Cover image for Malma Station by Alex Schulman

Malma Station by Alex Schulman (transl. Rachel Willson-Broyles) ‘You are never alone’

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The blurb for Alex Schulman’s Malma Station was so impenetrable I’d have passed it by had I not been so impressed by The Survivors back in 2021. Schulman’s new novel explores similar themes following three journeys to the eponymous station deep in the Swedish countryside, separated by several decades. Often, when her parents fought, she […]

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Cover image for After a Dance

After a Dance by Bridget O’Connor: Dark, funny and occasionally surreal

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I’d not come across Bridget O’Connor’s writing until I was sent a nice little package of links to various spring titles by her publisher just before Christmas. An acclaimed short story writer and playwright, O’Connor died in 2010, aged only forty-nine. After a Dance is a collection of fifteen of her stories all but one

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Cover image for Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh: ‘I’ve been imprisoned all my life, daddy.’

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It was that cover that snagged my attention when I was pitched Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s Blessings. With its image of a strikingly handsome but melancholy young man, it fits the novel well. Spanning a decade in Nigeria beginning in 2006, Ibeh’s debut is a poignant coming-of-age story in which a boy struggles to keep his sexuality

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Cover image for Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi: ‘How come every time I look at this book it’s become another book?!’  

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I knew I wouldn’t be in for a straightforward piece of linear narrative when I was pitched Helen Oyeyemi’s Parasol Against the Axe but I hadn’t realised that her adopted home city is Prague, the narrator of her new novel which sees a hen party descend on the city. Hardly an unusual event except that

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