A bracing and darkly comic novel about a disgraced priest who finds himself haunted by his dead and disapproving father, this little-known classic of Swiss literature is impossible to forget.In a small town in Switzerland, Franz—ex-clergyman, ex-husband, current counselor of locals at loose ends—is being haunted by his recently deceased father, Klement. In life, Franz was caught cheating on his wife and defrocked, after which Klement never spoke to him again. In de...

Scrounged from his notebooks and hearsay, this is the story of a schoolteacher named Konrad Zündel: a philosopher, a wanna-be writer; scattered, self-conscious, glum, anxious, unlucky, discontent . . . At the end of his rope, he decides to flee his workaday life at all costs, only to find escape always a little beyond his reach. First his tooth falls out in the sight of other travelers, then he finds a severed finger in a restroom on a train. In fact, Zündel seems on the verge of falling t...

A psychological drama with a masterful, pulse-quickening plot revolving around two seemingly very different men, who have more in common than they know.Thomas Clarin is a divorce lawyer whose profession has fostered a deep and abiding distrust of marriage, preferring instead to "play the field." Thomas Loos is a somber widower intensely mourning his wife's death. With Clarin's flirtatious, roving eye and Loos's complete disenchantment with the world around him, it would seem these ...

The final work of Nobel Prize-winning writer Günter Grass – a witty and elegiac series of meditations on writing, growing old, and the world.Suddenly, in spite of the trials of old age, and with the end in sight, everything seems possible again: love letters, soliloquies, scenes of jealousy, swan songs, social satire, and moments of happiness.Only an ageing artist who had once more cheated death could get to work with such wisdom, defiance and wit. A wealth...

'He was blamed for endless disasters, from failed exams to a bridge collapse, an avalanche, even a shipwreck: all due, in the stupid opinion of, first, his fellow-students and, later, his colleagues, to the penetrating power of his evil eye...'Profound and compassionate, Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing literary voices to emerge from the twentieth century. Whether describing the most beautiful poem ever composed or an invention gone horribly wrong, these ...

**WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREA New York Times Notable Book**In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion.Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her 2 year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or ...

'Reading Brodsky's essays is like a conversation with an immensely erudite, hugely entertaining and witty (and often very funny) interlocutor' Wall Street JournalWatermark is Joseph Brodsky's witty, intelligent, moving and elegant portrait of Venice. Looking at every aspect of the city, from its waterways, streets and architecture to its food, politics and people, Brodsky captures its magnificence and beauty, and recalls his own memories of the place he called hom...

First in the series featuring three powerful men who have everything—except the perfect wife—from the USA Today –bestselling author.Merciless businessman Ciro D'Angelo knows an opportunity when he sees it—and Lily Scot's vulnerable sweetness and old-fashioned values are exactly what he needs in a wife. She's the complete opposite to the red-taloned gold diggers that relentlessly pursue him.But on their wedding nig...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARGARET ATWOOD'[A] searing masterwork of Northern European literature. The retrieval of Doctor Glas in English is a bracing gift to hungry readers' Susan SontagLonely and introspective, Doctor Glas has long felt an instinctive hostility toward the odious local minister. So when the minister’s beautiful wife complains of her husband’s oppressive sexual attentions, Doctor Glas finds himself contemplating murd...

**An NPR Best Book of the YearVulture • “15 Must-Read Translated Books From the Past 5 Years”Written during the height of the 1970s Italian domestic terror, a cult novel, with distinct echoes of Lovecraft and Borges, makes its English-language debut.**In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create "the Library," a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s personal diaries and connect with like-minded souls in "dialogues across the e...

'One of the most astoundingly original and necessary books I've ever read.'Guardian'A landmark in twenty-first-century English literature.'Observer'A perfect synthesis of form and content.'Deborah LevyA woman on a plane listens to the stranger in the seat next to hers telling her the story of his life: his work, his marriage, and the harrowing night he has just spent burying the ...

By the acclaimed author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, a startling and darkly funny volume of selected poetry, the first to be translated into English.*It was a meaningless daylike what you callloveIt was a ThursdayIn parentheses. The brackets around itHave already fadedLife tastes of ashAnd is bearable.*From one of Denmark’s most celebrated twentieth-century writers, the author of the acclaimed Cop...