Nelio Bidermann - Lázár (Maclehose Press, 2026) ****

"Lázár" has been lauded in many reviews and rightly so. For a debut novel, the result is absolutely exceptional. It is the story of a Hungarian aristocratic family, with all its money and deficiencies, facing the brutal history of the 19th century, followed over three generations, from WWI till the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union in 1956, and its aftermath. Despite all their bizarre qualities, all the characters in the novel have their charm and you sympathise with them, despite their privileged status in society. 

His style is at the same time poetic, full of fantasy, madness, magic and death, as if a Hungarian version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He is also smart in his surprising way of presenting reality with a strange perspective. Some examples: 

• "The war was common property and a better topic of conversation than the weather". 
• "He had always been surrounded by death. On the one hand, concrete death, to which his grandparents had fallen victim and now was not spoken about; on the other, abstract death that included the downfall of the Monarchy, the decline of the aristocracy and the disappearance of the traditional values on which their world was founded". 

Willing or not, the family gets swept up in the great changes of time, and their world gradually collapses, as does their family. Each period is written from the perspective of the youngsters of that time, who look back at their parents and grandparents that we have come to know so well in the meantime, which gives a nice flow to the novel. His description of the characters and their struggle with themselves, their relationships and the great wheel of history, are fun, refreshing and captivating. 

On the other hand, it goes a little too fast over some of the early events, which remain undeveloped in their potential. This may have been intentional, but also not. The translucency of Lajos's skin for instance is a great idea at birth, yet it remains unclear how he suddenly becomes a normal person so many years later. 

Recommended and we can't wait for his next novel. 

Donald Niedekker - Nevenwezen (Koppernik, 2026) **

"Twee jongens, twee werelden; de een groeit op onder de rook van een Zaanse cacaofabriek, de ander werkt op een plantage in West-Afrika. Ze worden door balenlossers, molenaars, middenstanders, een stenen adelaar, een rondreizende verhalenverteller, een chauffeur, een panter en een krokodil op sleeptouw genomen door de jaren zeventig. Hun levens raken elkaar – door de geur van cacao en de grillen van de Azteekse scheppergod Quetzalcoatl en zang- en bloemen-god Xochipilli, die hoog boven de twee jonge protagonisten hun glorie proberen te herwinnen." Dat is in het kort het verhaal samengevat door de uitgeverij. 

Niedekker schrijft mooi en lyrisch. Hij benadert het leven van beide jongens - maar vooral met aandacht voor de Nederlander - door korte beschrijvingen te geven van incidentele gebeurtenissen, zonder dat ze noodzakelijk met elkaar in verband staan, als een soort foto-album van kiekjes. Die zijn precies en vaag tegelijk, concreet maar ook heel abstract omdat de jongens niet alleen naamloos zijn, maar ook amper gevoelens hebben. Hun realiteit wordt afstandelijk beschreven, zonder veel in de diepte te gaan. De emotionele interpretatie ligt bij de lezer. 

Het spiegeleffect van de twee jongens is een mooie vondst. Het creëert een bijna magische sfeer van grijze zones en vervagende grenzen: tussen tijd en ruimte, tussen waarheid en fantasie, en tussen mensen, ongeacht hun afkomst. Op de achtergrond speelt Niedekker bovendien met de muziek en politiek van de jaren zeventig. Zo passeren namen als Genesis, Mike Oldfield en Bowie, naast politieke figuren als Willy Brandt, Joop den Uyl, Olof Palme en Julius Nyerere.

Net als de impressionistische schilderijen van Monet en Manet, naar wie in de roman meermaals wordt verwezen, bestaat ook Niedekkers roman uit snelle indrukken: kleine, naast elkaar geplaatste kleurvlakken die samen veel licht en helderheid oproepen. De zon en het leven flikkeren door de snapshots uit het leven van de jongens. Toch leveren al die indrukken nog onvoldoende spankracht of spanning op om de lezer werkelijk in hun greep te houden. Zijn lyrisch proza is als een stilleven, een waar niets of weinig in gebeurt. 

