Tag Archives: Goncourt

International Bestsellers: The Addams Family Meets Sister Act

As a member of the first internet-savvy generation, the Brazilian Daniel Galera (who was born 1979) naturally looked to the web when he first started writing stories ten years ago. He wrote for and edited literary websites before switching to paper and co-founding Livros do Mal (Evil Books), a publishing project responsible for bringing some…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

Parisian Pandemonium Vargas Plagues Paris, Orsenna’s French Lessons, And Brouwers Skewers Dutch Boomers The specter of bubonic plague coming down the mail chute rattles all of Paris in an uncannily topical work by the French archaeologist and crime writer Fred Vargas. In the author’s latest novel, Leave Quickly and Return Late (which, incidentally, was written…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

French Lessons Napoleon’s Deluge in France, Coelho in Teheran, and Italy’s Wayward Professor A fiendishly degenerate account of a dead academic leads off in France this month, as the pseudonymous author San Antonio (the late Frédéric Dard) tramples all cultural propriety in his delirious novel Napoléon Pommier. Here’s the pitch: The august Professor Titan Ma…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

Apocalypse Now Amnesia Hits Spain, Horror Bloodies France, and Pokémon Ravages Australia Perhaps in compensation for the underwhelming arrival of Y2K, this month’s bestsellers have registered a potent desire for all those missed connections, fatal errors, and world-historical upheavals we were so tantalizingly promised. In Spain, Nativel Preciado’s The Narcissist plunges into the abyss of…Continue Reading