Date Archives September 2014

Clara’s Daughter by Meike Ziervogel

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Authors and publishers generally live in different camps. They have their own associations, their own awards, their own complaints about the people in the other camp. Meike Ziervogel is one of the few people to have a foot in both. She’s the founder of Peirene Press, which publishes contemporary European fiction in translation, and she’s also written two novellas, published by Salt Publishing. The first, Magda, explored complex mother-daughter relationships through the harrowing story of Magda Goebbels and her poisoning of her children. The second, Clara’s Daughter, which came out this month,… Read More

A potential novel: In the Wolf’s Mouth by Adam Foulds

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Reading Adam Foulds’s new novel In the Wolf’s Mouth, I was reminded of literary movements like Oulipo, which explored the concept of ‘potential literature’. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that the novel is particularly experimental. It’s the ‘potential’ aspect that stuck in my head. In the world of Oulipo and others, the emphasis was more on the creation of new possibilities, rather than the actual execution of those ideas. In the Wolf’s Mouth is in some ways a potential novel. It sets up a scenario involving multiple characters and storylines,… Read More