Sorj Chalandon - Enfant De Salaud (Grasset, 2021) ****½

Op een heel elegante en slimme manier verweeft Chalandon het proces tegen Gestapo-leider Klaus Barbie met het leven van zijn eigen vader die als collaborateur mee heulde met de nazi's en het Vichy-regime van Maarschalk Pétain. Net zoals in andere van zijn romans, is de relatie met zijn manipulatieve, leugenachtige en gevoelloze vader de drijfveer voor het schrijven. De ik-figuur gaat graven in het verleden en in gerechtsarchieven van het eind van de Tweede Wereldoorlog om de geschiedenis van zijn vader te ontrafelen en eindelijk de waarheid te ontdekken. In parallel - en perfect opgebouwd in deze roman - wordt het hele proces tegen Klaus Barbie verhaald, met alle getuigenissen, pleidooien en veroordelingen. 

Het verhaal is diep emotioneel, inclusief het oppakken en naar de concentratiekampen verzenden van de 44 kinderen van Izieu, een huis ergens in bergen waar joodse ouders hun kinderen hadden ondergebracht om hen voor de nazi's te beschermen, maar dan toch verraden en op bevel van Barbie op de trein gezet. De echte realiteit is de horror, inclusief de onverbloemde getuigenissen die op het proces worden gegeven. 

Tegelijk is het verhaal grotendeels autobiografisch, met de standpunten van progressief journalist Sorj diametraal tegengesteld aan het mythomane rechtse gedachtengoed van de vader. Het onbegrip, de leugens, het weglachen, het minimaliseren zijn vreselijk om als kind telkens weer mee geconfronteerd te zijn geweest. Maar gaandeweg wordt het verhaal van de vader genuanceerder, laffer, zelfzuchtiger, een psychologische roep op lijfsbehoud in een wrede en meedogenloze wereld. 

"J'étais prêt à tout lire et à tout comprendre. J' étais heureux de savoir, et terrifié par ce que j'allais apprendre. Peur d'avoir un dénonciateur pour père, un voyou grattant des lettres anonymes ou téléphonant à la Gestapo. Lorsque je t'ai lu désertant l'armée française défaite pour t'enroler dans la légion de Pétain, j'ai espéré que ton histoire s'arrêterait là. Un jeune décervelé rejoignant la loi du plus fort en se rêvant sauveur du pays. Cette guerre-là m' allait bien. Elle me permettait de comprendre tout le reste. Toi qui, ta vie entière, t'étais reproché de ne pas aller plus loin dans ton combat, d' abandonner tes camarades aux portes de la LVF (Légion des Volontaires Français, a French collaborationist military unit that fought for Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front), de suivre leurs batailles plus tard, dans les livres d'histoire, et de raconter à ton bonhomme de fils que tu y étais. Orgueil, vanité, arrogance,mensonge, folie, tout cela se tenait. Mais plus j'avançais dans ton histoire, la vraie, faite de témoignages, de déclarations, de lettres, de tampons et de signatures, plus tout cela volait en éclats. Tout ce que tu avais prétendu était faux et tout ce que tu avais raconté était vrai." (p. 208)

Literatuur kan nog hoogstaand zijn, maatschappelijk relevant en emotioneel. 

Een heel sterke aanrader.

---

In a very elegant and clever way, Chalandon weaves together the trial of Gestapo leader Klaus Barbie with the life of his own father, who, as a collaborator, went along with the Nazis and Marshal Pétain’s Vichy regime. As in his other novels, his relationship with his manipulative, deceitful and callous father is the driving force behind his writing. The first-person narrator delves into the past and into court archives from the end of the Second World War to unravel his father’s history and finally uncover the truth. In parallel – and perfectly structured within this novel – the entire trial of Klaus Barbie is recounted, complete with all the testimonies, closing arguments and verdicts. 

