A European reading list for Summer 2022
We asked our listeners to recommend their favourite reads from the continent, whether by European writers or set in Europe. Enjoy!
For reasons of speed — we’re a busy podcast, after all — the blurbs for each of these books have been taken from their publishers’ websites. Many thanks to those of you who sent us your recommendations.
We’ve spoken about some of these books, and interviewed some of their authors, in previous episodes of The Europeans, and you’ll find plenty more ideas for summer reading in our back-catalogue.
Thrillers, crime and mysteries
‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ by Olga Tokarczuk
Recommended by Suzana Turc, Dora and Tara Wanda Merrigan. Dora says: “I know it doesn't sound summery, but it’s so captivating I don’t think it matters.” Tara says: “Has all the good stuff that made her a Nobel laureate but it's has a crime / mystery plot that's perfect for beach reading. There's also a wonderful film adaptation directed by Agnieszka Holland.”
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind… A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?
‘The Mercies’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Owen Atkinson says: “I can't recommend The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave enough. Slow burn but so worth it — my favourite book I've read this year!”
Winter, 1617. The sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. A young woman, Maren, watches as the men of the island, out fishing, perish in an instant. Vardø is now a place of women. Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Summoned from Scotland to take control of a place at the edge of the civilized world, Absalom Cornet knows what he needs to do to bring the women of the island to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In her new home, and in Maren, Ursa finds something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place flooded with a terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs…
‘Portrait of a Thief’ by Grace D. Li
Britta says: “It's a heist book and pretty light, hopping through lots of EU countries as the thieves try to steal back a group of Chinese sculptures that were originally stolen and are now held by great museums. Also touches on colonialism, art history, identity.”
Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums; about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity.
‘The Godmother’ by Hannelore Cayre
Rachel O’Brien says: “Great holiday crime fic.”
The winner of European Crime Fiction Prize and the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, The Godmother is a fiery, funny and startlingly original tale from the banlieues of Paris. When Patience – a hardworking French-Arabic police translator and longstanding witness to the ubiquitous racism and repression of the system – is let go without a pension or reward for her 25 years of service, there’s only one thing to do: change sides.
’Blackout’ by Marc Elsberg
Recommended by Monika Videmšek
A cold night in Milan, Piero Manzano wants to get home. Then the traffic lights fail. Manzano is thrown from his Alfa as cars pile up. And not just on this street – every light in the city is dead. Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electricity grids collapse. Former hacker and activist Manzano becomes a prime suspect. But he is also the only man capable of finding the real attackers. Can he bring down a major terrorist network before it’s too late?
‘The House on Calle Sombra’ by Marga Ortigas
The House on Calle Sombra follows the fates and fortunes of the esteemed Castillo de Montijo family over three generations. Set in the Philippines – a tropical island nation where truth blends with fiction – none of the Castillos is quite as perceived. Successful patriarch Don Federico arrived from Spain a penniless orphan. Formidable matriarch Doña Fatimah is a native Muslim fugitive. And their brood of privileged descendants is struggling to live up to their famed and crested motto: FAMILY FIRST. Mirroring events in the country’s turbulent history, the Castillos’ perfect façade begins to fracture as shadows from their past return to claim their due.
‘Summerwater’ by Sarah Moss
Gavin MacLean says: “An excellent shortish read for anyone who’s ever experienced a washout holiday in Scotland — although it is a wee bit on the dark side so perhaps not one that could be described as uplifting!”
On the longest day of the summer, twelve people sit cooped up with their families in a faded Scottish cabin park. The endless rain leaves them with little to do but watch the other residents. A woman goes running up the Ben as if fleeing; a retired couple reminisce about neighbours long since moved on; a teenage boy braves the dark waters of the loch in his red kayak. Each person is wrapped in their own cares but increasingly alert to the makeshift community around them. One particular family, a mother and daughter without the right clothes or the right manners, starts to draw the attention of the others. Tensions rise and all watch on, unaware of the tragedy that lies ahead as night finally falls
‘Missing Person’ by Patrick Modiano
Britta says: “I was surprised it is out on audiobook as it is an oldie. The story stayed with me for weeks after finishing.”
Guy Roland, a private detective in Paris, is trying to solve the mystery of his own past. His memories erased by amnesia, he has no idea where he is from, or even his real name. As he searches for clues through the city's shadowy streets and smoky bars, latching on to strangers, accumulating mementoes, photographs, scraps and stories, he starts to piece together the events that brought him here, all leading back to the murky days of wartime occupation.
