Recommended Writers

  • Han Kang, Human Acts, translated by Deborah Smith

    In 1980, students and workers in Gwangju, South Korea protested about the ‘increasingly repressive measures’ introduced by Park Chung-hee and continued by his successor Chun Doo-hwan after his death (p1). Doo-hwan shut universities, made political activities illegal and silenced the press. He then ordered his soldiers to suppress the pro-democracy uprising in as brutal a…

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  • Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither, Sara Baume

    If I were to create an elevator pitch for this novel, I’d go for: Man talks to a traumatised dog in order to talk about his traumatised self. The dog One Eye reminds me of an early 20th century children’s story my granny used to read me about a Bowiesque dog that had one green…

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  • Guest, S. J.Bradley

    Guest is the ironic title of this coming of age novel about a young man who squats in a former hotel. The title calls to mind the uninvited wedding guest or one of the absent friends and relatives your mother might raise a glass to at Christmas meals. Who is the guest here? Is it…

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  • Herself Alone In Orange Rain, Tracey Iceton

    Picture a member of the Provisional IRA and you won’t be alone in imagining a balaclava-clad man in his twenties or thirties. Think again. ‘Official numbers are small but unconfirmed accounts report a 50-50 male-female attendance at IRA training camps,’ Iceton tells us in the author’s note of Herself Alone in Orange Rain. Women were…

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