The story is deeply emotional, including the rounding up and deportation to the concentration camps of the 44 children from Izieu, a house somewhere in the French mountains where Jewish parents had hidden their children to protect them from the Nazis, only for them to be betrayed and put on a train on Barbie’s orders. The true reality is one of horror, including the unvarnished testimonies given at the trial. 

At the same time, the story is largely autobiographical, with the views of the progressive journalist Sorj standing in stark contrast to his father’s mythomaniacal right-wing ideology. The lack of understanding, the lies, the brushing it off with a laugh, the downplaying – it must have been awful to be confronted with all this time and again as a child. But gradually, the father’s story becomes more nuanced, more cowardly, more selfish – a psychological cry for self-preservation in a cruel and ruthless world. 

Literature can still be of a high standard, socially relevant and emotionally moving. 

Highly recommended!

Janna Coomans - Dievenland (De Bezige Bij, 2025) ****

Net als Marta van der Laak met "Heksenjacht" is onderzoekster Janna Coomans in rechterlijke archieven gaan zoeken naar teksten die te maken hadden met kleine rechtszaken van gewone mensen in onze Lage Landen, maar vooral gefocust op die van Kampen en Deventer. Haar focus is niet om de misdaad in kaart te brengen, wel om aan de hand van teksten te achterhalen hoe de mensen toen leefden, waarom ze deze misdaden begingen en hoe de gemeenschap hierop reageerde. 

Er was veel bittere armoede onder de bevolking in die tijd, met mensen die volledig afhingen van landheren om voldoende werk en inkomsten te hebben, maar van zodra er tegenslag was, waar een groot deel van de bevolking mee geconfronteerd werd, hingen ze af van werk als dagloner, hun diensten aanbiedend op boerderijen, dorpen en steden. Als er geen werk was, was diefstal bijna de enige manier om  in leven te blijven. 

Coomans toont aan dat voor diefstal uit lijfsbehoud een vaak mildere straf werd gegeven dan bij de bijna professionele dieven die heel het grondgebied en ook in Duitsland aan de slag waren, en die zowal goederen als dieren stalen en die veel verder doorverkochten aan de hen gekende helers. 

Maar voor de meesten ging het echt om overleven, zoals de ondertitel suggereert. 

Een aanrader voor wie belangstelling heeft over de rand van onze samenleving in de Middeleeuwen.

Paul Christiaan Smis - Historische Verhalen (Historische Verhalen, 2018) **

Ik was eerlijk gezegd wat ontgoocheld in dit boek. Ik had gehoopt en verwacht om echte verhalen uit de Middeleeuwen geserveerd te krijgen, maar het is eigenlijk fictie tegen een historische achtergrond. Die is wel correct en goed weergegeven, wat de verhalen plausibel maakt maar niet realistischer. 

De diepmenselijke noden of de spanning die nodig is om tot een krachtig verhaal te komen, ontbreken nu eenmaal. Smis is onvoldoende stilist of fictie-auteur om de personages echt tot leven te brengen. 

Interessant, maar niet echt een aanrader. 

 

Ugo Janssens - De Heidenen (Lannoo, 2009) ***

Het is een gigantisch werk om exact te weten hoe onze voorouders leefden in de eerste eeuwen van onze jaartelling, maar toch heeft Ugo Janssens dit kunnen realiseren, ondanks het gebrekkig en fragmentarisch bronnenmateriaal en archeologische vondsten. Het is ook niet altijd eenvoudig omdat de volkeren in onze contreien zelf verschilden: kelten, galliërs en franken waren allen Germanen, maar dat wil niet zeggen dat ze dezelfde goden en rituelen hadden. 

Het boek beschrijft in de mate van het mogelijke deze verschillen, maar ook de kerstening ten tijde vanaf de vierde eeuw, en dan finaal onder de Franken. 

Een mooie inleiding voor wie belangstelling heeft voor de geschiedenis van onze contreien: helder, overzichtelijk, en leerrijk. 

