Features

Interview: Gregory Dowling

January 2024 will see the publication in English of The Lover of No Fixed Abode, a novel originally written by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini in 1986, which is set in Venice. With the authors are no longer available for interview, we decided to talk…
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Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

Translated by Jesse Kirkwood –– Penguin’s new translation of Seichō Matsumoto‘s classic Tokyo Express is both modern and respectful of the original Japanese text from 1958, with the action taking place a little earlier in 1957. It’s a book you can immerse yourself in –…
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Syndrome E by Franck Thilliez

Translated by Mark Pilozzotti — Franck Thilliez has written many bestsellers in his native France. If his other books are of equal quality to this complex, multi-layered thriller, then Penguin, publisher of this translation, can rest assured it has picked a winner. Syndrome E packs an awful lot…
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Features

Interview: Quentin Bates

Quentin Bates moved to Iceland at the end of the 1970s for a gap year which turned into a gap decade, merrily acquiring a new language, family and profession over there. As well as being a commercial fishing expert, he is the author of a series…
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NTN: Until the Debt is Paid

Written by Alexander Hartung, translated by Steve Anderson — Until the Debt is Paid was Alexander Hartung’s second novel in German, and the first to feature his Berlin detective Jan Tommen. After a weekend of hard drinking, Tommen wakes up with the mother of all…
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Three-Card Monte by Marco Malvaldi

Translated by Howard Curtis — Three-Card Monte is the second instalment in the Bar Lume series, (we reviewed Game For Five here) which are bestsellers in the author’s native Italy. Set in a small coastal town in Tuscany, the book once again features Massimo –…
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A Man's Head by Georges Simenon

Translated by David Coward — Having accrued an incomplete collection of dog-eared, yellowed and slightly foxed editions of Simenon’s Maigret novels by scavenging second hand bookshops, Penguin’s project to reprint all 75 of them was music to my ears. This set is being translated afresh…
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