Untranslated Lit: Tu Rostro Mañana 1: Fiebre y Lanza (Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear)

Tu Rostro Mañana 1: Fiebre y Lanza (Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear) (2002) is a novel by Javier Marías.

Contemporary Reads: All Souls

All Souls or Todas las Almas (1989) is a novel by Javier Marías.

Great classics: Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1861) is a novel by Charles Dickens.

Play: Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar (1623) is a pay by William Shakespeare.

Great classics: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw (1898) is a novella by Henry James.

Modern Classics: Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers (1913) is a novel by DH Lawrence.

Contemporary Reads: Mr Pip

Mr Pip (2006) is a novel by New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones.

Play: Hamlet

Hamlet (1600) is a play by William Shakespeare.

Contemporary Reads: Moral Disorder

Moral Disorder (2006) is a book by Margaret Atwood.

Contemporary Reads: The Passion of the New Eve

The Passion of the New Eve (1977) is a novel by Angela Carter.

Modern Classics: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1917) is a novel by James Joyce.

Contemporary Reads: The Yacoubian Building

The Yacoubian Building (2002) is a novel by Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany.

Modern Classics: The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent (1907) is a novel by Joseph Conrad.

Contemporary Reads: The Buddha of Suburbia

The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) is a novel by Hanif Kureishi.

Modern Classics: Herzog

Herzog (1964) is a novel by Saul Bellow.

Untranslated Lit: El Reino de Este Mundo (The Kingdom of This World)

El Reino de Este Mundo (1949) is a novel by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier.

Great classics: The Story of an African Farm

The Story of an African Farm (1883) is a novel by Olive Schreiner.

Modern Classics: Dubliners

Dubliners (1914) is a collection of short stories by James Joyce.

Contemporary Reads: Possession

Possession (1990) is the Booker prize novel by AS Byatt.

Great classics: The Aspern Papers

The Aspern Papers (1907) is a novella by Henry James.

Modern Classics: Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) is a novel by Jean Rhys.

Modern Classics: The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a novel by Margaret Atwood.

