Tag: literature in translation

One of Norway’s most distinguished voices, Agnes Ravatn’s first novel to be published in the UK was The Bird Tribunal. It won an English PEN Translation Award, was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Petrona Award, and was adapted for a BBC Book at Bedtime.

She returns now with a dark, powerful and deeply disturbing psychological thriller about family, secrets and dangerous curiosity…

University professor Nina is at a turning point. Her work seems increasingly irrelevant, her doctor husband is never home, relations with her adult daughter Ingeborg are strained, and their beautiful house is scheduled for demolition.

When Ingeborg decides to move into another house they own, things take a very dark turn. The young woman who rents it disappears, leaving behind her son, the day after Nina and Ingeborg pay her a visit.With few clues, the police enquiry soon grinds to a halt, but Nina has an inexplicable sense of guilt.

Unable to rest, she begins her own investigation, but as she pulls on the threads of the case, it seems her discoveries may have very grave consequences for her and her family.

Agnes Ravatn (b. 1983) is a Norwegian author and columnist. She made her literary début with the novel Week 53 (Veke 53) in 2007.Since then she has written three critically acclaimed and award-winning essay collections: Standing still (Stillstand), 2011, Popular Reading (Folkelesnad), 2011, and Operation self-discipline (Operasjon sjøldisiplin), 2014. In these works, Ravatn revealed a unique, witty voice and sharp eye for human fallibility.

Her second novel, The Bird Tribunal (Fugletribuanlet), was an international bestseller translated into fifteen languages, winning an English PEN Award, shortlisting for the Dublin Literary Award, a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick and a BBC Book at Bedtime. It was also made into a successful play, which premiered in Oslo in 2015.

Agnes lives with her family in the Norwegian countryside.

My thoughts:

I think Orenda Books (the publisher) is just so brilliant, bringing amazing international voices to an English readership. This book is one such example.

Inspired in part by the fairy tale Bluebeard (Angela Carter’s version is my favourite), this tale of a missing woman with a tragic history, and a literature professor searching for answers was right up my street.

I wanted to sit in on Nina’s lectures on Greek tragedy (I’m a literature graduate and I love Greek plays) and I liked her theory on why people like me would make good investigators.

As Nina unravels the life of the missing Mari and tries to find out what became of her, her personal life and her job start to suffer. Could they be related? Does someone close to her hold the key to Mari’s disappearance?

This was such a good read, I thoroughly enjoyed it, the author is brilliant and I could happily wax poetic on how everyone should read it.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

The first in the electrifying new Forbidden Iceland series, The Creak on the Stairs is an exquisitely written, claustrophobic and chillingly atmospheric debut thriller by one of Iceland’s most exciting new talents.

When the body of a woman is discovered at a lighthouse in the Icelandic town of Akranes, it soon becomes clear that she’s no stranger to the area. Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has returned to Akranes following a failed relationship, and her colleagues Sævar and Hörður, commence an uneasy investigation, which uncovers a shocking secret in the dead woman’s past that continues to reverberate in the present day…

But as Elma and her team make a series of discoveries, they bring to light a host of long-hidden crimes that shake the entire community. Sifting through the rubble of the townspeople’s shattered memories, they have to dodge increasingly serious threats, and find justice … before it’s too late.

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel.

Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland. Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel.The book went on to win the Blackbird Award and became an Icelandic bestseller.

Eva now lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík, staying at home with her youngest until she begins Kindergarten.

My thoughts:

What starts as a fairly straightforward police procedural develops into a complex and knotty plot, moving back and forth between the present and thirty years before as the detectives attempt to unravel the mystery of who would want this apparently unassuming woman dead and why.

Small towns hold many secrets and people have long memories, some with more to lose than others. As Elma and her team travel back in time and try to extract information from some very tight lipped people, they discover a tragic history, the kind you never really let go of.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

Oslo detective Frølich searches for the mysterious sister of a young female asylum seeker, but when people start to die, everything points to an old case and a series of events that someone will do anything to hide…

Suspended from duty, Detective Frølich is working as a private investigator, when his girlfriend’s colleague asks for his help with a female asylum seeker, who the authorities are about to deport. She claims to have a sister in Norway, and fears that returning to her home country will mean instant death.

Frølich quickly discovers the whereabouts of the young woman’s sister, but things become increasingly complex when she denies having a sibling, and Frølich is threatened off the case by the police. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that the answers lie in an old investigation, and the mysterious sister, who is now on the run…

A dark, chilling and up-to-the-minute Nordic Noir thriller, Sister is also a tense and well-plotted murder mystery with a moving tragedy at its heart, cementing Kjell Ola Dahl as one of the greatest crime writers of our generation.

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published eleven novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich.

In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. His work has been published in 14 countries, and he lives in Oslo.

My thoughts:

What starts as a seemingly straightforward missing person’s case dives into the world of refugees and asylum seekers, people living in limbo as they wait to see if they can stay or will be sent away.

There are police cases, murders, “honour” killers, threats, secrets and lies ahead for police officer turned PI Frølich as he attempts to unravel the mystery hidden beneath all of the chaos he’s uncovered.

Clever, twisty, turny plotting that keeps you guessing, unreliable and untrustworthy characters, and new avenues that seem to pop up everywhere. Really enjoyable reading.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

The discovery of a woman close to death in a city basement sends Bucharest police officers Anton Iordan and Sorin Matache on a complex chase through the city as they seek to identify the victim. As they try to track down the would-be murderer, they find a macabre trail of missing women and they realise that this isn’t the first time the killer has struck. Iordan and Matache hit one dead end after another, until they decide they’ll have to take a chance that could prove deadly.

Amazon

My thoughts:

This is a clever police procedural from Romania. The two detectives are smart and dedicated, despite the distractions of their private lives.

The plot leads you through the streets of Bucharest as they hunt for the killer of several red headed women over the years, tracing it back to the apparent suicide of one woman over thirty years before.

The writing is crisp and lean, with minimal unnecessary details and precise use of language. Giving it the feel of a tense episode of a TV drama and creating a sense of the claustrophobia of the crime scene.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

Night after night, cars are set alight across the German city of Hamburg, with no obvious pattern, no explanation and no suspect. Until, one night, on Mexico Street, a ghetto of high-rise blocks in the north of the city, a Fiat is torched. Only this car isn’t empty. The body of Nouri Saroukhan – prodigal son of the Bremen clan – is soon discovered, and the case becomes a homicide. Public prosecutor Chastity Riley is handed the investigation, which takes her deep into a criminal underground that snakes beneath the whole of Germany. And as details of Nouri’s background, including an illicit relationship with the mysterious Aliza, emerge, it becomes clear that these are not random attacks, and there are more on the cards…

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

My thoughts:

This was not what I expected at all. It seemed like a straightforward police procedural, then the protagonist’s apartment talked. There were strange length chapters that seemed to be about something else, bits of plot that didn’t connect to anything.

I haven’t read the previous books in this series, and as with most crime series’ it wasn’t necessary in order to follow the case, but maybe would explain some of these odd bits. Or maybe not.

Either way it’s an interesting case, and just when you think it’s been solved and is all about a feud in a minority ethnic community, it turns out to be about something else entirely.

Though I still don’t know who is setting all those cars on fire…

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour but all opinions remain my own.