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The Old King in his Exile

Page 12

by Stefan Tobler


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  This book was made possible thanks to the support of:

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Emmanuel Godin · Eric E Rubeo · Eva Hdoherty · Eva Tobler-Zumstein · Ewan Tant · Felicity Box · Finbarr Farragher · Finnuala Butler · Fiona Graham · Fran Sanderson · Frances Hazelton · Francesca Caracciolo · Francis Taylor · Friederike Knabe · Gabrielle Crockatt · Gale Pryor · Gary Dickson · Gawain Espley · Gemma Tipton · Genevra Richardson · Geoff Thrower · Geoffrey Cohen · Geoffrey Fletcher · Geoffrey Urland · George Wilkinson · George Sandison & Daniela Laterza · Gerard Mehigan · Gerry Craddock · Gill Boag-Munroe · Gill Ord · Gillian Grant · Gillian Spencer · Gordon Cameron · Graham R Foster · Graham Mash · Guy Haslam · Hank Pryor · Hans Lazda · Harriet Mossop · Heather Fielding · Helen Brady · Helen Wormald · Helene Walters-Steinberg · Henriette Heise · Henrike Laehnemann · Hugh Gilmore · Ian Barnett · Ian McMillan · Ian Smith · Íde Corley · Ingrid Olsen · Irene Mansfield · Isabella Garment · Isabella Weibrecht · J Collins · Jen Calleja · Jack Brown · Jack McNamara · Jacqueline 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  ‌

  Now and at the Hour of Our Death

  SUSANA MOREIRA MARQUES

  Translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches

  A nurse sleeps at the bedside of his dying patients; a wife deceives her husband by never telling him he has cancer; a bedridden man has to be hidden from his demented and amorous eighty-year-old wife. In her poignant and genre-busting debut, Susana Moreira Marques confronts us with our own mortality and inspires us to think about what is important.

  Accompanying a palliative care team, Moreira Marques travelled to Trás-os-Montes, a forgotten corner of northern Portugal, a rural area abandoned by the young. Crossing great distances where eagles circle over the roads, she visits villages where rural ways of life are disappearing. She listens to families facing death and gives us their stories in their words as well as through her own meditations.

  Brilliantly blending the immediacy of oral history with the sensibility of philosophical reportage, Moreira Marques’ book speaks about death in a fresh way.

  ‘Raymond Carver once wrote about loving everything that increases me. This book increased me. It is fearless and luminous and full of grace; it travels to the edge of death and finds life there. Its attention to the particulars of love—between the ones who will go and the ones they will leave—is something close to sublime.’

  Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

  ‘A tender, lyrical and intimate meditation on death and bereavement written with great compassion.’

  Gavin Francis, author of Adventures in Human Being

  ‘It has the quiet intensity and the transformative power of poetry.’

  Iona Heath, author of Matters of Life and Death: Key Writings

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  Crossing the Sea

  WOLFGANG BAUER

  Translated from the German by Sarah Pybus

  With photographs by Stanislav Krupař

  Award-winning journalist Wolfgang Bauer and photographer Stanislav Krupař were the first undercover reporters to document the journey of Syrian refugees from Egypt to Europe. Posing as English teachers in 2014, they were direct witnesses to the brutality of smuggler gangs, the processes of detainment and deportation, the dangers of sea-crossing on rickety boats, and the final furtive journey through Europe. Combining their own travels with other eyewitness accounts in the first book of reportage of its kind, Crossing the Sea brings to life both the systemic problems and the individual faces behind the crisis, and is a passionate appeal for more humanitarian refugee policies.

  ‘An excellent book.’

  Melissa Fleming, Spokesperson and Head of Communications, UNHCR

  ‘It’s not just the detail in this book that counts. It’s the anger.’

  Robert Fisk, The Independent

  ‘Bauer’s book… exemplifies the best qualities of immersive journalism… his brave investigation tells us an important truth about the refugee experience.’

  Daniel Trilling, Times Literary Supplement

  ‘Bauer excellently re-creates the predatory, tense world of these shadowy men… the people-smugglers.’

  Caroline Moorehead, New Statesman

  ‘Wolfgang Bauer is a sophisticated and conscientious reporter, an expert on the Arab Spring and its aftermath, and a brilliant writer.’

  Nell Zink, author of The Wallcreeper

  ‘Bursting with humanity and humility.’

  New Internationalist

  ‘The refugees’ stories and remarkable photos provide a counter-narrative to the popular media rhetoric.’

  Big Issue North

  ‌

  Zbinden’s Progress

  CHRISTOPH SIMON

  Translated from the German by Donal McLaughlin

  WINNER OF THE BERN LITERATURE PRIZE 2010

  Lukas Zbinden leans on the arm of Kâzim as they walk slowly down the stairway towards the door of his old people’s home. Step by step, the irrepressible Lukas recounts the life he shared with his wife Emilie and his son. She loved to walk in the countryside; he loved towns and meeting strangers. Different in so many ways, what was the secret of their lifelong love? And why is it now so hard for him to talk to his son?

  Gradually we get to know a man with a twinkle in his eye and learn the captivating story of this man, his late wife, their son and the many people he has met along the way. Zbinden’s Progress is heart-rending, heart-warming and hilarious.

  Zbinden invites comparison with Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych.’

  Alexander Starritt, Times Literary Supplement

  ‘A jewel of a novel… This book is a little Odyssey, a little Ulysses; the story of one day’s journey, skilfully playing in tandem with another, life-long journey.’

  Barbara Trapido

  ‘With its slow pace and winning ways, Zbinden’s Progress casually sidles up and takes its place alongside a number of remarkable recent works [on] the art of taking a walk.’

  Ian Sansom, The Guardian

  ‘A tender, restrained celebration of life’s simple pleasures, beautifully translated.’

  Lucy Popescu, The Independent

  ‌

  The Alphabet of Birds

  SJ NAUDÉ

  Translated from the Afrikaans by the author

  If death comes to a loved one, can we grieve alone? A musician travels the world to see her siblings after their mother’s death before returning to her plundered home in Johannesburg; a South African trails his lover through Berlin’s party scene looking for an antidote to his successful but boring career. Everyone is facing their greatest loss.

  ‘Cool and intelligent, unsettling and deeply felt, Naudé’s voice is something new in South African writing.’

  Damon Galgut

  ‘The astonishingly diverse stories in SJ Naudé’s remarkable collectio
n The Alphabet of Birds count among the best in Afrikaans, built on recurring motifs and elements such as music; departure and travel; fairy tales and myths; illness, dissolution, dying and death; cities; a search for provenance and origins; forgetting and remembering; instinct and reason; that which is said or described versus that which remains unsaid or incapable of description forever; and the places and shapes of love in human relationships.’

  André Brink

  ‘Here is the beginning of something extraordinary. Profound, complex, luminously written, and brilliantly orchestrated, SJ Naudé’s first collection establishes him indubitably as a writer who will reshape the contours of South African literature in years to come.’

  Neel Mukherjee

  ‘Beautifully shaped and often heartbreaking stories… At once unsettling and deeply moving, this collection announces the arrival of a writer of great humanity and style.’

  Patrick Flanery

  ‌

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  Current & Upcoming Books

  01

  Juan Pablo Villalobos, Down the Rabbit Hole

  translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey

  02

  Clemens Meyer, All the Lights

  translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire

  03

  Deborah Levy, Swimming Home

  04

  Iosi Havilio, Open Door

  translated from the Spanish by Beth Fowler

  05

  Oleg Zaionchkovsky, Happiness is Possible

  translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield

  06

  Carlos Gamerro, The Islands

  translated from the Spanish by Ian Barnett

 

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