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ by Mark Haddon
Stefano Montali says: “Haven't read such a unique book in a while.”
A murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.
‘The Art of the English Murder’ by Lucy Worsley
Recommended by David Craven Roberts
Murder—a dark, shameful deed, the last resort of the desperate or a vile tool of the greedy. And a very strange, very English obsession. But where did this fixation develop? And what does it tell us about ourselves? In The Art of the English Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nation-wide panic in the early nineteenth century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria's lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. At a point during the birth of modern England, murder entered our national psyche, and it's been a part of us ever since. The Art of the English Murder is a unique exploration of the art of crime—and a riveting investigation into the English criminal soul by one of our finest historians.
Big sweeping novels
‘Where You Come From’ by Saša Stanišic
Recommended by Esther
Blending autofiction, fable, and choose-your-own-adventure, Stanišic traces a family's escape during the conflict in Yugoslavia, and the years that followed as they built a life in Germany. As he explores what it means to be European today, he examines how it feels to learn a new language, to find new friends and new jobs, and to build an identity between countries and cultures.
‘Grand Hotel Europa’ by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
Felix Hoffmann says: “Nicely written and all about the good old Europe;-)”
A writer takes residence in the illustrious but decaying Grand Hotel Europa, to think about where things went wrong with Clio, with whom he fell in love in Genoa and moved to Venice. He reconstructs a compelling story of love in times of mass tourism, about their trips to Malta, Palmaria, Portovenere and the Cinque Terre and their thrilling search for the last painting of Caravaggio. Meanwhile, he becomes fascinated by the mysteries of Grand Hotel Europe and gets more and more involved with the memorable characters who inhabit it, and who seem to come from a more elegant time. All the while, globalisation seems to be grabbing hold even on this place frozen in time.
‘The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared’ by Jonas Jonasson
Recommended by J.L. Azevedo
Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn't want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not . . .
Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan's earlier life is revealed. A life in which - remarkably - he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.
‘The Maias: Episodes from Romantic Life’ by Eça de Queiroz
J.L. Azevedo says: “A Portuguese classic that still very much describes the society today. Kinda like The Great Gatsby in the 1800s.”
Eca de Queiros was Portugal's greatest nineteenth-century novelist, whose works brilliantly evoke -- and condemn -- the rapidly changing society of his times. The Maias (1888) depicts the declining fortunes of a landowning family over three generations as they are gradually undermined by hypocrisy, complacency, and sexual license. With a vivid, comprehensive portrayal of nineteenth-century Portuguese politics and social history, Eca creates a kind of comedie humaine that, despite the force of its social satire and its damning critique of the Portugal from which he had exiled himself, is a supreme work of humor and irony.
‘M: Son of the Century’ by Antonio Scurati
Recommended by Vito Dichio
A startling look into the fascist mindset, a portrait of unrelenting determination, and an impeccable work of historical fiction. M tells the story of the rise of fascism from within the mind of its founder. A gripping and masterful exposé, it explores Benito Mussolini’s rise to power and a movement that, amidst a failing democracy, came to shape the world.
‘Austerlitz’ by W.G. Sebald
Recommended by Suzana Turc
In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity and he grows up ignorant of his past. Later in life, after a career as an architectural historian, Austerlitz - having avoided all clues that might point to his origin - finds the past returning to haunt him and he is forced to explore what happened fifty years before. Austerlitz is W.G. Sebald's melancholic masterpiece.
‘The Island of Missing Trees’ by Elif Shafak
Recommended by Manuela La Gamma and Rachel O’Brien
It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows.
‘The Art of Losing’ by Alice Zenither
Recommended by Rachel O’Brien
Naïma has always known that her family came from Algeria – but up until now, that meant very little to her. Born and raised in France, her knowledge of that foreign country is limited to what she’s learned from her grandparents’ tiny flat in a crumbling French sink estate: the food cooked for her, the few precious things they brought with them when they fled.
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
Recommended by Lewander
Judged by Balzac to be the most important French novel of its time, The Charterhouse of Parma is a compelling novel of extravagance and daring, blending the intrigues of the Italian court with the romance and excitement of youth.
‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Bernadine Evaristo
Recommended by Allegra Fornaca
Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of twelve very different people in Britain, predominantly female and black. Aged 19 to 93, they span a variety of cultural backgrounds, sexualities, classes and occupations as they tell the stories of themselves, their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.
