Tag: counterculture

Review Stalking the Atomic City, Markiyan Kamysh

Stalking the Atomic City by Markiyan Kamysh must be one of the strangest examples of tourist literature ever written. Its focus is about visits to ‘the Zone’: the radioactive Exclusion Zone around the devastated nuclear power plant at Chornobyl (the Ukrainian spelling of the place). Markiyan Kamysh describes his frequent illegal visits to the Zone during the 2010s, before the Russian invasion. At first, these sound unbelievable. Why would anyone want to crawl through barbed-wire fences, run from border guards and — in winter — suffer below freezing temperatures as they spent days and nights sleeping rough in decaying apartments and collapsing industrial machinery?

Continue reading Review Stalking the Atomic City, Markiyan Kamysh

Podcast Fatima Daas, author of The Last One (in French & English)

An autobiographical first novel, The Last One tells the story of Fatima and her family. The confusing polarities between different worlds and cultures that are portrayed sparked an intense Media debate in France. Although based on true events and experiences, Fatima Daas changed certain aspects in order to be free to write what she wanted, and convey her feelings about specific events.

Tune in to hear a lively conversation with Fatima Daas and podcast host Georgia de Chamberet, about literary inspiration, handling her surprise overnight success, and the pressures directed at women from religion and from society, and more besides. The Last One is published in English, by HopeRoad Publishing. The interview is in both French and English.

Produced by BookBlast | Duration 26:25

The Last One by Fatima Daas, translated by Lara Vergnaud | HopeRoad Publishing | 192 pp 27 January 2022 | ISBN 978-1913109851

Buy THE LAST ONE from bookshop.org

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Review The Last One, Fatima Daas

“My name is Fatima Daas. The name of a girl from Clichy who crosses the tracks to get to school.”

An autobiographical first novel, The Last One tells the story of Fatima and her family. The confusing polarities between different worlds and cultures that are portrayed sparked an intense Media debate in France. Although based on true events and experiences, Fatima Daas changed certain aspects in order to be free to write what she wanted, and convey her feelings about specific events.  Continue reading Review The Last One, Fatima Daas

Review Your Feet Will Lead You Where your Heart Is, Bakwa Books

The ten young writers from Cameroon and Nigeria showcased in the bilingual anthology out with Bakwa Books, Your Feet Will Lead You Where your Heart Is (Le Crépuscule des âmes sœurs), edited by Dzekashu Macviban & Nfor E. Njinyoh give an absorbing and entertaining kaleidoscopic snapshot of contemporary African life seen through the lens of empathy. A landmark publication, this motley collection offers readers a powerful range of storytelling from fantasy to existentialism and afrojujuism to realism.

Edited by the founder of Bakwa Books, Dzekashu Macviban, and poet and translator, Nfor E. Njinyoh, the collection is the end result of a literary translation workshop held in Cameroon in 2019 in collaboration with the University of Bristol, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Continue reading Review Your Feet Will Lead You Where your Heart Is, Bakwa Books

Review Vernon Subutex 3, Virginie Despentes

First novel Baise-moi (Fuck Me) by Virginie Despentes was an overnight sensation in France, selling 50,000 copies for éditions Florent Massot in 1994 before being picked up by éditions Grasset and J’ai Lu. Today sales of her novels are stratospheric. I have admired her writing and voice and chutzpah from the moment I first read her, and included her in the anthology XCiTés published by Harpercollins in 1999 which I edited, showcasing a new generation of young writers from France unpublished in English at the time. Her Vernon Subutex trilogy was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. All three volumes are reviewed for BookBlast Diary. And read our interview with Florent Massot HERE 

Look who’s back! Vernon Subutex: DJ guru of the nineteenth arrondissement. He is still homeless in Paris and more Peter Pan than ever. We first met him at the turn of the millenium as he was losing his record shop, flat and material possessions after his friend and benefactor, the rock star Alex Bleach, died of a drug overdose in a hotel bedroom.

Film producer turned sex predator, Laurent Dropalet, is desperate to find compromising videos revealing the truth about the death of his porn-star mistress recorded by Alex Bleach. He hires the Hyena, a tech whiz and ravening lesbian to track down the tapes (and therefore Vernon who has them); she switches allegiances to join the DJ and his cohorts.

Continue reading Review Vernon Subutex 3, Virginie Despentes

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