Jenny Erpenbeck0.0 Winner of the Presigious Hans Fallada Prize and a bestseller in Europe, The End of Days offers a unique view on twentieth-century German history.
The End of Days, by acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, consists essentially of five “books,” each leading to a different death of an unnamed woman protagonist. How could it all have gone differently? the narrator asks in the intermezzos between. The first chapter begins with the death of a baby in the early twentieth-century Hapsburg Empire. In the next chapter, the same girl grows up in Vienna, but her strange relationship with a boy leads to another death. In the next scenario, she survives adolescence and moves to Russia with her husband. Both are dedicated Communists, but our heroine is sent to a labor camp. She is spared in the next chapter with the help of someone’s intervention and returns to Berlin to become a respected writer. . . .
The End of Days is a brilliant novel of contingency and fate. A novel of incredible breadth, yet amazing concision, The End of Days offers a unique overview of German and German-Jewish history by “one of the finest, most exciting authors alive” (Michael Faber).
Hassan Blasim0.0 A soldier with the ability to predict the future finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror…
A deviser of crosswords survives a car-bomb attack, only to discover he is now haunted by one of its victims…
Fleeing a robbery, a Baghdad shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits a djinni and the corpse of a soldier from a completely different war…
From legends of the desert to horrors of the forest, Blasim’s stories blend the fantastic with the everyday, the surreal with the all-too-real. Taking his cues from Kafka, his prose shines a dazzling light into the dark absurdities of Iraq’s recent past and the torments of its countless refugees. The subject of this, his second collection, is primarily trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it (including, of course, fiction). The result is a masterclass in metaphor – a new kind of story-telling, forged in the crucible of war, and just as shocking.
Гербранд Баккер3.5 A Dutch woman, a university English lecturer researching the work of Emily Dickinson, rents a farm in remote, rural Wales. When she arrives, there are ten geese living on the farm, but one by one they disappear. Perhaps it's the work of a local fox. The reason for her move abroad gradually becomes clear: her husband is trying to track her down. Having confessed to an affair with one of her students in Amsterdam, she has quietly fled to Wales from a situation that had become unbearable. Her husband contacts the police and teams up with a detective to go and look for her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve. But in the meantime, the woman increasingly seems to be losing her grip on the situation. Gerbrand Bakker has made the territories of isolation, inner turmoil and the solace offered by the natural world his own. The Detour is a gripping and subtle new novel.
Аарон Аппельфельд3.7 «Цветы тьмы» — это история еврейского мальчика Хуго, который жил с родителями в маленьком украинском городке, но когда пришли немцы и отца забрали, мать отдала его на попечение своей школьной подруги Марьяны. Марьяна — проститутка, живет в борделе и в чулане за своей комнаткой прячет одиннадцатилетнего Хуго. Ему предстоит учиться и жить воспоминаниями, и осваивать новый, незнакомый мир.
Santiago Roncagliolo0.0 A chilling, internationally acclaimed political thriller, Red April is a grand achievement in contemporary Latin American fiction, written by the youngest winner ever of the Alfaguara Prize–one of the most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world–and translated from the Spanish by one of our most celebrated literary translators, Edith Grossman. It evokes Holy Week during a cruel, bloody, and terrifying time in Peru's history, shocking for its corrosive mix of assassination, bribery, intrigue, torture, and enforced disappearance–a war between grim, ideologically-driven terrorism and morally bankrupt government counterinsurgency. Mother-haunted, wife-abandoned, literature-loving, quietly eccentric Felix Chacaltana Saldivar is a hapless, by-the-book, unambitious prosecutor living in Lima. Until now he has lived a life in which nothing exceptionally good or bad has ever happened to him. But, inexplicably, he has been put in charge of a bizarre and horrible murder investigation. As it unfolds by propulsive twists and turns–full of paradoxes and surprises–Saldivar is compelled to confront what happens to a man and a society when death becomes the only certainty in life. Stunning for its self-assured and nimble clarity of style–reminiscent of classic noir fiction–the inexorable momentum of its plot, and the moral complexity of its concerns, Red April is at once riveting and profound, informed as it is by deft artistry in the shaping of conflict between competing venalities. As the New York Times declares, "Lima is once again one of Latin America’s brightest literary scenes."
Филипп Клодель4.3 Роман «Мое имя Бродек», удостоенный Гонкуровской премии лицеистов, сравнивают с произведениями Камю и Кафки, «Чтецом» Шлинка и «Бесчестьем» Кутзее. Это одна из тех книг, которые невозможно забыть, к которым то и дело мысленно возвращаешься, вспоминая строки, слова, образы. Чудом выживший в концлагере, Бродек, который не раз прощался с жизнью, вынужден был идти против своей природы, чтобы выжить и вернуться к любимой женщине, вспоминает день за днем все, что ему пришлось пережить, и, словно пазл, складывает свою жизнь, размышляя о мотивах тех людей, которые пытались эту жизнь сломать.