‘The Roses of Picardie’ by Simon Raven
Rodolfo B says: “An 80s novel (this shows), the plot stretches across Europe and it's an unusual but good read.”
A string of long-lost and cursed rubies gives the title to this highly imaginative tale by Simon Raven, author of the ‘First Born of Egypt’ saga. Jacquiz Helmut and Balbo Blakeney, among other eccentric characters, pursue the jewels across four countries and eight centuries. Horror, intrigue and high comedy shape the story as it races towards an unforgettable climax.
‘This Magnificent Dappled Sea’ by David Biro
Recommended by Fraser
In a small Northern Italian village, nine-year-old Luca Taviano catches a stubborn cold and is subsequently diagnosed with leukemia. His only hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant. After an exhaustive search, a match turns up three thousand miles away in the form of a most unlikely donor: Joseph Neiman, a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, who is suffering from a debilitating crisis of faith. Can inheritance be transcended by accidents of love? That is the question at the heart of ‘This Magnificent Dappled Sea’, a novel that challenges the idea of identity and celebrates the ties that bind us together.
LGBTQ+
‘Swimming in the Dark’ by Tomasz Jedrowski
Recommended by Adrian Murphy and Fraser. Adrian says: “Very beautiful and lyrical exploration of a gay relationship in communist 1980s Poland.”
Shy, anxious Ludwik has been sent along with the rest of his university class to an agricultural camp. Here he meets Janusz – and together they spend a dreamlike summer falling in love. But with summer over, the two are sent back to Warsaw. Confronted by the scrutiny, intolerance and corruption of life under the Party, Ludwik and Janusz must decide how they will survive; and in their different choices, find themselves torn apart.
‘Young Mungo’ by Douglas Stuart
Recommended by Paul, and also by Dominic in this episode of The Europeans. Hear our discussion from 32’45”.
From the Booker-prizewinning author of Shuggie Bain, comes an extraordinary, page-turning second novel, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James.
Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in the hyper-masculine and violently sectarian world of Glasgow's housing estates. They should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they find themselves falling in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo works especially hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold.
‘Ephebos’ by Kostya Tsolakis
Owen Atkinson says: “A poetry pamphlet which explores queer identity from Greece, where Tsolakis grew up, to the UK, where he now lives. I think it's a fairly limited press, but I got my copy in Gay's The Word in London. Very short, very accessible, very impactful, emotionally bleak and devastating but beautiful!”
Young, Greek and gay: Ephebos maps a fragile coming of age, exploring the shame, courage and yearning of emergent sexuality. From a sun-drenched Athenian adolescence to adulthood in England, this exquisitely wrought pamphlet confronts an abiding sense of ‘falling short’ – of being Greek, conforming to ideas of masculinity, being a good son, of communicating fully with loved ones and strangers. Above all, these poems deal with the pursuit of happiness on one’s own terms.
Satire and dystopia
‘Grey Bees’ by Andrey Kurkov
Recommended by Brian Knowlton, and also by Katy in this episode of The Europeans.
Ukraine’s most famous novelist dramatises the conflict raging in his country through the adventures of a mild-mannered beekeeper. From the author of the bestselling Death and the Penguin.
‘Time Shelter’ by Georgi Gospodinov
Ognyan Georgiev says: “Quite a… timely novel.”
An enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape from the horrors of our present – a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.
‘Vernon Subutex 1’ by Virginie Despentes
Leslie Farnsworth says: “Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex series is a modern French classic.”
Vernon Subutex was once the proprietor of Revolver, an infamous music shop in Paris, where his name was legend throughout Paris. By the 2000s, however, with the arrival of the internet and the decline in CD and vinyl sales, his shop is struggling, like so many others. When it closes, Subutex finds himself with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Before long, his savings are gone, and when the mysterious rock star who had been covering his rent suddenly drops dead of a drug overdose, Subutex finds himself launched on an epic saga of couch-surfing, boozing, and coke-snorting before finally winding up homeless. Just as he resigns himself to life as a panhandler, a throwaway comment he once made on Facebook takes the internet by storm.
