The author is a US journalist who, in 2016, accompanied an Afghan driver determined to leave his country for the West. It is an extraordinary account of how this ghastly odyssey works from t... read more
A literary and psychoanalytical first cousin to the Bombay Laughing Club: a book about laughter and the unconscious, with philosophy, poetry, memoir and the tragi-comedy of clowns thrown in ... read more
The author moved to Japan aged 21, immersing herself in language and culture with such success that she is now a literary translator. Her route there was by no means straightforward; this bo... read more
In 1942, aged 24, the great and defiant Canetti began to write notes, aphorisms and meditations about death - he was dead against it - and, by extension, about and for life; he only stopped... read more
A 900-page epic from the Polish Nobel laureate. Biblical in scale and content, the book follows an C18th messiah called Jacob Frank who converts from Judaism to Islam and then to Catholicism... read more
The literary fl?neur wanders amongst places and objects, images, film and ideas: a series of short, discursive essays that are the more brilliant for being unassuming.
Perhaps the most high-profile political prisoner in the Arab world, Alaa has spent most of the last seven years in prison in Egypt. These essays were smuggled, compiled by friends and relati... read more
The season's most arresting title? Ambitious and witty, this novel about a student researching rural life in the marshlands of western France is another fruit of Enard's wildly leaping imag... read more
An English translation of Ernaux's memoir about her father and life in small-town France, first published in 1984: a counterpart to 'A Woman's Story' published in English last year. Both are... read more