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Brazil: Goethe the ‘dirty old man’
From one Portuguese-language country with very few novels available in translation we jump to another that has a whole heap of them (by British standards, at least). With so many exciting...
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East Timor: poetry in motion
This book was recommended by The Modern Novel, a blogger writing about the development of the literary novel worldwide. TMN kindly posted a comment on this site helping me out with a few of the harder...
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Guinea-Bissau: unheard voices
It’s official (well, as official as these things can ever be): there are no novels, short story collections or memoirs by writers from Guinea-Bissau available in English translation. I know, because I...
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Sao Tome and Principe: a team effort
Starting the countdown of the final 10 posts of the year is the story of one of the most extraordinary collaborative ventures I’ve ever had the privilege to witness: the translation of a book by a...
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A great honour
I had a nice surprise this weekend. There was a very familiar name on the list of people receiving Queen’s Birthday Honours (the titles awarded every year by Elizabeth II to mark her official...
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Book of the month: José Luandino Vieira
February’s book of the month has special significance for me. It was translated by Robin Patterson, one of the nine volunteers who came to my rescue to convert Olinda Beja’s A casa do pastor into...
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Book of the month: Zulmira Ribeiro Tavares
Brazil is certainly not short of stories. When I was collecting recommendations for my year of reading the world back in 2012, many people suggested tempting-sounding titles from South America’s most...
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WITmonth pick #2: Paulina Chiziane
I have been wanting to read this book for more than four years. It came onto my radar during my Year of Reading the World in 2012, when I was finalising my choice for Mozambique. As I wrote in my post...
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Book of the month: Dina Salústio
Firsts are a recurring theme on this blog. This month’s book of the month is a case in point. Not only is it the first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde, but it is also the first...
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Book of the month: Patrícia Melo
This #WITMonth, my reading has had a particular flavour. In October, I’ll be the inaugural Literary Explorer in Residence at the Cheltenham Literature Festival (theme: ‘Read the World’). One of the...
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