‘Journey by Moonlight’ by Antal Szerb
Recommended by Attila Bohm
A major classic of 1930s literature, Antal Szerb’s Journey by Moonlight is the fantastically moving and darkly funny story of a bourgeois businessman torn between duty and desire. Mihály has dreamt of Italy all his life. When he finally travels there, on his honeymoon with Erszi, he soon abandon his new wife in order to find himself, haunted by old friends from his turbulent teenage days: beautiful, kind Tamas, brash and wicked Janos, and the sexless yet unforgettable Eva. Journeying from Venice to Ravenna, Florence and Rome, Mihály loses himself in Venetian back alleys and in the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside, driven by an irresistible desire to resurrect his lost youth among Hungary’s Bright Young Things, and knowing that he must soon decide whether to return to the ambiguous promise of a placid adult life, or allow himself to be seduced into a life of scandalous adventure.
History, travelogues, memoir and other non-fiction
‘My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route’ by Sally Hayden
Recommended by Amanda Coakley
In August 2018, Sally Hayden received a Facebook message. 'Hi sister Sally, we need your help,' it read. 'We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story.' More messages followed from more refugees. They told stories of enslavement and trafficking, torture and murder, tuberculosis and sexual abuse. And they revealed something else: that they were all incarcerated as a direct result of European policy.
From there began a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. This book follows the shocking experiences of refugees seeking sanctuary, but it also surveys the bigger picture: the negligence of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations. The economics of the twenty-first-century slave trade and the EU's bankrolling of Libyan militias. The trials of people smugglers, the frustrations of aid workers, the loopholes refugees seek out and the role of social media in crowdfunding ransoms. Who was accountable for the abuse? Where were the people finding solutions? Why wasn't it being widely reported?
‘Free’ by Lea Ypi
Recommended by Maximilian Eduardo Lehmann, Anna Gumbau, Brian Robson and Rachel O’Brien. You can hear a discussion of ‘Free’ in this episode of The Europeans, from 28’09”.
Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. To Lea, it was home. People were equal, neighbours helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world. There was community and hope.
Then, in December 1990, everything changed. The statues of Stalin and Hoxha were toppled. Almost overnight, people could vote freely, wear what they liked and worship as they wished. There was no longer anything to fear from prying ears. But factories shut, jobs disappeared and thousands fled to Italy on crowded ships, only to be sent back. Predatory pyramid schemes eventually bankrupted the country, leading to violent conflict. As one generation's aspirations became another's disillusionment, and as her own family's secrets were revealed, Lea found herself questioning what freedom really meant.
‘East West Street’ by Philippe Sands
Recommended by sietedeoctubre
A profound, important book, a moving personal detective story and an uncovering of secret pasts, set in Europe’s center, the city of bright colors—Lviv, Ukraine, dividing east from west, north from south, in what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A book that explores the development of the world-changing legal concepts of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” that came about as a result of the unprecedented atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich.
It is also a spellbinding family memoir, as the author traces the mysterious story of his grandfather as he maneuvered through Europe in the face of Nazi atrocities. This is “a monumental achievement … told with love, anger and precision” (John le Carré, acclaimed internationally bestselling author).
‘Afropean’ by Johny Pitts
Recommended by Josephine Hardy. We interviewed Johny in this episode of The Europeans.
Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is an alternative map of the continent, taking the reader to places like Cova Da Moura, the Cape Verdean shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon with its own underground economy, and Rinkeby, the area of Stockholm that is eighty per cent Muslim. Johny Pitts visits the former Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where West African students are still making the most of Cold War ties with the USSR, and Clichy Sous Bois in Paris, which gave birth to the 2005 riots, all the while presenting Afropeans as lead actors in their own story.
‘The Fault Line: Traveling the Other Europe, from Finland to Ukraine’ by Paolo Rumiz
Recommended by Allegra Fornaca
An award-winning writer travels the eastern front of Europe, where the push/pull between old empires and new possibilities has never been more evident. Paolo Rumiz traces the path that has twice cut Europe in two-first by the Iron Curtain and then by the artificial scaffolding of the EU-moving through vibrant cities and abandoned villages, some places still gloomy under the ghost of these imposing borders, some that have sought to erase all memory of it and jump with both feet into the West (if only the West would have them).
‘The Serpent Coiled in Naples’ by Marius Kociejowski
Michael Beer says: “Going to be spending some time in Naples later in the summer, and I’m loving this at the moment. Really captures the city.”
In recent years Naples has become, for better or worse, the new ‘destination’ in Italy. While many of its more esoteric features are on display for all to see the stories behind them remain largely hidden.