André De Vries - Brussels (Interlink, 2003) ***

In mijn reeks van Brussel-boeken, was dit het eerste, maar misschien het minst goede. Het is duidelijk geschreven voor buitenlandse toeristen, maar bevat toch interessante weetjes over de stad. 

Wat mij vooral stoort is de stereotypering van de Brusselaar, gebaseerd op historische perspectieven en oordelen van buitenaf, maar die in geen velden of wegen klopt met de realiteit van vandaag. 

Een goede inleiding voor wie Brussel niet kent. 

Thomas Pynchon - Shadow Ticket (Jonathan Cape, 2025) **

I am a big fan of Thomas Pynchon. "Gravity's Rainbow" will remain on my list of best novels ever, a book I've read five times. I loved "V", "Vineland" and "The Crying of Lot 49". He should have stopped writing a while ago. And just like Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this may be the one book too many in his list. 

"Shadow Ticket" is a caricature of Pynchon, with all the stylistic skill and well-known motifs, but with none of the real 'angst' or dread or paranoia or even sociopolitical significance of his earlier novels. Good artists should re-invent themselves all the time. In this book Pynchon uses his usual recipe to present us with some warmed-up meal that nobody is hungry for. 

Maartje van der Laak - Heksenjacht (Borgerhoff & Lamberigts, 2025) ****

Nederlands-Belgisch onderzoeker Maartje van de Laak heeft diep in de archieven van de Lage Landen gegraven om deze vreselijke periode uit onze geschiedenis op te diepen en weer tot leven te brengen. Dat is dan bijna letterlijk, door alle vrouwen - en ook mannen - die vals werden beschuldigd van omgang met de duivel opnieuw bij naam te noemen, hun context uit te leggen en ook de oordelen van de rechters weer te geven. Dit waren tijden van collectieve waanzin, bijgeloof, onverdraagzaamheid, armoede, tegenspoed en absolute wreedheid, met foltering tot er bekentenissen volgden en andere heksen werden verklikt. Door dit laatste vermenigvuldigde het aantal vrouwen dat ondervraagd en gefolterd en uiteindelijk werd verbrand. 

Eind 15e Eeuw werde de Heksenhamer gepubliceerd, de Maleus Maleficarum, die een handleiding bood om heksenpraktijken te herkennen, en die wereldse rechtbanken de argumentatie gaf om onschuldige vrouwen te bestraffen, vaak tot de dood. 

Van der Laak heeft hier duidelijk met hart en ziek aan gewerkt, en het resultaat mag er zeker zijn. Op het eind van het boek geeft ze een lange lijst, acht bladzijden lang, van alle vrouwen van wie ze informatie heeft kunnen opzoeken en die slachtoffer waren van de heksenjacht. Ze betreurt dat de beeldvorming nog altijd tot de stereotypering behoort in onze tijd, en dat in sommige steden en dorpen nog altijd folkoristische herdenkingen zijn van heksenverbrandingen. 

Gelukkig heeft ze het ook over de enkelingen die tegen de stroom durfden inzwemmen en de heksenjacht aan de kaak stelden, en die feiten en onderzoek belangrijker vonden dan valse beschuldigingen en bekentenissen onder foltering. 

Een praktijk om te testen of vrouwen heksen waren, was ze in het water te gooien om na te gaan of ze bleven drijven. Als ze zonken en verdronken, waren het geen heksen. Als ze boven water konden blijven, waren het wel heksen en werden ze verbrand. Ik had dit al gezien in Monty Python en dacht dat dit een grap was, maar blijkbaar was dit bittere realiteit in de late Middeleeuwen. Onze samenleving is er in onze contreien toch wat geëvolueerd, maar op vele plekken in de wereld is dit nog schering en inslag. 

De Geschiedenis van Brussel in Oude Kaarten (Lannoo, 2025) ****

Een prachtige uitgave van Lannoo met de evolutie van Brussel doorheen de tijd. Veel weten we niet van Brussel van voor de 10e eeuw, en de eerste kaarten dateren slechts uit de zestiende eeuw, maar uiteraard hebben geschiedkundigen de groei van de stad retrospectief in kaart kunnen brengen, figuurlijk dan vooral.

