Anansi International shines this month with books from Australia and Sweden, as well as crime fiction in a new format and a fine selection of Granta books
NOTORIOUSby
Roberta LowingA finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Notorious is a literary mystery, a love story, a book of poetry and violation, faith and chaos, redemption and destruction, and a masterpiece of imagination that will take your breath away. She came walking out of the desert, just as the famous poet Rimbaud had centuries before. Now the nameless woman lies horribly scarred and close to death in an asylum deep in the North African desert. An Australian official, a man code-named John Devlin, has come to question her. It is clear that the woman and Devlin share some kind of past, and all kinds of secrets -- but the greatest secret is the one she will die to protect.
A lush and daring narrative that plunges through the fields of Poland, the deserts of Morocco, the jungles of Borneo, and the villages of Sicily,
Notorious is a smouldering, cinematic literary mystery you won't soon forget.
>> Enter to win a copy of Notorious in our August contest!
What do the critics think?" A freewheeling kaleidoscope of poetry-prose. [Lowing's] descriptions are emotive and often beautiful . . . There is an impressive ability to weave together many plots, subplots, and themes. For a first novel, the breadth of the book is as vast as the desert skies she captures." --
Sydney Morning Herald
THE EMPEROR OF LIES
by
Steve Sem-Sandberg
"I find it difficult to think of any book that has had such an immediate and powerful impact on me. A stunning achievement." -- Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz. Its chosen leader: Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director -- and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto's very existence.
Winner of the August Prize, Sweden's most important literary award,
The Emperor of Lies is a haunting, profoundly challenging novel. It will be published in more than twenty languages, promising to be an international literary event.
The first reviews are in:
"Steve Sem-Sandberg recreates the ghetto with intelligent meticulousness and passionate invention . . . [a] masterly novel." -- Independent
"The Emperor of Lies is a novel about heart-wrenching suffering and extraordinary evil, transformed by [Steve] Sem-Sandberg's talents into an irresistible work of fiction, absorbing from first page to last . . . Dickens would have been very pleased with this novel." -- Guardian
EVIL IN RETURN
by
Elena ForbesNow available in mass market paperback with a new series look, Evil in Return is the third installment in the highly acclaimed Mark Tartaglia mystery series. Bestselling novelist Joe Logan walks out into a hot summer's evening in central London. The next day his body is found dumped in a disused Victorian crypt at the Brompton Cemetery. He has been tied up, shot, and castrated.
Detective Mark Tartaglia is convinced that Logan's personal life holds the key to his violent death, but unravelling his past proves difficult. Following the overnight success of his debut novel, Logan had become a recluse. Was Logan just publicity shy or did he have something to hide? Then the body of a second man is found in an old boathouse on the Thames -- killed in an identical fashion. Can Tartaglia find the link between the two dead men before the killer strikes again?
Evil in Return is a dark, chilling, and utterly compelling thriller than keeps you guessing until the very end.
What does the Globe and Mail think?
"Forbes continues to build substantial and engaging characters and provide them with off-beat plots that have just a touch of the same sort of macabre detail that made Ruth Rendell irresistible . . . Forbes really knows how to pace a novel." -- Globe and Mail
NEW FROM GRANTA
CAESARION
by Tommy Wieringa, author of Joe Speedboat
With celebrity parents and a prodigious gift for music, Ludwig seemed destined for greatness. So how come he's still living with his mother and watching his life -- and his talent -- ebb away?
>> Read more
CHATTERING
by Louise Stern
"Louise Stern writes stories about young men and women on the edge, stories that stay in your head long after you have finished reading them . . . Chattering is utterly compelling." -- Observer
>> Read more
DIAMOND STAR HALOby
Tiffany Murray"A beautiful, pitch-perfect harmony of Wuthering Heights and your favourite mix tape." -- Owen Sheers, author of Resistance
>>
Read moreMY FRIEND JESUS CHRIST
by Lars Husum
"Fearless, funny, life-affirming . . . a startling novel." --Guardian
>> Read more
GRANTA 116: TEN YEARS LATER
edited by John Freeman
Showcasing some of the most insightful essayists, fiction writers, poets and visual artists working today, Ten Years Later will explore the complexity of our perceptions of 9/11. The world changed -- but how?
>> Read more
That's right -- your vote counts in this year's first-ever Readers' Choice Contest! CBC Books and Scotiabank are giving you the chance to nominate your favourite eligible Canadian book for the Giller Prize. The book that garners the most nominations will be added to the official Giller Prize longlist.
