromwell and his daughter Frances is brought to vivid life in this masterly historical novel' Paul Lay, author of Providence Lost'Miranda Malins is a real and fresh new talent. This is beautifully written, exciting fiction from a writer in full command of the history' Suzannah Lipscomb'This engaging novel brings one of the most momentous but least well known periods of English history vividly to life.' Carolyn Kirby, author of THE CONVICTION OF CORA BURNSThe Fortunes
By Peter Ho Davies. 1936
Ah Ling: son of a prostitute and a white 'ghost', dispatched from Hong Kong as a boy to make his…
way alone in 1860s California. Anna Mae Wong: the first Chinese film star in Hollywood, forbidden to kiss a white man on screen. Vincent Chin: killed by a pair of Detroit auto workers in 1982 simply for looking Japanese.John Ling Smith: a half-Chinese writer visiting China for the first time, to adopt a baby girl.Inspired by three figures who lived at pivotal moments in Chinese-American history, and drawing on his own mixed-race experience, Peter Ho Davies plunges us into what it is like to feel, and be treated, like a foreigner in the country you call home.Ranging from the mouth of the Pearl River to the land of golden opportunity, this remarkable novel spans 150 years to tell a tale of familial bonds denied and fragmented, of tenacity and pride, of prejudice and the universal need to belong.Minds of Winter
By Ed O'Loughlin. 2016
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017.'Ed O'Loughlin is a skilled cartographer of both the Arctic and…
the human heart. What a magnificent novel' Ron Rash'A brilliant paean to the obsessions of the polar explorers . . . stupendously good' Australian'Vastly entertaining' Sunday TimesFROM BOOKER-LONGLISTED ED O'LOUGHLIN: THE PERFECT NOVEL FOR FANS OF AMY SACKVILLE'S THE STILL POINT AND FRANCIS SPUFFORD'S I MAY BE SOME TIME.It begins with a chance encounter at the top of the world.Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada - 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle - searching for answers about a family member: Nelson for his estranged older brother, Fay for her disappeared grandfather. They soon learn that these two men have an unexpected link - a hidden share in one of the greatest enduring mysteries of polar exploration.Betrayal
By Adriaan Van Dis. 2010
Mulder, a Dutchman, returns at last to South Africa, his memories scattered by forty years and two strokes. Once he…
fought to free the country from apartheid; now he finds its people asking whether years of democracy have left them any better off. The village where his friend Donald - a comrade from his Fraternité days - lives is as segregated as ever: fishermen struggle to eke out a living and kids wreck their brains with crystal meth. Tensions are high: Donald wages a campaign against the local mayor; every day the whites add inches to their perimeter fences. So when Mulder and Donald attempt to help a young tik-head get clean against his will, their muddled good intentions can only be misunderstood...Feast of the Innocents
By Evelio Rosero. 2012
Doctor Justo Pastor Proceso López, adored by his female patients but despised by his wife and daughters, has a burning…
ambition: to prove to the world that the myth of Simón Bolívar, El Libertador, is a sham and a scandal. In Pasto, south Colombia, where the good doctor plies his trade, the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is dawning. A day for pranks, jokes and soakings ... Water bombs, poisoned empanaditas, ground glass in the hog roast - anything goes. What better day to commission a float for The Black and White Carnival that will explode the myth of El Libertador once and for all? One that will lay bare the massacres, betrayals and countless deflowerings that history has forgotten. But in Colombia you question the founding fables at your peril. At the frenzied peak of the festivities, drunk on a river of arguardiente, Doctor Justo will discover that this year the joke might just be on him.Minds of Winter
By Ed O'Loughlin. 2016
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017.'Ed O'Loughlin is a skilled cartographer of both the Arctic and…
the human heart. What a magnificent novel' Ron Rash'A brilliant paean to the obsessions of the polar explorers . . . stupendously good' Australian'Vastly entertaining' Sunday TimesFROM BOOKER-LONGLISTED ED O'LOUGHLIN: THE PERFECT NOVEL FOR FANS OF AMY SACKVILLE'S THE STILL POINT AND FRANCIS SPUFFORD'S I MAY BE SOME TIME.It begins with a chance encounter at the top of the world.Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada - 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle - searching for answers about a family member: Nelson for his estranged older brother, Fay for her disappeared grandfather. They soon learn that these two men have an unexpected link - a hidden share in one of the greatest enduring mysteries of polar exploration.Heaven and Hell
By Jón Kalman Stefánsson. 2007
In a remote part of Iceland, a boy and his friend Barður join a boat to fish for cod. A…
winter storm surprises them out at sea and Barður, who has forgotten his waterproof as he was too absorbed in 'Paradise Lost', succumbs to the ferocious cold and dies. Appalled by the death and by the fishermen's callous ability to set about gutting the fatal catch, the boy leaves the village, intending to return the book to its owner. The extreme hardship and danger of the journey is of little consequence to him - he has already resolved to join his friend in death. But once in the town he immerses himself in the stories and lives of its inhabitants, and decides that he cannot be with his friend just yet. Set at the turn of the twentieth century, Heaven and Hell is a perfectly formed, vivid and timeless story, lyrical in style, and as intense a reading experience as the forces of the Icelandic landscape themselves. An outstandingly moving novel.Alone in the Classroom
By Elizabeth Hay. 2011
In a small prairie school in 1929, Connie Flood helps a backward student, Michael Graves, learn how to read. Observing…
them and darkening their lives is the principal, Parley Burns, whose strange behaviour culminates in an attack so disturbing its repercussions continue to the present day. Connie's niece, Anne, tells the story. Impelled by curiosity about her dynamic, adventurous aunt and her more conventional mother, she revisits Connie's past and her mother's broken childhood. In the process she unravels the enigma of Parley Burns and the mysterious, and unrelated, deaths of two young girls.