Great classics: The Portrait of a Lady

The Portrait of a Lady (1881) is a great novel by Henry James. Isabel Archer is a woman in her early twenties who comes from a genteel family in Albany, New York, in the late 1860s. Her mother died when she was a young girl, and her father raised her in a haphazard manner, allowing her to educate herself and encouraging her independence. As a result, the adult Isabel is widely read, imaginative, confident in her own mind, and slightly narcissistic; she has the reputation in Albany for being a formidable intellect, and as a result she often seems intimidating to men. She has had few suitors, but one of them is Caspar Goodwood, the powerful, charismatic son of a wealthy Boston mill owner. Isabel is drawn to Caspar, but her commitment to her independence makes her fear him as well, for she feels that to marry him would be to sacrifice her freedom.
Shortly after Isabel's father dies, she receives a visit from her indomitable aunt, Mrs. Touchett, an American who lives in Europe. Mrs. Touchett offers to take Isabel on a trip to Europe, and Isabel eagerly agrees, telling Caspar that she cannot tell him whether she wishes to marry him until she has had at least a year to travel in Europe with her aunt. Isabel and Mrs. Touchett leave for England, where Mrs. Touchett's estranged husband is a powerful banker. Isabel makes a strong impression on everyone at Mr. Touchett's county manor of Gardencourt: her cousin Ralph, slowly dying of a lung disorder, becomes deeply devoted to her, and the Touchetts' aristocratic neighbor Lord Warburton falls in love with her. Warburton proposes, but Isabel declines; though she fears that she is passing up a great social opportunity by not marrying Warburton, she still believes that marriage would damage her treasured independence. As a result, she pledges to accomplish something wonderful with her life, something that will justify her decision to reject Warburton.
Isabel's friend Henrietta Stackpole, an American journalist, believes that Europe is changing Isabel, slowly eroding her American values and replacing them with romantic idealism. Henrietta comes to Gardencourt and secretly arranges for Caspar Goodwood to meet Isabel in London. Goodwood again presses Isabel to marry him; this time, she tells him she needs at least two years before she can answer him, and she promises him nothing. She is thrilled to have exercised her independence so forcefully. Mr. Touchett's health declines, and Ralph convinces him that when he dies, he should leave half his wealth to Isabel: this will protect her independence and ensure that she will never have to marry for money. Mr. Touchett agrees shortly before he dies. Isabel is left with a large fortune for the first time in her life. Her inheritance piques the interest of Madame Merle, Mrs. Touchett's polished, elegant friend; Madame Merle begins to lavish attention on Isabel, and the two women become close friends.
Isabel travels to Florence with Mrs. Touchett and Madame Merle; Merle introduces Isabel to a man named Gilbert Osmond, a man of no social standing or wealth, but whom Merle describes as one of the finest gentlemen in Europe, wholly devoted to art and aesthetics. Osmond's daughter Pansy is being brought up in a convent; his wife is dead. In secret, Osmond and Merle have a mysterious relationship; Merle is attempting to manipulate Isabel into marrying Osmond so that he will have access to her fortune. Osmond is pleased to marry Isabel, not only for her money, but also because she makes a fine addition to his collection of art objects.
Everyone in Isabel's world disapproves of Osmond, especially Ralph, but Isabel chooses to marry him anyway. She has a child the year after they are married, but the boy dies six months after he is born. Three years into their marriage, Isabel and Osmond have come to despise one another; they live with Pansy in a palazzo in Rome, where Osmond treats Isabel as barely a member of the family: to him, she is a social hostess and a source of wealth, and he is annoyed by her independence and her insistence on having her own opinions. Isabel chafes against Osmond's arrogance, his selfishness, and his sinister desire to crush her individuality, but she does not consider leaving him. For all her commitment to her independence, Isabel is also committed to her social duty, and when she married Osmond, she did so with the intention of transforming herself into a good wife.
A young American art collector who lives in Paris, Edward Rosier, comes to Rome and falls in love with Pansy; Pansy returns his feelings. But Osmond is insistent that Pansy should marry a nobleman, and he says that Rosier is neither rich nor highborn enough. Matters grow complicated when Lord Warburton arrives on the scene and begins to court Pansy. Warburton is still in love with Isabel and wants to marry Pansy solely to get closer to her. But Osmond desperately wants to see Pansy married to Warburton. Isabel is torn about whether to fulfill her duty to her husband and help him arrange the match between Warburton and Pansy, or to fulfill the impulse of her conscience and discourage Warburton, while helping Pansy find a way to marry Rosier.
At a ball one night, Isabel shows Warburton the dejected-looking Rosier and explains that this is the man who is in love with Pansy. Guiltily, Warburton admits that he is not in love with Pansy; he quietly arranges to leave Rome. Osmond is furious with Isabel, convinced that she is plotting intentionally to humiliate him. Madame Merle is also furious with her, confronting her with shocking impropriety and demanding brazenly to know what she did to Warburton. Isabel has realized that there is something mysterious about Madame Merle's relationship with her husband; now, she suddenly realizes that Merle is his lover.
At this time, Ralph is rapidly deteriorating, and Isabel receives word that he is dying. She longs to travel to England to be with him, but Osmond forbids it. Now Isabel must struggle to decide whether to obey his command and remain true to her marriage vows or to disregard him and hurry to her cousin's bedside. Encouraging her to go, Osmond's sister, the Countess Gemini, tells her that there is still more to Merle and Osmond's relationship. Merle is Pansy's mother; Pansy was born out of wedlock. Osmond's wife died at about the same time, so Merle and Osmond spread the story that she died in childbirth. Pansy was placed in a convent to be raised, and she does not know that Merle is her real mother. Isabel is shocked and disgusted by her husband's atrocious behavior—she even feels sorry for Merle for falling under his spell—so she decides to follow her heart and travel to England.
After Ralph's death, Isabel struggles to decide whether to return to her husband or not. She promised Pansy that she would return to Rome, and her commitment to social propriety impels her to go back and honor her marriage. But her independent spirit urges her to flee from Osmond and find happiness elsewhere. Caspar Goodwood appears at the funeral, and afterwards, he asks Isabel to run away with him and forget about her husband. The next day, unable to find her, Goodwood asks Henrietta where she has gone. Henrietta quietly tells him that Isabel has returned to Rome, unable to break away from her marriage to Gilbert Osmond.

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Untranslated Lit: Les Particules Élémentaires (Atomised)

Les Particules Élémentaires (1998) is a novel by Michel Houellebecq.

