Mr Darwin’s Gardener by Kristina Carlson

September 11, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah. Peirene Press, 2013. Originally published 2009. 112 pgs. Library copy. In the late 1870s, Thomas Davies works in the village of Downe in Kent, England as a gardener for the famous naturalist, Charles Darwin. Davies does not believe in any given religion and refuses to attend church with the rest of the villagers at the start of the novella. Having recently lost his wife Gwyneth, Davies is […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Finnish, Peirene Press, Translated, United Kingdom • Tags: Kristina Carlson

The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik

September 6, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 1999. 174 pgs. Library copy. The introduction to Ørstavik’s novella by the publisher, Meike Ziervogel of Peirene Press, is certainly an eyebrow-raising one. In it, Ziervogel recommends people who have read Fifty Shades of Grey read Ørstavik because the book: “…holds up a mirror to a part of the female psyche that yearns for submission. The story shows how erotic fantasies are formed by the relationship with our […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Norwegian, Peirene Press, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Hanne Ørstavik

The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul

July 24, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken. Peirene Press, 2012. Originally published 2009. 189 pgs. Library copy. Bess awakens one morning in her home office to find that her husband, Halland, has left. His disappearance isn’t suspect; her normally leaves for work without waking her. But just as Bess prepares to step into the shower, the doorbell rings and the neighbor standing at her doorstep announces that he’s making a citizens arrest of her for the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Danish, Europe, Fiction, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Peirene Press, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Pia Juul

Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda

July 8, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 2011. 128 pgs. Purchased.i In the 1960s, a young boy named Hadachinou moves between the public streets of Tripoli and the private spaces inhabited by his mother, her best friend, and other women of his acquaintance. His age and size means he isn’t viewed as a threat in Libya’s patriarchal society, allowing him to blend in and go unnoticed in female spaces. It also […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Africa, Feminism, Fiction, French, Peirene Press, ReadDiverse, Translated • Tags: Adriana Hunter, Kamal Ben Hameda

Breach by Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes

June 24, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – print. Peirene Press, 2016. 160 pgs. Purchased. The English Channel may separate the two countries, but the city of Calais has become a border town between France and Great Britain. Migrants and refugees hoping to settle in Britain have flocked to the French side of the Chunnel, building a community known as “The Jungle”. The eight short stories included in this collection by Popoola and Holmes are largely set in “The Jungle” and feature the voices of refugees […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, Peirene Press, Short Stories, United Kingdom • Tags: Annie Holmes, Olumide Popoola

The Cut by Anthony Cartwright

June 10, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — print. Peirene Press, 2017. 129 pgs. Purchased. Meike Ziervogel, the publisher of Periene Press, writes in her short introduction that she “commissioned Anthony Cartwright to build a fictional bridge between the two Britains that opposed each other on referendum day”. To achieve that aim, Cartwright gives us two characters — Grace, a documentary film maker from London, and Cairo Jukes, a day laborer in Dudley — and alternates their story in the “before” and the “after”. “You people, is […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Peirene Press, United Kingdom • Tags: Anthony Cartwright