No One Prayed Over Their Graves · Khaled Khalifa

This July, FSG is publishing an English translation of the novel No One Prayed Over Their Graves by the Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa. Its setting is a Syrian village near Aleppo destroyed by a flood that transforms the lives of two friends. The translator is Leri Price, who also translated Death Is Hard Work, a 2019 National Book Awards finalist.

One of my weaknesses is beautiful book covers, hence this blog category, and more than once have I been fooled. I have yet to learn my lesson and hardly ever will. Is there a better combination than a good book and a good cover? I have never read this one and cannot judge its content, but the photo caught my attention, as did the title design. I have never travelled to Syria or the Middle East, but there is something about the skylines of Middle Eastern cities, the mosques and the minarets that characterise them. This is likely the city of Aleppo, as it used to be. Khalifa was born in its vicinity but now lives in Damascus. His books are banned in his homeland. He was interviewed in The Guardian this weekend.

No One Prayed Over Their Graves
By Khaled Khalifa
Hardcover, 416 pages
ISBN: 9780374601935
FSG

The Writing School · Miranda France

Yesterday I listened to the latest episode of the TLS podcast and one of the guests was Miranda France, talking about her new book, The Writing School, published this week by Corsair. I have never read anything by her but was intrigued and added the book to my wish list after reading these lines in the publisher's synopsis: 'A delightful and unusual blend of storytelling and memoir, ... The Writing School is a moving and often very funny book about why people write, as well as being a uniquely generous masterclass on the art of writing itself.'

The Writing School
By Miranda France
Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN: 9781472157348
Corsair

№ 34 reading list: Annie Ernaux

Happy New Year! I decided to start the blog year with a new reading list which will also be the final one in this format. I'm thinking about giving the lists a break or turning them into round-ups where I recommend some of the books that I have read. Part of me will miss this format because it disciplines me to know what I will be reading a few weeks ahead. At the same time, it takes away the spontaneity when I get a new book that I want to start reading right away, but feel as if I first have to finish the books on my current reading list - a luxury problem, I know. Another reason for the change is that I would like to read more in German to get a better grasp of the language.

№ 34 reading list:

1  A Man's Place  · Annie Ernaux
2  Of Time and the River  · Thomas Wolfe
3  Letters of Leonard Woolf  · edited by Frederic Spotts
4  Útsýni  · Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir [Icelandic]
5  Dichter im Café  · Hermann Kesten [German]

Translated by: 1) A Man's Place: Tanya Leslie

Last year the French writer Annie Ernaux received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her book on the list, La Place in French, is about her relationship with her barely educated father and the gap that gradually forms between them as her education takes her onto the pathway to the middle class. A recurrent theme throughout the narrative is the importance he attributed to language: she describes an incident where he needs to sign some documents in the presence of a notary. The shame he experiences when he realises that the has misspelt a short phrase is way out of proportion. In this compact book of only 100 pages, Ernaux sometimes pauses to tell us a few words about the writing of it or to share her thoughts related to a certain memory. I read the English translation published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, which has already made 8 books by Ernaux available in English.

A December morning with books & coffee

I fell for Annie Ernaux when I read The Years (№ 20) for the first time, a kind of memoir that vividly captures a certain period in history, remarkably narrated without the personal pronoun I. Last autumn I bought the German translation, Die Jahre, so I could read the book yet again with the English translation as support. I have also read I Remain in Darkness, which is about her mother who died from Alzheimer's. Reading it sometimes felt like being punched in the stomach because of the raw and revealing writing.

If you are interested in Ernaux I can recommend an episode of the TLS podcast (min. 27:40), broadcast after the Nobel Prize announcement. The writer Lauren Elkin was a guest and mentioned e.g. Ernaux's interest in the theories of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. I first became familiar with his ideas when studying Museology and now I keep him in mind when reading Ernaux.

A coffee moment in January with a new Icelandic novel by Mínervudóttir,
a Christmas present from a dear friend

images mine, appeared on Instagram 28/11/22; 01/01/23; 02/12/22