Contemporary Reads: Black Swan Green

Black Swan Green (2006) is the latest novel by David Mitchell. Each of Black Swan Green's thirteen chapters follows a month in Jason's life, from January 1982 when his sprained ankle is bound up by the witchy crone who lives in the House in the Woods one dark frozen night after skating on the village pond, to January 1983 when the crone is revealed as a harmless old woman now the tenant of her son-in-law's granny flat. Following an episodic form rather than a conventionally linear narrative structure, the novel offers a series of vivid snapshots of Jason's life as he passes the milestone of his thirteenth birthday and begins a journey towards a new, hard-earned maturity.

Jason is far from a social pariah but equally far from fitting in to his male classmates' carefully constructed world where difference is derided, weakness cruelly mocked and transgressions of elaborate codes brutally punished. Already suffering the disadvantage of living in a middle-class enclave, Jason knows that discovery of his stammer will result in merciless persecution. He takes evasive action, quickly substituting alternative words when the Hangman threatens to tie his tongue into knots, gaining a rich vocabulary in the process and employing it in writing poetry under the pseudonym Eliot Bolivar for the parish magazine. He's careful not to be seen too often with Dean 'Moron' Moran, although by the end of the year the two are firm friends. Spring is dominated by news of the Falklands War and the death aboard HMS Coventry of Tom Yew, an old boy from Jason's school and the father of Debby Crombie's unborn child. After an unexpected display of cheek, Jason finds himself invited to join the village secret society but despite triumphantly completing the initiation test he is disqualified for acting according to his better nature. Meanwhile his parents are increasingly embroiled in sniping matches and, come the autumn, he finds himself lonelier that he had ever expected when his sister Julia leaves for university. A proposal for a permanent gypsy site has the village up in arms and Jason's encounter with the gypsies leads to another step along the road to maturity. The climax of Jason's year finds him facing down his bullying persecutors and, bathed in glory, experiencing his first kiss at the local disco. The following year begins with Jason saying goodbye to his father and to Black Swan Green as his parents finally part. Jason leaves for Cheltenham with his mother filled with trepidation at being the 'New Kid Whose Parents By The Way Are Getting Divorced', hardly daring to believe Julia's gentle reassurance that 'it'll be all right in the end'.

Great classics: Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina (1877) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy. What can I say about a book that has been hailed as the best novel ever written? Let's start with the obvious. It is a very big book set in 19th century Russian with lots of characters. It is, therefore, quite a daunting book. You will need time and patience to tackle reading it but you will be rewarded every step of the way. You probably expect (like I did) a novel about an unfaithful wife who runs away from a cold husband leaving her beloved child behind. While you will find that, you will also find that Tolstoy pays great attention to other characters and story lines that are in no way secondary to the story of Anna Karenina. In fact, after her suicide, the novel continues for a few hundred pages and does not lose any of its interest. In fact, the other protagonist of the book is for me its best character, Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin. But this novel is not so much about any individual characters as much as they are beautiful characterised by Tolstoy but about Russia as a changing nation. The leitmotiv of the moving train is very important in that respect, for instance: from children playing with a toy train at the beginning of the book through Anna's death by throwing herself in front of a real one. The train can be seen as an obvious symbol of material progress of Westernisation of Russia.

I know that I have not said anything new about the book and I have not mentioned many important aspects of it. I will just finish by saying this: do read it, it is a book that will stay with you.

Modern Classics: The Trial

The Trial (1925) is a novel by Czech writer Franz Kafka. Like most works by Kafka, it was published posthumously. The novel was unfinished by the author and could only be published after been edited by Max Brod. It tells the story of how bank worker, Josef K., is accused of an unnamed crime and is finally excecuted while considering himself innocent. The Trial chronicals the year between his arrest and his excecusion. The meaning intended by Kafka is not clear at all but I have read this novel as a satire of bureaucracy. Its long paragraphs make it quite a suffocating read, as it were, and this goes very well with his descriptions of airless courtrooms and the nightmarish sense of doom and madness that prevail throughout the book.

Untranslated Lit: La Tía Julia y el Escribidor (Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter)

La tía Julia y el escribidor (1977) is a novel by the celebrated Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. The main narrative is about the love affair between the protagonist, Mario Vargas, and a Bolivian friend of the family, Aunt Julia. Mario is only 18, he works at a local radio station in Lima scripting the hourly news bulletins. He is also a halfhearted law student but he dreams of becoming a literary writer. Aunt Julia is a divorcee in her mid 30s. This central part of the novel is somehow autobiographical. Apart from the love affair, there is the famous Bolivian writer of radio soap operas, Pedro Camacho, who in spite of working almost non-stop on his writing, strikes a friendship with Mario.
This main narrative is interrupted by chapters which loosely connected plots could well be lifted from Pedro Camacho's soaps but, actually, are a great show of Vargas Llosa's skills as a short-story writer. This is a novel full of humour but also passion and intrigue, as any good soap opera.

