Sigurður Pálsson is an established poet in his home country of Iceland, having won the Icelandic Literary Prize in 2008. He has built up a considerable reputation in France, which earned him both the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1990, and Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in 2007. Read More
We all need advice. It is one of the universal truths in life that, at some point, perhaps at every point, we need advice. It is an unequivocal part of the human condition, a condition Kurt Vonnegut understood very well. Sometimes the most difficult thing in the world is to ask for help and advice. Read More
Things You Should Know is, in a nutshell, unapologetic. Indeed, the author has become (in)famous for her rather stark depiction of the underbelly of society. Possibly best known for her 1996 novel The End of Alice, Homes has gone on to win various prizes since the publication of this particular collection in 2004, including the Read More
Dickson Telfer’s second collection of short stories, Refrigerator Cake, perfectly captures the sometimes quirky, often hilarious, surprisingly dangerous, and frequently poignant experience of living in Central Scotland. From the one page joke describing the weather of the region to the nostalgic feel of “A Breakfast Mess” ’sbickering flatmates,Telfer has the uncanny knack of capturing the Read More
Within the discreet location of the Hannah Maclure Centre, at the top of the Students’ Union of Abertay University, are the works of an accumulation of female artists. Coded After Lovelace, named after the first noted computer programmer Ada Lovelace, is a collection of artworks by female artists, reflecting upon the creative use of technology Read More
Colin Barrett’s Young Skins is another debut which emerges from the abundance of talented up-and-coming novelists . This collection of short stories is set in an unspecified rural area of Ireland. It creates a world in which the young are embracing their youthfulness and living in the moment, seeking thrills, adventures and making mistakes as Read More
Heather Phillipson’s debut collection has been extremely well received, and was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. It is an immediately arresting collection, wherein the poetry crackles with a strange electricity. The volume’s conceit is that it melds high-intellectual thought with domestica, all run through with an erotic undercurrent. This is certainly an Read More
Poetry in translation is not particularly well represented in the UK, but the Arc series of parallel text translations is certainly doing great work to alter this state of affairs. Beautifully produced, interesting publications that profile either single authors or a variety of poets in an anthology, Arc’s series of poetry in translation makes work Read More
On a book tour of his novel about art and war, Anil’s Ghost, Michael Ondaatje tells a tale of moral responsibility, an Indian fable of a King who wakes up to find a corpse tied around his neck. Every time the King buries it, and the corpse returns; try as he might to dispose of Read More
Gerrie Fellows is no stranger to poetry, having written four other poetry collections in the past decade. However, having taken a break after Window for a Small Blue Child in 2007, she returns with The Body in Space. Fellows’ new collection explores the poet’s interest in the exploration of human insignificance by its use of Read More