In Marius Kociejowski’s portrait of this baffling city, the serpent can be many things ― Vesuvius, the mafia-like camorra, the outlying Phlegrean Fields (which, geologically speaking, constitute the second most dangerous area on the planet). It is all these things that have, at one time or another, put paid to the higher aspirations of Neapolitans themselves.
‘A Month in Siena’ by Hisham Matar
Tom Bird says: “A little beaut of a book.”
Always finding comfort and clarity in great art, Matar immersed himself in eight significant works from the Sienese School of painting, which flourished from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Artists he had admired throughout his life, including Duccio and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, evoke earlier engagements he’d had with works by Caravaggio and Poussin, and the personal experiences that surrounded those moments.
Including beautiful full-color reproductions of the artworks, A Month in Siena is about what occurred between Matar, those paintings, and the city. That month would be an extraordinary period in the writer’s life: an exploration of how art can console and disturb in equal measure, as well as an intimate encounter with a city and its inhabitants. This is a gorgeous meditation on how centuries-old art can illuminate our own inner landscape—current relationships, long-lasting love, grief, intimacy, and solitude—and shed further light on the present world around us.
‘The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine’ by Serhii Plokhy
Recommended by Christian Gesellmann
In this authoritative book, Harvard Professor Serhii Plokhy traces the history of Ukraine from the arrival of the Vikings in the tenth century to the current Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
‘The Escape Artist’ by Jonathan Freedland
Recommended by Dan Mucha
In April 1944 nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba and fellow inmate Fred Wetzler became the first Jews ever to break out of Auschwitz. Under electrified fences and past armed watchtowers, evading thousands of SS men and slavering dogs, they trekked across marshlands, mountains and rivers to freedom. Vrba's mission: to reveal to the world the truth of the Holocaust.
‘When In French: Love in a Second Language’ by Lauren Collins
Recommended by Rachel O’Brien
A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier--a surprising turn of events for someone who didn't have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn't understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does "I love you" even mean the same thing as "je t'aime"? When the couple, newly married, relocates to Francophone Geneva, Collins--fearful of one day becoming "a Borat of a mother" who doesn't understand her own kids--decides to answer her questions for herself by learning French.
‘Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe’ by Kapka Kassabova
Recommended by Christian Gesellmann. We interviewed Kapka in this episode of The Europeans.
When Kapka Kassabova was a child, the borderzone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece was rumoured to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall so it swarmed with soldiers, spies and fugitives. On holidays close to the border on the Black Sea coast, she remembers playing on the beach, only miles from where an electrified fence bristled, its barbs pointing inwards toward the enemy: the holiday-makers, the potential escapees.
Today, this densely forested landscape is no longer heavily militarised, but it is scarred by its past. In Border, Kapka Kassabova sets out on a journey to meet the people of this triple border - Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, and the latest wave of refugees fleeing conflict further afield.
‘Parisians’ by Graham Robb
Recommended by David Craven Roberts
This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten.
‘Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World’ by Malcolm Ferdinand
Recommended by Alban
The world is in the midst of a storm that has shaped the history of modernity along a double fracture: on the one hand, an environmental fracture driven by a technocratic and capitalist civilization that led to the ongoing devastation of the Earth's ecosystems and its human and non-human communities and, on the other, a colonial fracture instilled by Western colonization and imperialism that resulted in racial slavery and the domination of indigenous peoples and women in particular.
In this important new book, Malcom Ferdinand challenges this double fracture, thinking from the Caribbean world. Here, the slave ship reveals the inequalities that continue during the storm: some are shackled inside the hold and even thrown overboard at the first gusts of wind. Drawing on empirical and theoretical work in the Caribbean, Ferdinand conceptualizes a decolonial ecology that holds protecting the environment together with the political struggles against (post)colonial domination, structural racism, and misogynistic practices.
‘Mud Sweeter than Honey’ by Małgorzata Rejmer
Recommended by Julia Ciesińska
After breaking ties with Yugoslavia, the USSR and then China, Enver Hoxha believed that Albania could become a self-sufficient bastion of communism. Every day, many of its citizens were thrown into prisons and forced labour camps for daring to think independently, for rebelling against the regime or trying to escape – the consequences of their actions were often tragic and irreversible.