All the books I have read this year

So far I have read the following books in 2007:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The Master by Colm Toíbín
The Light of Day by Graham Swift
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
The Accidental by Ali Smith
The Blind Assasin by Margaret Atwood
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Story of the Night by Colm Toíbín
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Jude The Obscure by Thomas Harding
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
White Noise by Don Delillo
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies
A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
The Child In Time by Ian McEwan
Où es-tu? by Marc Levy
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan
The Wasp Factory by Ian Banks
Everyman by Philip Roth
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penny
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
La Prochaine Fois by Marc Levy
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Digging to America by Anne Tyler
El Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
Stupeur et Tremblements by Amélie Nothomb
Regeneration by Pat Barker
The Sea by John Banville
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Fair Play by Tove Jansson
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Je Voudrais que Quelqu'un M'attende Quelque Part by Anna Gavalda
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
L'Amant de la Chine du Nord by Marguerite Duras
Historia Universal de la Infamia by Jorge Luis Borges
Corazón Tan Blanco by Javier Marias


53 books in 3 different languages.

Untranslated Lit: Corazón Tan Blanco (A Heart So White)

Corazón Tan Blanco (1992) is a novel by Javier Marías. It is a mesmerising book which starts with the suicide of a woman in the past. The reason for the suicide will be revealed in the penultimate chapter. The narrator, Juan, has just got married to Luisa and has thus started mourning for his abstract future: "And now what?" His father, Ranz, was married twice before marrying Juan's mother Juana. His second wife, Teresa, was Juana's sister and the woman whose death is described on the first chapter. The reader never finds out about the first wife until the reason for Teresa's death is revealed.
This is one of the best novels I have read recently and has whetted my appetite for more of the writer's books. Years ago I read the excellent Todas las Almas (All Souls) and I think it is high time I got reacquainted.

Untranslated Lit: Historia Universal de la Infamia

Historia Universal de la Infamia (1935) is a collection of short-stories by Jorge Luis Borges. The settings range for North to South America, from Persia to the Far East. This is a book about men, adventures in exotic locations, things that could have had happened in history but most probably only did in Borges' rich imagination. This book is probably easier to read than The Aleph or Ficciones, nontheless it is just as imaginative and literary worthy.

Untranslated Lit: L'Amant de la Chine du Nord (The North China Lover)

L'Amant de la Chine du Nord (1991) is a novel by Marguerite Duras. It is a retelling of her early Goncourt winning novel L'Amant (The Lover). Back in later 1920s French Indochina, a 15 year old girl and a Chinese man in his 30s have an intense love affair. She is the daughter of a poor French teacher and he a rich heir with a European education and a future in banking. She has never loved anyone other than her younger brother Paulo, whom their mother and Thahn try to protect from their opium-addicted older brother. The Chinese man is enganged to be married to a wealthy Chinese girl.
The lack of characterisation (most of the characters are not even given a name) does not make this novel any less beautiful and sad. Duras draws for her own life and her experiences of colonial life (like the girl in the novel she was born and raised in Indochina herself and seems to have had a Chinese lover when she was 15 herself). The impossible love affair ends when the child goes back to France by boat. Years later, now settled in Paris, she receives a telephone call from the Chinese man who tells her that he never stopped loving her.
Subtletly narrated and sometimes structured as a film script - L'Amant was indeed turned into a movie but Duras did not approve of it and this second version of the novel is most probably a reaction to it - this book is of a rare beauty and, despite its subject matter, utterly unsentimental.

Contemporary Reads: Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint (1697) is a novel by Philip Roth. It is largely a rather candid sex-ridden monologue by Alexandre Portnoy. His Jewish upbringing in 1940s New Jersey, his highschool years and his failed relationships with shikses including The Monkey (a Southern illiterate girl called Mary Jane) are all part of the narrative. The climax is Portnoy's visit to Israel where he becomes impotent. Sex features abundantly and explictly. This novel is both funny and poignant.