Naast de vele kaarten, is er ook een heel heldere en interessante uitleg van Brusselse geschiedkundigen. Het is opvallend hoe groen en landelijk onze hoofdstad nog was in de 19e eeuw, en hoe de expansie en verstedelijking is toegenomen in de laatste honderd jaar. 

Het is haast niet voor te stellen dat bvb Anderlecht en Molenbeek buiten de stad lagen of dat op de oevers van de Zenne de lakens te drogen lagen op gemeenschappelijke weiden. 

Een koffietafelboek om in een keer uit te lezen of om vaak in te bladeren. 

William A. Galston - Anger, Fear, Domination (Columbia University Press, 2025) ****

This is without a doubt one of the most interesting books I read about politics recently and possibly also the shortest. Despite its spectacular - and somewhat cheap - cover and title, the content is actually very scientific and deep. William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

He gives an overview on the emotions that drive human behaviour, and voting more specifically, highlighting that rationality and facts are less important factors. Galston posits that in threatening times, passions such as fear, humiliation, and resentment are more reliable motivators for voting or violence than empathy or solidarity. 

We are of course aware that Russia, Hungary and the Czech Republic used this rethoric to strengthen their grip on the populace, but increasingly the same tactics find their way into the political speech and speeches of the West, with Donald Trump and his administration being the best example of this. He compares this rhethoric to the speeches of FDR, Obama and other democratic leaders, who tried - or try? - to create a common future vision based on trust and facts, which are of course the first victims today:

"The truncation of trust in our time coincides with the dimin­ished role of persuasion through logic and evidence. Partisan polarization is part of the reason: to the extent that partisan affiliation shapes citizens' views, the space for persuasion narrows. Also at work is the much-discussed splitting of Americans into different epistemic communities with distinctive beliefs about what is true and false. Absent shared frames of reference and a commonly acknowledged pool of facts among citizens, rational persuasion collapses. The pathologies of our time - the selective suppression of information, the deliberate creation of conspiracy theories, the dissemination of outright lies - make a bad situa­tion worse. We are relearning the sad lesson of the years between the two world wars: no matter the truth of the claim, repetition can be the mother of persuasion." (p. 114)

This also means that we need to take public sentiment seriously by addressing the genuine concerns people face, as well as the fears they carry. 

In my view, it has become increasingly rare to find politicians who can articulate the bigger picture—leaders who draw on evidence to present a compelling vision of the future, grounded in collaboration, shared values, respect, and the creation of lasting value. It is far easier to appeal to our baser instincts: to frame politics as "us versus them," to fuel anger and distrust, and to exploit territorialism and discrimination.

Galston writes with remarkable clarity, developing his arguments in a way that is both accessible and intellectually rigorous. His analysis is well substantiated, thoughtful, and ultimately wise.

Highly recommended!

 

Edward Gorey - The Gashlycrumb Tinies (Harper Collins, 1991) ****

As a grandfather, my worst nightmare is that something might happen to my innocent grandchildren, conscious of the many perils, dangers, risks and other hazards they can be exposed to, or unwittingly venture into. 

American illustrator and author Edward Gorey published the alphabet book on this very subject, with an untimely end to each child's life for each letter of the alphabet. It is morbid, it is sick, yet it is also funny, and definitely not a children's book. Here are some examples. 

For every letter, a child becomes the victim of life. The text is short, and its steady rhythm page after page reads like an inevitability of fate. The black ink drawings are equally exquisite and powerful. 

It dates from the sixties, and in its brutal and sarcastic dark humour is much ahead of its time, when everything appeared to be basking in sunlight. Life is brutal. Let's face reality. 

