Author: BB Intern

Victor Meadowcroft reviews A Musical Offering, Luis Sagasti

A Musical Offering is Argentinian author Luis Sagasti’s second novel to appear in English. His first, Fireflies (also published by Charco Press and reviewed for The BookBlast Diary) saw translator Fionn Petch nominated for a TA First Translation Prize in 2018, and this is another fine performance from Petch, convincingly reproducing the author’s erudite but effortless prose, with occasional poetic flourishes.

A Note-Perfect Ode to Wonder

The novel opens with an account of the origins of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Suffering from insomnia, Bach’s patron, Count Keyserling, tasks the composer with devising a piece of music that will lull him to sleep. Once completed, the composition is to be played by virtuoso harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who will deliver these “musical sleeping pills” until the Count finally dozes off. From here, Sagasti leads us into the twentieth century, introducing two famous recordings of the Goldberg Variations performed by Canadian piano prodigy Glenn Gould, one at the beginning and one near the end of his career. Continue reading Victor Meadowcroft reviews A Musical Offering, Luis Sagasti

Review On Terrorism: Conversations with My Daughter, Tahar Ben Jelloun

The Moroccan poet, novelist, essayist, and journalist, Tahar Ben Jelloun, is one of France’s most celebrated writers. He has written extensively about Moroccan culture, the immigrant experience, human rights, and sexual identity. An author who intervenes in politics, On Terrorism: Conversations with My Daughter (translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) is the third book in a series in which the previous titles are Racism and Islam explained. It takes the form of a semi-imagined dialogue between him and his daughter. Continue reading Review On Terrorism: Conversations with My Daughter, Tahar Ben Jelloun

Rachel Goldblatt reviews The Bell in the Lake, Lars Mytting

“And this also”, said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth”

 This epigraph, taken from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, sets the tone for Lars Mytting’s sweeping investigation of legend, superstition, and the effects of industrial and ideological change on a small, secluded village in rural Norway. Marlow’s famous statement evokes both an image of literal darkness and ideas about uncivilised nations and their conquest by other – more powerful – empires: both notions are integral to this powerful contemporary narrative that is rooted in history.
 Continue reading Rachel Goldblatt reviews The Bell in the Lake, Lars Mytting

Rachel Goldblatt, Dispatches from the Intern’s Desk

Starting a new job in the middle of a global pandemic is not something many people would find enviable, though I was obviously delighted for the opportunity as so many others were being furloughed. When I began working for BookBlast in West London, it was in the context of not knowing what the weeks and months ahead had in store. I was meant to be starting an internship at Bloomsbury in April, which was postponed indefinitely due to Covid-19. With the prospect of an endless stretch of time ahead with no work, and any notions of career progression firmly on hold, I had a sinking sense of dread about the rest of 2020. Continue reading Rachel Goldblatt, Dispatches from the Intern’s Desk

Rachel Goldblatt reviews Heaven, Manuel Vilas

Any thought of escaping home and summer in London for sun, sea and al fresco lunches – paella, gelato, freshly grilled octopus – has been scuppered by the recent global lockdown. The world is at a standstill as we are besieged by Covid-19. Travel plans and holidays have been either postponed or cancelled. A trickle of pictures of lunches by turquoise seas and sun-kissed legs keeping cool under striped umbrellas have only very recently begun to sneak back onto my social media feeds from the lucky few who have managed to get away.

So reading Heaven, Manuel Vilas’s latest collection of poetry and short fiction published by Carcanet Press, translated from the Spanish by poet and Cambridge don, James Womack, abated my craving for the Hispanic sun, cool cobbled church squares and ocean swims. Complex, rich, melancholy, beautiful, biblical and profane, this is one of the finest and most powerful collections of contemporary poetry I’ve read in recent years. Violence, beauty, tenderness, sex and death coexist and have a momentum all of their own, at times even eclipsing the author. Continue reading Rachel Goldblatt reviews Heaven, Manuel Vilas

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