Contemporary Reads: So Many Ways to Begin

So Many Ways to Begin (2006) is the second novel by Jon McGregor. It is a book about the lives of ordinary people expanding nearly a century although not always told following a strict chronological order. Its main characters are a family and the story is simple enough: David is the adopted son of Dorothy, he is a museum curator; he is married to Eleanor, who comes from a hard-knock working class family from Aberdeen; they have a daughter called Kate.
When he accidentally finds out that he is not Dorothy's child, David will try to find his Irish birth mother. He will never succeed. The fact that Eleanor is bound to depression will lead him to have a brief affair with one of his co-workers at the museum, Anna. All these are perhaps banal dramas which are completely plausible and possibly quite familiar to readers. What McGregor does through his slightly fragmented narrative and his subtle characterisation is to observe the ordinariness of life, as it were, as a way of celebrating the beauty of love, family, home. It is a delightful novel.

Untranslated Lit: Ficciones

Ficciones (1944) is a superb collection of short-stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I would personally highlight Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote; La Muerte y la brújula; and El Sur.

Contemporary Reads: The Ghost Road

The Ghost Road (1995) completes the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker. Perhaps more introspective than its predecessors, this novel sees Prior's return to the front in France. We thus get a present tense account of the horrors of war for the first time in the trilogy. His (bi)sexuality is also very explicitly explored. We also get a look into River's work in Melanesia before the war. A very poignant and interesting book, the best one out of a remarkable trilogy.

The other books in the trilogy are: Regeneration and The Eye in the Door.

Untranslated Lit: Je Voudrais Que Quelqu'un M'attende Quelque Part (I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere)

Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part (1999) is a collection of short-stories by French writer Anna Gavalda. 12 short-stories set in modern day France, episodes in the ordinary lives of ordinary people told in the first person singular. The language is also everyday French but also blunt and even crude sometimes.

I am not the biggest fan of short-stories but, as a French student, I have greatly enjoyed most of the stories on this collection.

Rereadings: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985) was Jeanette Winterson's first novel. I have just finished reading it for the second time (I read it the first time as a student). It is such an original powerful book. The story (at least in part autobiographical) was a very daring one to tell at the time of its publication: the novel is about an adopted girl being raised in Lancashire by a self-righteous born-again Christian mother. Its structure is not any less daring as it is original: without being told in strictly chronological order, the story is not hard to follow. The reader (or at least I did) will get a sense of the "madness" Jeanette, for that is the narrator/protagonist's name, was brought up in and also how she will finally be able to find her way out of it. Precisely, in the last chapters there is a parallel fary tale-like narrative that works to help the reader understand the protagonist's progress.

Other novels I have read by the same author: The Passion and Sexy the Cherry.

Contemporary Reads: Fair Play

Fair Play (1989) is a novel by Finnish author Tove Jansson. Although she is better known internationally as a children's writer and illustrator thanks to her creation The Moomins, there has been some recent interest on her adult fiction after the publication of the English translations of The Summer Book and a collection of her best short-stories The Winter Book. Personally, my introduction to Jansson's fiction has been through Fair Play. A novella made out of vignettes depicting the lives of two elderly friends Mari and Jonna. The narrative is simple and straightforward and nothing much seems to happen: trips abroad, stays on an island, life on their Helsinki apartments, visits from friends, ... What I got from this book is a minimalist description of true friendship. The confidences, shared memories, little conflicts, etc.

The novel is subtle but it reaches where a lot of more complicated books fail to reach. It's true, it's honest and I love it.

Contemporary Reads: The Road

The Road (2006) is a superb novel by Cormac McCarthy. After some unnamed cataclysm, a man and his son walk on the road trying to stay alive. The world is a desolate, dusty and ashen place, gray and rainy.

This is a very sad, brilliantly written and ultimately hopeful book.

Contemporary Reads: The Emperor's Children

The Emperor's Children (2006) is Claire Messud's latest novel. It is a wonderful comedy of manners set largely in New York city in the months leading up to 9/11 . The book has been hailed by critics from both sides of the Atlantic. To read the review published on the New York Times click here.

Contemporary Reads: The Eye in the Door

The Eye in the Door (1993) is the second novel on Pat Barker's trilogy about the Great War. The story this time centres around one of Dr River's patients, Prior, and Charles Manning. Apart from themes of class and anti-war sentiment that were already tackled by her previous novel, Barker also deals with persecution and prejudice.

The Eye in the Door is perhaps a richer novel than Regeneration and I am sure it can be as enjoyable read on its own as as part of the trilogy.

