"From da kokroach point of view, humans are irrelvant. Kokroaches no like em. Doan want em. Do not even tink bout em. Doan care for deh conversations. Books we like to eat, not read. We wish humans dead so we can eat em too." – Sizwe Bantu, The Cockroach Whisperer, 2010. Sizwe Bantu is the Greatest African Writer of All Time – according to Timothy Turner, failed academic and lover, who not only lives by Bantu’s words but keeps a giant rubber cockroach in homage to the writer of the...
They say the past is another country but for Australian-born Lily the past is another language: Hungarian, the language of her migrant family, the language of secrets … But Lily’s family secrets hold the key to her father’s death from a mysterious illness she may have inherited. Just when any conversation becomes interesting, it trails off into Hungarian – a language Lily was never taught. If there’s one thing that Lily’s mother and grandmother agree on, it’s that Hungarian is impossible...
After a lifetime in India, Philip returns to Australia, to his estranged wife Jenny, whom he had brought from India fifty years earlier. Philip seeks to establish links with his ex-wife and his grandson amidst the 2001 'Tampa' crisis. Displaced and disappointed in his hopes of resuming a career in his own country, Philip is visited by a ghost: Ragini, the young revolutionary he fell in love with in 1948. Philip is troubled by his unsorted memories of those times. In 1948 India has...
Karen Duves grandioser Roman über Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Fräulein Nette ist eine Nervensäge! 23 Jahre alt, heftig, störrisch und vorlaut, ist sie das schwarze Schaf, das nicht in die Herde ihrer adligen Verwandten passen will. Während ihre Tanten und Cousinen brav am Kamin sitzen und sticken, zieht sie mit einem Berghammer bewaffnet in die Mergelgruben, um nach Mineralien zu stöbern. Ein Enfant terrible ist sie wohl aber nicht für alle. Heinrich Straube, genialischer Mittelpunkt der...
Eigentlich ein angenehmes Phänomen: Das Verschwinden unliebsamer Mitmenschen. Was aber, wenn über viele Jahre hinweg immer wieder auf mysteriöse Weise Leute abhanden kommen ohne eine Spur zu hinterlassen? Auf Nimmerwiedersehen. Einfach weg. Das ist seltsam und man fragt sich, warum das so ist und wo sie alle hin sind. Noch seltsamer wird es allerdings, wenn ausschließlich Frauen verschwinden, die in auffälliger Weise miteinander zu tun haben. Diesem Phänomen geht auch das kriminalistische...
Dispatches From Paradise leaps onto the family battlefield of three generations of women living together in Miami – where DD cups abound, octogenarians recite erotic poetry and an S&M Fitness class is not for the faint-hearted. On Liz's 39th birthday she kicks out her cheating husband, ditches her soul-sucking job and declares her life a do-over. Then her mother and daughter move in with her and all hell breaks loose. But as the women tear through the city's racy clubs and wild art...
Kann man Abschiednehmen lernen? «Zur letzten Sendung komme ich nicht», sagte Christine Westermann scherzhaft schon Jahre, bevor an ein Ende der von ihr und Götz Alsmann moderierten preisgekrönten Fernsehsendung «Zimmer frei!» auch nur zu denken war. So tief saß ihre Angst vor drohenden Abschieden, dass sie sich nur mit Humor oder totaler Verdrängung zu helfen wusste. Der Humor ist geblieben, aber Christine Westermanns Umgang mit dem Thema Abschied hat sich tiefgehend gewandelt. In «Die Sache mit...
C. Joseph Greaves tackles complex themes of economic prosperity and environmental stewardship in today's American West throughout this character–driven page–turner of a literary novel.Author's previous novels have won the Colorado, Oklahoma, and New Mexico–Arizona Book Awards; his novel Tom & Lucky was a Wall Street Journal «Best Books of 2015» selection and one of three finalists for the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.Author is a member...
Tausende Konzertbesucher haben durch die deutschlandweit aufgeführten Winterreisen-Performances des Autors und Projektkünstlers Stefan Weiller einen neuen Zugang zu Franz Schuberts Meisterwerk bekommen. Weiller hat zwischen 2008 und 2018 in über 30 Städten obdachlose und sozial ausgegrenzte Menschen getroffen und ihre Gedanken, Gefühle und Geschichten in kurze Texte gefasst, teils kantig und hart, teils lyrisch, manchmal lakonisch, oder grotesk, immer eindringlich und ohne Pathos. Diese...
John Rottam is on a journey back in time and place. Fleeing a private stripping engagement turned violent, he reflects on a time in his life when he was burdened with a broken heart, self-doubt and a floundering dance career. A few clumsy steps in the corps de ballet of a prestigious Canadian ballet company sends John fleeing to join a psychotic and incompetent dance troupe in Quebec City, run by the bitter Madame Talegdi, who all but destroys his dream of a legitimate career. Stifled by the...
Some people win games. Some achieve success. But when it comes right down to it, most people don’t. Failure is a guest no one invites, yet it shows up almost everywhere. The gifts it brings are easy to overlook.The Uninvited Guest is a whirlwind ride featuring Romanian hockey superstars growing up in Montreal, Danish prostitutes working in Sweden, Russian mobsters, the perils of parking in Penitanguishene, and how not to die if you want to make it home on time.Most of all,...
Wigford is a small town in rural Southwestern Ontario, home to a cast of recurring characters: Buzz, a drunk-driving father of two; his wife, who should have married Bert Walmsley instead; Happy Henry, a devout, socially inept apostle who loves to play the organ; Elmer, a stroke survivor.Wigford Rememberies tells this community's stories through an impressionistic series of vignettes. The language is inventive, innovative and exciting, and whether describing mucking out the pig...