John Klassen
Brigid Grauman
Brigid Grauman was born in Geneva to an Irish mother and American father. She spent her childhood in France, Israel, and Belgium. According to her autobiographical note, this book was “inspired by her quarrelsome and very literary Austro-Hungarian family, many of whom were among the Nazis’ millions victims.”
J'ai beaucoup aimé ce livre de Mémoires de notre ancien Ministre, en particulier la partie très originale consacrée à la diplomatie parlementaire internationale , un domaine auquel le Ministre Graham a apporté une contribution significative.
John Klassen
Olga Tokarczuk Tokarczuk (1962-)
Tokarczuk is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She has been described as one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation. The novel, Flights, brought her international recognition when it won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.
John Klassen
Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Juan Gabriel Vásquez (1973-) is a Colombian writer, translator and
journalist. He studied law in the University of Rosario in Bogota and then
moved to Paris,1996-1999, and received a doctorate from the Sorbone in
Latin American Literature. He lived for a year in the Ardennes, in Belgium,
followed by about ten years in Barcelona. He has lived in Bogota since
2012.
John Klassen
Min Jin Lee
Lee (1968-) was born in Seoul and moved to the USA when she was seven years old. She studied law in university and worked for several years as a corporate lawyer in New York. She lived in Japan 2007-2011, and now lives in New York. Her first novel: Free Food for Millionaires was published in 2007. It was included in a number of lists for Top 10 Best Novels for that year. Pachinko was published 2017; it received strong reviews and again was included in a number of Top 10 lists.
Review by John Klassen
Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Vasquez (1973-) was born in Bogota. He studied law there in university, then
moved to France where he obtained a PhD in Latin American Literature at the
Sorbonne. He lived in Belgium for a year, then Barcelona until 2012. He now
lives in Bogota. He also works as a translator and journalist. His novel, The
Sound of Things Falling won the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award; it also won the Premio Gregor von Rezzori award for foreign fiction
translated into Italian.
John Klassen
Aharon Appelfeld: Badenhiem 1939 and Walter Kempowski: All for Nothing
Aharon Appelfeld (1932-2018) was a prolific Israeli novelist. Badenheim 1939 was originally published in 1978 and then in English in 1980 (translated by Dalya Bilu). Walter Kempowski (1929-2007) was a prolific German author (with a very limited number of his books translated into English). All for Nothing was published in 2006; translated into English by Anthea Bell and published by New York Review Books in 2018.
John Klassen
2017: TOP TEN FICTION
Madeleine Thien: Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Winner of the Giller Prize, 2017;shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize) Saga exploring upheavals in Chinesepolitics from 1949 to the present through several generations of friends, families and lovers; intersecting destinies overturned by social, political,economic events.
John Klassen
Arundhati Roy
Roy (1961-) won the Man Booker prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of
Small Things. Since that success, she has been a prominent political activist and
critic concerning a wide range of contentious domestic and international issues.
She has also written non-fiction and numerous essays on contemporary politics
and culture. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is Roy’s second novel.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Paul Durand
In this authoritative book the editors – Jennifer Ditchburn and Graham Fox – have compiled an impressive selection of essays and articles; impressive because of the wide range of topics, but especially because of the professional calibre of the writers. Even where the reader may disagree with the tone of the narrative or the conclusions, one is hard-pressed to challenge the quality of the research or the objectivity of the argumentation.