The English-language debut of Hiroko Oyamada— Anyone who has ever worked in a job which involved repetitive, meaningless tasks, will recognise the impression created in The Factory that workers are just minute cogs in a senseless machine. It’s a novella which paints an uncomfortable portrait about the absurdity and meaningless nature of the world of […]
Love across the class divide is at the heart of Graham Swift’s Mothering Sunday, a wonderful novella that takes place on one day in 1924. The story is told from the perspective of Jane Fairchild, an orphaned maid in a small country house who’s been in a secret relationship with the son of a nearby […]
You don’t have to look very hard in Tokyo to find the kind of shop featured in Convenience Store Woman. They’re as much of the urban landscape as vending machines, billboard advertising and neon lights. An indispensable part of daily life for the millions of workers who commute into the city every day. Sayaka Murata […]
Miss Peabody’s Inheritance is hilarious though when the laughter fades you realise you’re left with a sad tale of a lonely spinster who gets swept along by a fictional world. Elizabeth Jolley’s artfully constructed tale-within-a tale features Miss Peabody, a middle-aged woman who has few pleasures and no friends. She spends her days in a […]
In The Sweep Of The Bay is a compassionate exploration of a marriage that begins in joyfulness but slowly dissolves amid silences and misunderstandings. Ted and Rene marry as the harsh years of post-war Britain come to an end. Their wedding, just like their courtship, is a quiet affair. They settle, as many couples did […]