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Belletrista - A site promoting translated women authored literature from around the world
Photo of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Book Cover Photo of Sarah Hall

'Be Careful Out There, Be Careful in Here: The Dangerous Worlds of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya' by Tim Jones

An extended review of Hillary Jordan's When She Woke explores this thoughtful, modern re-telling of a classic.

'Eyes for the Grotesque Things in Life': A Conversation with Sarah Hall

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Reviews
Click on 'Reviews' to see the full list of this issue's reviews...
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SUMMER RESORT
Esther Kinsky
Translated from the German by Martin Chalmers

Oppressive would certainly be the best word to describe Esther Kinsky's world. Oppressive, hot, sticky, dusty, and incapable of getting itself out of the mud. Any attempt at beauty …
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Reviewed by C. Lariviere
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THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE
Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis
Translated from the Danish by Lene Kaaberbøl

I'm always willing to give a book a try, even in a genre that I never read. So when The Boy in the Suitcase, a thriller by Danish authors Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis, landed in my mailbox, I thought, why not? A few hours later, after swiftly consuming this rollercoaster of a story …
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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THE SHADOW-BOXING WOMAN
Inka Parei
Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire

It's taken twelve years for Inka Parei's first novel to be translated into English, but there's nothing about this book that feels dated. The protagonist, a young woman called Hell (light), lives in a dilapidated apartment block …
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Reviewed by Charlotte Simpson
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SO GOOD IN BLACK
Sunetra Gupta

So Good in Black is one of those rare books that sends you scrabbling for the author's backlist. Beautifully written, wonderfully observed and deftly executed, it is a moving examination of ageing friendships and haunted lives …
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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1222
Anne Holt
Translated from the Norwegian by Marlaine Delargy

On a frigid night, with a snowstorm raging, a train derails in the Norwegian mountains. The driver is dead, but 269 passengers are rescued, transported by snowmobile to a nearby isolated hotel at the station—1222 meters above sea level—to wait out the storm until help can reach them.
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Reviewed by Kate Morgan


"A Kingdom for a Kalashnikov" by Andrea Heiberg Book Cover
A short story from her collection, Next Stop: Sejer Island
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