What I’m reading – May 2008

Le testament français by Alexeï Makine. A boy tells his coming of age story about growing up with multiple cultures, except he never leaves Russia as a boy, at least not physically. His summers are filled with stories from his French grandmother. He struggles with where he is between this language that describes so well a dream-like world of beauty and love, and the Russian of Stalin-era survivors that tells the realities of his everyday life.  

Though the author is Russian, he writes in French. Stories say he had to present his first manuscripts as translated from Russian before the French editors would believe he had written them (all the while praising the quality of the translation, no doubt).

Geoffrey Strachan has translated  Le testament français to English.

-Seattlite

 

What I’m reading – April 2008

I love a good thriller/mystery and found a really great author. Natsuo Kirino. She’s Japanese and only a few of her works have been translated into English. I’m reading her first mystery, “Out“. And what’s great about it is the depth she gives to her characters. Some rather chilling scenes. The fact that the four female protagonists seem real, everyday and ordinary makes it even scarier. Check it out.