In 2016 this small Norwich-based indie press by the name of Strangers Press published a selection of chapbooks representing a range of unique Japanese voices in translation known as Keshiki (roughly meaning ‘landscape’). Three years later, they have returned with a new series: Yeoyu. Eight Korean short stories by eight Korean authors, translated by six …
Ellen’s father was a man psychologically damaged. And though the details of that damage are never made clear, it had a grave impact on his family — on Ellen, her actress mother, and her older brother. That is, until his sudden death which occurs in his sleep in a hospital bed. Ellen blames herself for …
Grass is a starkly beautiful graphic novel which reveals the true-life story of a Korean ‘comfort woman’ during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. The occupation ended after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, following the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Grass is a timely and gravely …
History. A Mess. is a wonderful novel. Its ambition is met with resounding success every step of the way. Everything that it sets out to achieve – every theme explored, every emotion captured – it does so with pomp and flourish. And the translation by Lytton Smith is nothing short of astounding, capturing the oppressive …
The state of the world as it stands today, with regressive government bodies, the existence of oligarchies, state-controlled media, and a frightening amount more, all makes it both easier and harder to create new dystopian fiction. Easier in the sense that you can throw a dart at a map and come up with an absurd …
If there’s one nation with ludicrous potential to shake the world of literature, it’s China. And that world-shaking is slowly coming to pass, with Chinese sci-fi being heralded as the start of a new science fiction golden age and authors like Yan Lianke deserving of the Nobel Prize. With all this being said, any time …
Jeanne collects and mentally catalogues the images of men’s penises. She gives no rhyme or reason for her habit. Or is it a hobby? A job? An obsession? Even that much is unclear. It is merely a collection. For 160 pages of The Collection we the readers follow Jeanne’s routine, all of which is centred …
Fate can mean a variety of things to many different people; depending on your culture, religion, background, your attitude to life or your level of romanticism. Fate, or destiny, has been somewhat simplified and beautified by media and fiction through the Disney filter of the twentieth century. But here, in The Yogini, it is used …
In around one hundred pages, this whip-crack of a novel has the eerie feel of a biblical parable, but one with depths that can be plunged to your heart’s content. With The Wind That Lays Waste, Selva Almada has crafted a story of heroes and villains, with a setting and pace reminiscent of Waiting for …
The more you travel – the more time you spend away from the place in which you grew up – the quicker you come to realise that it’s not the places we visit and the things we see that change us. It’s the people we meet who do that. Bill Nye once said, “Everyone you …