Alvaro Enrigue - Now I Surrender (Penguin Random House, 2026) *****

This is without a doubt one of my favourite books of the year. I loved last year's "I Dream Of Empires" , a novel about the Aztec empire in Mexico, with its fascinating mix of history and fantasy, a recipe that Enrigue further exploits and expands in "Now I Surrender", the title referring to the the words spoken by Apache warrior Geronimo before he accepted his captivity. 

The story starts with a woman fleeing the raid on the ranch where she lives, and the ensuing posse trying to find her back and return her to civilisation. It develops as part Western and real history. Many of the characters are fictional, yet when reading with the internet nearby, many of the characters also appear to be real historic figures, and the entire background is real: the battle between Mexico and the United States for the geography of Sonora, Chihuaha, Arizona and New Mexico. 

In the more Western style (or spagetti western, or even in the vein of Thomas Pynchon): 

"He was therefore unprepared for the vision he encountered before dawn on the following day: a nun in habit, veil, and rosary, wrapped in a swashbuckler's cape out of Spanish farce and draped in a car­tridge belt with a massive U.S.-made revolver hanging at her left hip. I'm left-handed, don't you know, mi general, she said when she saw Zuloaga's jaw drop. The officer just nodded, thinking: pinche god­damned Chihuahua, as he clapped his hat back on his head, mur­muring that she could call him José Maria. Perfect, she said, and you can call me Sister or Elvis, my stage name." (p. 63)

"They made a timid fire while it was still light. On the prairie, any fire that hadn't burned down to embers by night was a call to attack. Elvira and El Marquez sang a duet as Corredor cooked up a calabaza stew. Watching them from a safe distance, Zuloaga thought they might be the most ridiculous band of irregulars in the entire history of the state of Chihuahua, but they had an impressive ability to enjoy whatever came along. Maybe that would be the key to getting through this with minimal losses." (p.93)

And this against a historical backdrop of real people and real authors, including this unlikely John Bourke, who indeed published a book on poop in different cultures! 

"JOHN G. BOURKE, OF THE 3RD CAVALRY, Fort Craig, New Mexico, wasn't a bad guy. Born in Philadelphia of Irish immigrants, he left home at sixteen to enlist in the Northern Army during the Civil War be-cause he hated slavery. When the war was over, he asked to be posted to the Southwest: its long history and native culture were of genuine interest to him. He reached the rank of captain under the command of General George Crook in the 1870s. Among other roles, he served as press attaché for the 3rd Cavalry. He could write very well. Bourke was present during the Sierra Madre campaign ending with Geronimo's surrender at Canon de los Embudos. In addition to being a competent soldier and a compulsive diarist, he was an amateur ethnologist, sometimes a great one. He wrote a humorless but brilliant volume on poop and pee called 'Scatologic Rites of All Nations'.  

Lately, I've been translating a few chapters of his notes on George Crook's 1883 campaign, published by the University of Nebraska as 'An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre'. 

About the Chiricahuas, for example, he has this to say: "An artist, possibly, would object to many of them as undersized, but in all other respects they would satisfy every requirement of anatomical criticism. Their chests were broad, deep, and full; shoulders perfectly straight; limbs well-proportioned, strong, and muscular, without a suggestion of undue heaviness; hands and feet small and tapered but wiry; heads well-shaped, and countenances often lit up with a pleasant, good­natured expression, which would be more constant, perhaps, were it not for the savage, untamed cast imparted by the loose, disheveled gypsy locks of raven black, held away from the face by a broad, flat band of scarlet cloth. Their eyes were bright, clear, and bold, fre­quently expressive of the greatest good humor and satisfaction."  

Bourke's admiration for the Apaches was monolithically solid, but his manner of describing the Mexicans in his diary - he speaks of my people as a nation of miserable beasts - is particularly noxious and grating. 

I won't prolong the life of his prejudices by transporting them into these notes, but I wonder whether prejudices are unavoidable no mat­ter how we train our sensibilities. I wonder whether I myself am cruel in my descriptions of white Protestants. To lift up one thing is to tear down another, and one must remain vigilant, I suppose. 