Эвелио Росеро0.0 Ismail, the profesor, is a retired teacher in a small Colombian town where he passes the days pretending to pick oranges while spying on his neighbor Geraldina as she lies naked in the shade of a ceiba tree on a red floral quilt. The garden burns with sunlight; the macaws laugh sweetly.
Otilia, Ismail's wife, is ashamed of his peeping and suggests that he pay a visit to Father Albornoz. Instead, Ismail wanders the town visiting old friends, plagued by a tangle of secret memories. "Where have I existed these years? I answer myself; up on the wall, peering over." When the armies slowly arrive, the profesor's reveries are gradually taken over by a living hell. His wife disappears and he must find her. We learn that not only gentle, grassy hillsides surround San Joseacute; but landmines and coca fields. The reader is soon engulfed by the violence of Rosero's narrative that is touched not only with a deep sadness, but an extraordinary tenderness.
Moving back and forth between the main stages of the past century—Berlin united and divided, Boston, Los Alamos, Auschwitz—Omega Minor is a novel of big ideas, a tale of survival of the soul cast in a whirlwind plot that is in turns smart, inquisitive, funny, violent, nutty, pornographic, moving, deeply compassionate, and profoundly moral. Or not.
Do scars ever heal? Can history be transcended? And will love, for once, save the world? Welcome to Omega Minor, where nothing is ever what it seems and nothing ever ends.
Пер Петтерсон4.0 Военное время, движение Сопротивления, любовная драма — одна женщина и двое мужчин. История рассказана от лица современного человека, вспоминающего детство и своего отца — одного из этих двух мужчин.
Бегбедер Фредерик4.0 Windows on the World unflinchingly imagines the moments from 8:30AM to 10:28AM inside the World Trade Center on September 11. Weaving together philosophy, myth, world politics, and humor, Beigbeder succeeds in creating a tapestry of fury and wonder, a tribute to thousands of unsung heroes.
Пер Улов Энквист4.1 Немецкий врач Иоганн Фридрих Струэнсе (1737-1772) на четыре года приобретает неограниченную власть благодаря влиянию на психически больного короля Кристиана VII. Любовная связь с королевой сообщает его положению дополнительный драматизм. Попытка превращения Дании в просвещенную монархию закончилась трагически: деятельность реформатора была пресечена, а сам он казнен.
Винифред Георг Зебальд4.1 Жак Аустерлиц, английский историк архитектуры, пытается найти своих родителей, которые перед самым вторжением немцев в Чехию отправили его «детским поездом» в Голландию.
Герт Хофманн0.0 It is the early 1930s in Limbach, an industrial village suffering from the depression. Karl Hofmann narrates silent movies at the local cinema. The job pays poorly and is largely unnecessary, as the films have subtitles and the crowds are small, but Karl sees himself as an artist: he is convinced only his explanation will make the movies accessible to the ever-shrinking audience. When the "talkies" arrive and he loses his job after a quarrel with the Jewish theater owner, Karl loses his sense of purpose and joins the Nazi Party--the first step toward his horrible end.
Бао Нинь4.1 Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, his country, and the people who live there. Originaly published against government wishes in Vietnam because of its nonheroic, non-ideological tone, The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller.
Жозе Сарамаго4.0 «Год смерти Рикардо Рейса» — роман, ставший, подобно «Волхву» Фаулза, культовым для европейской литературы. Это великолепная игра, поскольку даже в самой Португалии далеко не всем известно, что никакого Рикардо Рейса в действительности не было, что это один из гетеронимов великого португальского поэта Фернандо Пессоа. Сарамаго устраивает «встречу» Творца и Творения, которая происходит на фоне бурных событий 1936 года..
Simon Leys0.0 Napoleon has escaped St. Helena, but the impersonator he left in his place has unexpectedly passed away. Travelling incognito through the Continent, he experiences a series of bizarrre adventures that bring him face to face with the myth of Napoleon as it is disconcertingly played out in everyday life.
Милан Кундера4.2 Великий Гете беседует с Хемингуэем. Беттина фон Арним взыскует вечности, настаивая на своем неземном чувстве к великому Гете, прожившая в счастливом браке двадцать лет женщина по имени Аньес понимает, что хотела бы остаться после смерти в одиночестве, а пожилая дама в купальнике легко и кокетливо выбрасывает в приветствии руку жестом юной прекрасной женщины - всё это сквозь время и пространство наблюдает автор. И кажется, что у него в руках волшебное стекло, сквозь которое в тонких движениях и грубых помыслах, работе, заботах, беге по кругу, иллюзиях любви и чувстве отчужденности просвечивает одно и главное неотъемлемое свойство души - бессмертие.
Orhan Pamuk3.6 Главный герой, молодой итальянец, попадает в плен к туркам, где становится рабом странного человека, одержимого познанием вселенной. Однако наиболее волнующая тайна заключена в лице турецкого ученного, как две капли воды похожего на лицо итальянского пленника.
