The award-winning Japanese writer Hiromi Kawakami first came to prominence with her beautiful, meditative novella Strange Weather in Tokyo (tr. Allison Markin Powell), which was shortlisted for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (now merged with the International Booker). First published in Japanese in 2016 and translated into English in 2024, Under the Eye of the […]| JacquiWine's Journal
Like her namesake, Celia Dale, Celia Fremlin is fast becoming one of my favourite writers from the mid-20th century. She wrote wonderfully suspenseful domestic noirs, slowly building tension by leveraging her protagonists’ understandable but sometimes irrational fears. First published in 1965, The Jealous One is another deliciously compelling novel in which a seemingly happy marriage […]| JacquiWine's Journal
While the English writer Nina Bawden is probably best known for her children’s books, especially Carrie’s War and The Witch’s Daughter, she also wrote many novels for adults, mostly focusing on the…| JacquiWine's Journal
I’ve always had a tricky relationship with Virginia Woolf, having first read her when I was grieving the loss of a parent, which still makes it difficult to separate her from painful memories of that time. Recently published in the Archive series, which marks Penguin’s 90th anniversary, The New Dress seemed like a good way […]| JacquiWine's Journal
It’s been a while since I last read anything by Rosamond Lehmann, the critically acclaimed author of the excellent novels Invitation to the Waltz (1932) and The Weather in the Streets (1936) – both…| JacquiWine's Journal
When Nora (@pear-jelly on Bluesky and Instagram) announced that she would be hosting #SpinsterSeptember again this year, Simon (at Stuck in a Book) suggested Katherine Dunning’s The Spring Begins a…| JacquiWine's Journal
The critically acclaimed novelist, essayist and screenwriter Eileen Chang was one of the greatest chroniclers of Chinese life in the 20th century. In Love in a Fallen City, an insightful, exquisite…| JacquiWine's Journal
If you follow the International Booker Prize, the name Solvej Balle will be familiar to you. This critically acclaimed Danish writer scored a hit in the 1990s with According to the Law: Four Accoun…| JacquiWine's Journal
If you’re a fan of Mariana Enriquez’s dark, deeply disturbing stories on the horrors rooted in Argentina’s history, you will love Hungry for What, a ferocious collection of short fiction from Spani…| JacquiWine's Journal