Bourke wasn't a terrible person. Probably he was simply trying· to justify to himself his participation in an illegal military operation in Mexico. (p. 68)

Enrigue is on the side of justice and respect. He shows that there is a totally different perspective - from the Mexican and Apache side - on the conquest of these territories, and on the extermination of the native Americans than the ones described in most history books. Despite the fun and the exaggerations, his story is basically a very sad one, with lots of cruelties on all the different sides, with loyalties and betrayals, agreements and deceptions, including within the same camp, where the ones who achieved results were not actually credited for it. 

"At the ranch, Gatewood was waiting for us, and so was a mule train sent from the detachment at Fort Bowie with a load of clean, pressed uniforms. General Miles's secretary had sent them so that at the surrender the general's men would be attired in a form befitting the occasion. As I watched my travel companions opening sacks of clothing like children opening birthday presents, I re􀀙lized some­thing about gringos, something we Mexicans always realize too late: we're the suckers. The Yankees had put one over on us. This was a show, a vaudeville act. They would convince their people via the press that they had fought a war and won it. And meanwhile we, the ones who had actually won it, would be left picking our noses." (p.355)

"Now I Surrender" transcends the boundaries of the novel and the history book, joining forces for a more compelling and entertaining, yet not less serious book. 

A joy to read, a pleasure to check all his source material. Enrigue is a brilliant novelist. 

A triumph! 

Marie Ndiaye - The Witch (MacLehose, 2026) ****

Marie Ndiaye is a celebrated French novelist and linguist. She was awarded the prestigious Prix Femina in 2001 for Rosie Carpe, and in 2009 received France's highest literary honour, the Prix Goncourt, for Three Strong Women.

The Witch follows Lucie, an unassuming witch who hopes to pass her modest magical abilities on to her two daughters. Yet her greatest challenge lies elsewhere. Convinced that her own happiness depends on reconciling her estranged parents, she devotes herself to a quest that gradually consumes her.

At its heart, The Witch is a novel about the disintegration of family relationships. The supernatural enters the story almost imperceptibly—less as fantasy than as an entirely natural extension of everyday life. These magical elements illuminate the underlying strangeness of reality itself. The novel's gently parodic tone, its fleeting moments of fantasy, and their equally effortless disappearance suggest that life is itself dreamlike: ordinary precisely because of its peculiarities. In Ndiaye's world, people transform into birds or snails with startling ease, as though reflecting the lightness or heaviness of their emotional lives. Her prose is graceful and understated, standing in striking contrast to the often dark, inscrutable relationships between her characters.

I came across the English translation of The Witch and bought it before realising it had originally been written in French. Had I known, I would have bought the French edition instead.

Andrew O'Hagan - Caledonian Road (Faber & Faber, 2025) ***

"Caledonian Road" is a carefully crafted and entertaining novel about the downfall of its main character, Campbell Flynn, art historian and married into a wealthy aristocratic family. The book has a list of the 62 characters appearing in the novel at the very beginning, as in a dramatic play, and this is useful to keep track of all the networks of plots and subplots that connect all these individuals: academics, businessmen, rappers, con men, computer nerds, a columnist, a DJ, a therapist, blacks and whites, rich and poor, and all scheming to get something better from life, to achieve, attain or obtain something. 

It's not high literature, but it's entertaining enough for a summer holiday. 

Gaëlle Bélem - Sud Sauvage (Gallimard, 2025) ****

Gaëlle Bélem is a French author from Réunion, which she left at the age of seventeen. In Sud Sauvage, she brings together a collection of short stories set in either Réunion or mainland France, each steeped in an eerie atmosphere where the line between reality and nightmare is never quite clear. A mysterious creature watches you every night. Thousands of enslaved people have vanished without a trace. A mother and daughter have only days left to live. Light pours from an abandoned house. One Sunday morning, a man discovers seven severed heads.

