Review of ‚The Committed‘ by Viet Thanh Nguyen For those who’d enjoyed ‘The Sympathizer’, Nguyen’s debut of 2015 in which he pulled off the perfect literary political thriller, there was a lot of pent up enthusiasm for his new novel. That his first book had been a brilliant take on that highly emotional subject, the Vietnam War, but written not from the perspective of a traumatized American soldier, but rather a Vietnamese/French communist mole in the entourage of an exiled South Vietnamese army general, ensured that it would receive particular
Read More Novelist Robert Wilson reviews the 2020’s Booker Prize Winner Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart will be published by Hanser Berlin in August 2021, translated by Sophie Zeitz. Our friend Robert Wilson gives us a first review. I was surprised, when I heard the Booker Prize shortlist, that not only had Hilary Mantel not made the cut, but that four debut novelists had. None were fresh out of university, but were rather writers in their 30s and 40s with careers who’d finally got round to publishing a novel. The winner, Douglas Stuart
Read More Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman The title of this book almost reads like a mathematical equation that hasn’t quite found it’s ultimate expression. With a few more elements mysteriously conjoined it might give us the result that every human being desires: (Life x Fate)+will+morality+love – the State = freedom. To emphasize this essential longing in every human it can be no accident that in the opening scene we find ourselves approaching a monstrous prison camp. Then the fence of the camp appeared out of the mist: endless lines of
Read More