Derek Raymond, the English noir writer whom Interpol knew better as Robin Cook, could spell in at least two languages, as his dystopian novel A State of Denmark proves. Leave aside comparisons to Orwell, with the novel’s imagined totalitarian England run by a media-backed dictator called Jobling, and instead concentrate on the words frazione, presa, […]
While Carlo Lucarelli’s detective novel Carte Blanche includes plenty of standard genre devices, it’s unlikely to turn up in the excellent ‘do it yourself giallo generator‘ (via Detectives without borders). For one thing its title is too short, and doesn’t contain an animal (not that the inclusion of an animal in the title necessarily makes […]
Back in December, mediabistro’s GalleyCat posed the question ‘Where will we find Literature’s Radiohead?‘. Not a question of matching literary style up to the Oxford band’s musical approach (although over at the Valve they see a similarity between Yeats and the band), but rather the starting point for a discussion on distribution methods – on […]
With a sparkling lack of imagination, perhaps, I find the best way to approach this intriguing novel by the late Benjamin Tammuz – former literary editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz – is through his co-national Amos Oz. But, read the following passage about opening gambits between author and reader, from Oz’s collection of essays on […]