Each story is a finely crafted gem—beautifully written, perfectly paced, and infused with Bélem's evident delight in storytelling. She taps into our deepest fears of the unknown, creating tales that feel both hauntingly plausible and profoundly unsettling.

Highly recommended.

David Szalay - Flesh (Penguin Random House, 2025) ***

We follow Istvan, the story's main character, from his isolated and psychologically vulnerable youth in Hungary to his isolated situation as an adult in the UK. As a boy, he has a sexual relationship with an older woman, and he ends up in youth detention. As an adult, he has become a security guard for a very wealthy British couple. Life happens to Istvan. He is drifting on his own life, moving from one context into another as if he has no free will. He has no opinions on things, and when asked how he feels about anything, the most common answer you get is: "it's OK". I did not count the number of words, but I guess "Okay" is possibly the most used word in any dialogue he is engaged in. 

As it happens, he starts a sexual relationship with the wife of the couple, again, more as an instrument to pleasure her than a deliberate choice for him. He undergoes anything that happens and he's fine with it. 

The reviewer of the Guardian describes the book as "Stylistically, Flesh is all bone" (Keiran Goddard
Thu 6 Mar 2025), which is an apt observation. The sentences are short, almost as in a children's book, in a systematic subject-verb-object structure, with few subordinate sentences or embellishments. The dialogues too, are just lists of sentences uttered by the characters, without comments or descriptions. 

The novel won the Booker Prize 2025, which is a good reference, but I think better novels were written last year. 

Agnieszka Szpila - Hexes Of The Deadwood Forest (Footnote, 2026) **

As you can read on the cover, one of my favourite authors described this novel as "a torpedo of a book", which led me to purchase it, intrigued by its title and my current reading on the history of witch hunts in the middle ages and early modern times.

The plot is sufficiently bizarre to have captured my interest: a Polish oil company CEO, in a strange delusional moment films herself having sex with a tree, after which she goes back in time to meet some of her ancestors who created a feminist and ecologist religion and congregation, called "The Earthen Ones", who fight the patriarchy. 

This plot could have been interesting material for a good story, yet Szpila uses her talent to keep breaking taboos like an adolescent with limited discipline. She is apparently herself fascinated by the 'religion' she creates, which is never a good basis for literature. She calls her own novel 'post-porn', whatever that means. 

The case for feminism and ecology deserves better than this puerile fantasy. 

Alberts Bels - The Cage (Peter Owens, 1990) ***

Presented as one of the must-reads of Latvian literature, I found a copy, with a blank cover, and printed by Amazon! "The Cage" is the story of a man, a loyal husband, who suddenly disappears after having visited his parents in the country. Nobody has heard anything about him. So the police, represented by inspector Valdis Strūga, start investigating. His job "was concerned with the weaknesses and deficiencies of human nature and with gaining a better understanding of these weaknesses and deficiencies" (p.9), and that's exactly how the investigation proceeds. All the characters among Edmunds Bērzs's acquaintances are contacted, and they all share "weaknesses and deficiencies" to the extent that we kind of understand that they all live in their own personal cage, self-created or imposed on them. The initial narrator perspective of the inspector, shifts to each character separately resulting in a kaleidoscope of perspectives and opinions. 

It's not a masterpiece, but it's interesting to read. Nothing exceptional, but entertaining. 

Jonas Hassen Khemiri - The Sisters (Sceptre, 2025) **

One more of this praised novels. I read more than 200 of the 638 pages, and in retrospect I admire my persistency to have read that far into the novel. It describes the lives of three sisters, seen from the perspective of the narrator, a young man who is infatuated with one of the sisters. 

The sisters have three different characters yet none of them really exceptional. The story itself is bland, without suspense and without any literary merit. All characters share the same multicultural background, and that was the main reason why I gave it a try, yet also that aspect remains relatively shallow in its possible developments. 

Maybe if the story and the writing had been a lot tighter (reducing with 400 pages?), there might have been some value in the novel. 

Again, my own personal and very subjective appreciation.