Mud Sweeter than Honey gives voice to those who lived in Albania at that time – from poets and teachers to shoe-makers and peasant farmers, and many others whose aspirations were brutally crushed in acts of unimaginable repression – creating a vivid, dynamic and often painful picture of this totalitarian state during the forty years of Hoxha’s ruthless dictatorship.
‘Flâneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris’ by Federico Castigliano
Recommended by David Craven Roberts
Flâneur teaches how to roam without an aim, to get lost in the city. It will transform your walk around Paris into an exciting and memorable experience. A man walks the streets of Paris, alone and without a destination. He covers the long avenues with their great buildings, he gets lost in the crowds of the grands magasins. Buttoned up in his black overcoat, he wanders, restless, through the city. But what is he looking for? Where is he going?
‘Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World’ by Timothy Brook
Federico Gobbo says: “An oldie but goldie.”
In this critical darling Vermeer's captivating and enigmatic paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought-from Delft to Beijing--were transformed in the 17th century, when the world first became global.
‘High’ by Erika Fatland
Recommended by Allegra Fornaca
The Himalayas meander for more than two thousand kilometres through many different countries, from Pakistan to Myanmar via Nepal, India, Tibet and Bhutan, where the world religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are interspersed with ancient shamanic beliefs. Countless languages and vastly different cultures exist in these isolated mountain valleys. Modernity and tradition collide, while the great powers fight for influence.
The European Review of Books
Mikhail says: “Not necessarily a book and not by a single author but the first issue of The European Review of Books is a kaleidoscopic collection of 'European' literature that piqued my curiosity.”
We interviewed co-founders George Blaustein and Sander Pleij in this episode of The Europeans.
Myths revisited
‘The Siege of Troy’ by Theodor Kallifatides
Recommended by Eric Luth
In this perceptive retelling of The Iliad, a young Greek teacher draws on the enduring power of myth to help her students cope with the terrors of Nazi occupation.
‘Greek Myths: A New Retelling’ by Charlotte Higgins
Gavin MacLean says: “This superb retelling of Greek Myths from a more modern, feminine perspective has just been released in paperback.”
Young adult
‘The Butterfly Assassin’ by Finn Longman
Marie Louise says: “Loved this even if I am nearer to Ancient Adult.”
Trained and traumatised by a secret assassin programme for minors, Isabel Ryans wants nothing more than to be a normal civilian. After running away from home, she has a new name, a new life and a new friend, Emma, and for the first time in Isabel’s life, things are looking up. But old habits die hard, and it’s not long until she blows her cover, drawing the attention of the guilds – the two rival organisations who control the city of Espera. An unaffiliated killer like Isabel is either a potential asset . . . or a threat to be eliminated.
In other languages
‘La plus secrète mémoire des hommes’ de Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
Recommended by Thomas Grandjouan
En 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, jeune écrivain sénégalais, découvre à Paris un livre mythique, paru en 1938 : Le Labyrinthe de l'inhumain. On a perdu la trace de son auteur, qualifié en son temps de " Rimbaud nègre ", depuis le scandale que déclencha la parution de son texte. Diégane s'engage alors, fasciné, sur la piste du mystérieux T. C. Elimane, où il affronte les grandes tragédies que sont le colonialisme ou la Shoah. Du Sénégal à la France en passant par l'Argentine, quelle vérité l'attend au centre de ce labyrinthe ?
‘Niente di vero’ di Veronica Raimo
Recommended by Paola Tamma
Prendete lo spirito dissacrante che trasforma nevrosi, sesso e disastri famigliari in commedia, da Fleabag al Lamento di Portnoy, aggiungete l’uso spietato che Annie Ernaux fa dei ricordi: avrete la voce di una scrittrice che in Italia ancora non c’era. Veronica Raimo sabota dall’interno il romanzo di formazione. Il suo racconto procede in modo libero, seminando sassolini indimenticabili sulla strada.
‘Sangue giusto’ di Francesca Melandri
Recommended by Viktoria Allert. We interviewed Francesca in this episode of The Europeans.
Romanzo di ampio respiro storico e felice ambizione narrativa, Sangue giusto scandaglia in profondità la coscienza di uomini e donne costretti a confrontarsi con una realtà più complessa di quello che sembra, che sfugge alle definizioni a cui siamo abituati. E si chiede: che cosa sappiamo – e che cosa vogliamo e possiamo veramente sapere – delle persone che amiamo? Fino a che punto siamo in grado di comprenderle e di perdonarle? E che cosa c’entra tutto ciò con chi siamo noi?