Five stories - from a young artist and a deserting soldier to an old man reminiscing beneath a lime tree - all interwoven by the common threads of war, memory and German history.
Indian family drama revolving around an ambitious and bright but easily distracted daughter who hasn't yet heard that her father has died. Fraught, lyrical, set against the backdrop of relig... read more
A prelapsarian tale about a haven of racially integrated citizens, based on a real island off the coast of Maine which became - for a while - an exotic utopia in the late C18th.
In a remote Austrian valley during WW1, a woman tries to provide for her family after her husband is drafted into the army. Based on the author's own family history. Powerful, succinct.
Strange and serene novel from the great Hungarian writer: for centuries the grandson of Prince Genji has been searching for a mythical garden and now wanders the grounds of an ancient Kyoto ... read more
Irreverent, witty and often barmy novel about how people make sense of war. Begins in 1940 with a young woman running naked down the boulevard du Montparnasse.
The title is the nickname of St Cuthbert, a C7th hermit. It begins there and ends in 21st century Co. Durham... An incantatory, feverish and experimental novel with prose that skips, slides ... read more
Ada is not one woman but many: from the Ada that gives birth in pre-colonial west-Africa to a young pregnant Ghanaian arriving in C21st Berlin. Translated from the German.
A PhD student thinks she's identified the first female British artist, then discovers an error in her research. An Icelandic novella about ambition and untruth.
Escape to the West and life in the East through the eyes of a young woman loyal to the GDR: oppression in conflict with idealism. First published in East Germany in 1963.
The subtle and growing bonds between two couples in occupied Turin: this is a classic of wartime Italian fiction, translated now into English for the first time. Bassani called it "successfu... read more