What is The Tale of Genji? The Tale of Genji, a Japanese story written in the 11th century, is important for several reasons: it’s thought to be the world’s first true ‘novel’, it’s an historically vital peek into the world of Japanese aristocracy during the Heian period, and most importantly it was written by a woman, the lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. The novel...
It’s as daunting as it is exciting to see a longlist announced and realise that you now have thirteen books you need to quickly buy and read, or risk the dreaded FOMO setting in. Instead, you can read below our five favourites – our picks for the Man Booker International 2019 shortlist (which will be announced on April 9th) – and enjoy these with...
The Faculty of Dreams | Translated from the Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner “I’ll give you some advice if you’re sad, because the story ends here. Invite home a ragged girl panhandler who needs somewhere to sleep and something to eat … Stop in the subway and talk to the psychotic hookers … Ask where she comes from, what she needs, what you can help with, what she...
Lanny by Max Porter “Dead Papa Toothwort wakes from his standing nap an acre wide and scrapes off dream dregs of bitumen glistening thick with liquid globs of litter.” The most extraordinary thing about Lanny is just how ordinary it is, even as it presents us with the story of a folk creature made of moss and dirt coming to life and hunting down a young child...
Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights A bookstore with a name this glorious couldn’t live anywhere but Bath. One of the oldest and most architecturally beautiful little cities in all of the UK, Bath is a favourite place to visit amongst literary types. The city has a Jane Austen museum (with a gift shop), the historic Roman baths which gave the town its name...
Written by Yu Miri | Translated by Morgan Giles Here is a Japanese novel about social outcasts and the struggling and underappreciated working class, written by a social outcast, and translated by a proud socialist. Tokyo Ueno Station provides a harsh and honest look at the ways in which twentieth-century Japan has treated its people. Yu Miri was born in Japan to...
By Jin Yong | Translated by Gigi Chang When it was first announced that the epic book series Legends of the Condor Heroes known as the ‘Chinese Lord of the Rings’ was to be translated for the first time into English, I waited with bated breath for the first book to be released, translated by the impeccably talented Anna Holmwood. The book was a fierce delight...
Williamsburg, Brooklyn is a delightful microcosm of all that’s trendy with today’s millennials. To our UK-based readers, it is to New York what Bristol is to, well, all of England. The area has vegan cafes, record stores, poetry events, and five unique and wonderful bookstores. While the bookstore as a retail space is not faring so well across the whole of the US, in...
Written by Yan Lianke | Translated by Carlos Rojas If it moves like a dream and talks like a dream, it must be a dream. If it kills, it should be stopped. Yan Lianke is not beloved by his own government. Like all great artists, he has the skill and the confidence to hold up a mirror to the face of his society. This face doesn’t like what it sees, and so it hides the...
Is Teaching EFL for you? When we enter university at the age of eighteen, most of us fall into one of a few categories: some of us know what job we want and how to get it, and study accordingly; many of us follow a passion and see where it takes us, hoping for the best; and an unfortunate amount of us take up a subject we care about and wind up in a generic office...
