Book news, reviews and recommendations
I’m not sure what it was about Layla AlAmmar’s Silence is a Sense that made me put my hand up when I spotted it in my Twitter timeline. It’s not one of those titles which seem to be tweeted every half hour or so, although it certainly deserves that kind of exposure. Told through the […]
Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar: Giving voice to the voiceless Read More »
Timur Vermes is clearly not a man to shy away from controversy. His sharp, very funny satire, Look Who’s Back, nailed the internet’s potential for political manipulation with admirable, if unsettling, prescience when Hitler wakes up with a bad headache in 2011 and quickly becomes a YouTube star. The Hungry and the Fat takes on
If there’s a pattern running through this year’s reading for me it’s the power of the novella. Ghost Wall, Four Soldiers, El Hacho and Soviet Milk all spring to mind, each of them dealing with weighty subjects often in spare, careful prose, and there are many more I could mention. Sulaiman Addonia’s beautifully expressed Silence
Silence is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia: The quiet power of the novella Read More »
It was impossible for me to read this collection without thinking of breach, Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes’ short stories about refugees living in Calais’ now disbanded Jungle. Whereas breach is based on Popoola and Holmes’ research carried out in and around Calais, The Refugees was written by an author who fled with his parents
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen: Listen up, Mr President Read More »