Category Archives: Travel Guides
Shaper-Shifter
From Comrade Shakespeare McNab who enlists the help of La Diablesse to retrieve his faltering career at a Caribbean broadcasting station, to the fourteen-year-old English girl who develops a terror of infi nity; from the electrifying description of a woman attacked as she lies sleeping, to the lyrical exploration of myths of El Dorado, Pauline
Souffle
In New York, Lilia wakes up one morning to discover her loveless marriage is founded on nothing but deep mistrust and contempt. Marc, in Paris, is mourning the death of his beloved wife and can`t bear to face the empty kitchen. And in Istanbul, Ferda waits hand and foot on her demanding mother while trying
Vauxhall
Police, methylated tramps, Nigerian royalty, gypsies, Irish aunts, teachers, thieves, cockneys and homesick Jamaicans clamour for young Michael`s attention. His world is bursting with all walks of Lambeth life in the early 1970s. Among the terraces, railway arches, bombsites and river mud of Vauxhall, he discovers the meaning of slum clearance: the world he knows
The Geneva Option
Yael Azoulay does the United Nations` dirty work. From the caves of Afghanistan and the slums of Baghdad to the world`s corporate boardrooms, Yael`s job is to broker the secret deals that grease the wheels of superpower diplomacy and big business. When a suspicious death at the UN headquarters in Manhattan is covered up, Yael
So Many Islands: Stories from the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans
`This is the real globalism, a glorious cacophony that seeks no common ground other than attitude.` Marlon James, winner of the Booker Prize So Many Islands breaks out bold new writing from the distant shores of countries in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans. Here you will find poems about revolution and protest. You
Dance of the Jakaranda
1963. Kenya is on the verge of independence from British colonial rule. In the Great Rift Valley, Kenyans of all backgrounds come together in the previously white-only establishment of the Jakaranda Hotel. The resident musician is Rajan Salim, who charms visitors with songs inspired by his grandfather`s noble stories of the railway construction that spawned
Elsewhere, Home
Longlisted for The People`s Book Prize 2018Intimate stories of longing and exile by one of our finest contemporary writers. A lonely housewife fascinated with a famous writer learns to find her own voice in Abu Dhabi; a bus route passing the Christmas lights along Oxford Street is a stark reminder for a female passenger of
Young Turk
Against the backdrop of Nazism, in a multi-racial Turkey giving sanctuary to many of Europe`s fleeing Jews, a group of teenage friends struggles to understand events while reeling from (and relishing) the sexual and emotional discoveries of adolescence. An alluring woman initiates Mustafa and his classmates in the carnal delights of rose petal jam; Musa
The Forbidden City
Built by the Ming emperor in the fifteenth century as the earthly reflection of the realm of the Jade Emperor – whose court was said to rule over the whole universe – the Forbidden City consists of a series of courtyards that surround the majestic Hall of Supreme Harmony. The life that went on inside
Jamilia
Jamilia`s husband is off fighting at the front. She spends her days hauling sacks of grain from the threshing floor to the train station in their small village in the Caucasus, accompanied by Seit, her young brother-in-law, and Daniyar, a sullen newcomer to the village who has been wounded on the battlefield. Seit observes the
Dont Sleep There Are Snakes
Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahas, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers` startlingly original perceptions of the world. He describes how he began to realise that his discoveries
The White Family
Alfred White, a London park-keeper, rules his home with a mixture of ferocity and tenderness that has estranged his three children. But family ties are strong, and when Alfred collapses on duty one day, they rush to be with him. His daughter`s partner, Elroy, a black social-worker, is brought face to face with Alfred`s younger
Afgantsy, The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89
In a timely and eye-opening book Rodric Braithwaite examines the Russian experience in that most recent war in Afghanistan (after Alexander`s conquests and the many British imperial wars and skirmishes). Largely basing his account on Russian sources and interviews he shows the war through the eyes of the Russians themselves – politicians, officers, soldiers, advisers,
Autonauts of the Cosmoroute
“Autonauts of the Cosmoroute” is a love story, an irreverent travelogue of elaborate tales and snapshots detailing Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlop`s thirty-three-day voyage on the Paris-Marseilles freeway in 1982. Satirizing modern travel and the great explorers, this sparkling work pushes life and literature to surreal extremes.
Another Gulmohar Tree
Usman is visiting post-war London from Pakistan when he meets a young aspiring artist called Lydia who has, like himself, come out of an unhappy marriage. Just as the lonely strangers` friendship begins to blossom into something deeper Usman has to return to Karachi, leaving Lydia behind. Two years later, Lydia impulsively abandons her life
In Tangier
To Mohamed Choukri, Tangier was `the most extraordinary and mysterious city in the world.` A haven for many Western writers in the twentieth century, Tangier drew the likes of Paul Bowles, Jean Genet and Tennessee Williams. Each was befriended by Choukri. Choukri`s recollections of these encounters offer a unique insight into these three cult figures
My Driver
Vanessa Henman, a plucky but accident-prone white writer, flies out to Uganda for an African writers` conference. She also means to visit her former cleaner, Ugandan Mary Tendo, now the successful Executive Housekeeper of Kampala`s Sheraton Hotel. But Mary has her own agenda: her son Jamil is missing, and she has secretly summoned Vanessa`s beloved
The Wet and the Dry
`I am taking a few months off to travel and wander, drinking my way across the Islamic world to see whether I can dry myself out, cure myself of a bout of alcoholic excess. It is a personal crisis, a private curiosity. I am curious to see how non-drinkers live. Perhaps they have something to
Ten
The Mafia and the Ten Commandments meet in these interlinked short stories about the undebelly of Naples. Ten uncovers the raw heart of a city, telling the stories of ordinary people forced to make extraordinary compromises in a place permeated by crime. We encounter a son who finds that he is capable of a terrible
Imagining Alexandria: Poems in Memory of C.P. Cavafy
Poetry was Louis de Bernieres` first literary love and Imagining Alexandria is his debut poetry collection. Here the author of the much-loved Captain Corelli`s Mandolin returns us to the vivid Mediterranean landscape of his fiction. De Bernieres was introduced to Greek poetry while in Corfu in 1983, and since then he has always travelled with
