Aha! Finally made the leap from sofa + notebook to office chair + my pc. I even opened a new folder and wrote the date + working title (very pretentious so I’m not going to tell you what it is). Strange to think that all these notes and random thoughts might be a novel after … More Writing update
Coming in at only 140 pages, Megan Hunter’s fascinating experimental novel is more a prose-poem or novella, but with the intensity of a short story. The text is divided by *** and interspersed with quasi biblical quotations. Everything has been pared down to the minimum: sentences are often so short as to be almost cryptic … More Review: The end we start from
Akwaeke Emezi’s debut novel is an intriguing story about the complex psychological life of Ada, a young Nigerian woman. Her multiple personalities are envisaged as figures from Igbo mythology and Christianity, and there is constant conflict and emotional stress as these characters fight to gain control of Ada. A difficult subject dealt with in a … More Review: Freshwater
Originally posted on Polly Clark:
Two weeks today I will be airborne on my way to Moscow, then Khabarovsk, then deep into the taiga of the Far East… a long journey undertaken in order to track the majestic Siberian tiger. A small group of us, along with a guide, translator and cook will spend our…
A coming of age novel set in 1950s Canada. When their mother marries Eugene, Willa and her older sister Joan are thrown together with his sons, Kenneth and Patrick, the ‘demigods’ of the title. Their mother spends her days drinking and smoking, arguing with Eugene while the girls are left to their own devices. Joan … More Review: Demigods
Between catching trains, hospital visits and hosting leaving parties for my daughter (going travelling for 6 months) I’ve only been able to write in short bursts this week. I’ve written more than I imagined… still all notes and sketches longhand, but it’s coming together slowly. Perhaps limiting myself to these constrained units of time is … More Writing update
by Tomoka Shibasaki (translated by Polly Barton) published by Pushkin Press, 2017 Winner of the Akutagawa Prize in Japan, Tomoka Shibasaki’s novella, Spring Garden, is a study in loneliness and loss, the passage of time, and the human relationship with the built environment. Taro, recently divorced and grieving for his dead father, is one of … More Is city life damaging our health? A review: Spring Garden
The gorgeously colourful cover of The Maid’s Room hides an ugly truth. The rooms most of the 230,000 maids in Singapore can call their own are ‘bomb shelters’: concrete, airless and windowless, where the tumble dryer adds to the already intolerable humidity. In this debut novel rather than laying the indignity and unfairness on … More Review: The Maid’s Room
A rejection (of my novel) but filtered through my agent, Emily is always so much easier to take because she balanced it with the suggestion of a competition to try. Onwards and upwards… And my gloom was lifted by MsLexia accepting a short “confession” I submitted recently. But you’ll have to wait till December to … More Writing update
by Jennifer Egan published by Corsair, 2017 My rating * * * * My review After her Pulitzer Prize winning, experimental novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan has turned to the historic novel. In Manhattan Beach she delves (both metaphorically and literally) into the murky worlds of New York gangsters of the … More Review: Manhattan Beach
Ali Thurm 