Contemporary Reads: The Sea

The Sea (2005) is the Man Booker Prize winning novel by John Banville. Its fragmented narrative follows the return of art historian Max Morden to the seaside house where he used to spent his childhood holidays. The different fragments are mostly made up by his memories of different periods of his life: his wife's cancer diagnosis and death; his relationship with his daughter, Claire; his tragic childhood memories. This novel is concerned with grief but also with memory that, unreliable as it sometimes is, still has a profound effect on the present.

Some readers might consider this book difficult to read as it is not really plot driven. What seduced me was its poetic language, its essayistic qualities and how the fragmented narrative is really at the service of the story.

Other books I have read by the same author: The Book of Evidence.

Contemporary Reads: Regeneration

Regeneration (1991) is a novel by Pat Barker. It fictionalises the real-life encounter between army psychologist W.H.R. Rivers and Siegfried Sassoon. Other real life characters, notably poet Wilfred Owen, are part of the narrative.

Pacifism, class, psychology, anthropology or the effect of the Great War on ordinary people are all elements of this important novel.

This novel is the first of the Regeneration Trilogy together with The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road.

Untranslated Lit: Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling)

Stupeur et Tremblements (1999) is a novel by Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb. It narrates the year a Belgian girl spent working for a Japanese firm in Tokyo before returning to Europe to become a writer. During that year, faux pas after faux pas, our heroine was subjected to several humiliations at work. Having been employed as an accountant she is finally demoted to guarding the toilets or being 'Madame Pipi' as she puts it.

This novel is partly biographical and her witty observations on modern-day Japan are hilarious when they are not tragic.

Although I have read it in the original French, the novel has been published in English in the UK and I certainly recommend it.

Untranslated Lit: El Aleph (The Aleph)

El Aleph (1949) is a collection of short stories by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The stories are poetical, metaphysical, deep. My favourite ones are Deutsches Requiem, La Espera (The Wait) and El Aleph (The Aleph).

Contemporary Reads: Digging to America

Digging to America (2006) is the latest novel by American writer Anne Tyler. You can read many reviews on this novel by clicking here.

Modern Classics: In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood (1966) by Truman Capote is the masterful reconstrunction of a horrid mass murder that took place in Kansas in late 1959 when ex-convicts Perry Smith and Dick Hickock killed a whole family in their rural home.

Capote offeres us a study in depth of the crime, its effect on all those involved up to the criminals' execution. Exceptional.

Contemporary Reads: The Testament of Gideon Mack

The Testament of Gideon Mack (2006) is the latest novel by Scottish author James Robertson. It tells the unlikely story of atheist Church of Scotland minister Gideon Mack who after having fallen from a cliff-face and gone missing for three days claims to have been rescued and cared for by the Devil. When he confesses this publicly he is discredited and treated as a lunatic until his death soon after.

Another Scottish writer, Irvine Welsh has described this novel as a parable of the relationship organised religion, the supernatural and mental illness. It is indeed a wonderful novel that will have readers asking themselves many a deep question.

Untranslated Lit: La Prochaine Fois

La Prochaine Fois (2005) is the fourth novel by best-selling author Marc Levy. Serious critics in France often dismiss Levy's work as unliterary and easy to read. I am inclined to agree and if he wrote in English I probably would not read his novels. However, I would recommend it for advanced students of French such as myself who are trying to improve their reading skills.

The story is about enternal love and reincarnation set in an artistic milieu. The mystery of a long-lost painting by an obscure Russian artist is engaging enough.

Other books I have read by the same author: Et Si C'était Vrai and Où es-tu?

Modern Classics: Surfacing

Surfacing (1972) is Margaret Atwood's second published novel. A nameless young woman returns to the small Quebec island where she was raised to search for her missing father. With her comes along her boyfriend, Joe, and a married couple, Anna and David.
As the days pass, each characters' individuality is exposed. The protagonist begins to drift in and out of reality, remembering painful episodes of her past.
After her father is found dead (by drowing), she runs away from her friends and hides until they leave the island. She decides to stay there in communion with Nature.
This novel explores themes such as powerless of expression through language or the alienation of women (the protagonist/narrator has been married in the past and had a child whom she considers her husband's but not hers); and motifs such as the American expansion or Canadian national identity (the Québec setting is no accident).
This is a short but rich novel that has been hailed by critics as one of the major works in North American literature and probably one of the most canonical Canadian books.
Other books that I have read by the same author: Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride and The Blind Assassin.