Skjønnlitteratur

From the Iran-Iraq War through the Occupation, this collection of fictional short stories presents an uncompromising view of the relationship between the West and Iraq, as well as a haunting critique of the postwar refugee experience. Blending allegory with historical realism and subverting expectations in an unflinching comedy of the macabre, these tales manage to be both phantasmagoric and shockingly real. For all the despair and darkness portrayed in these gripping stories, from spotlighting hostage-video makers in Baghdad to following human trafficking in Serbia's forests, what lingers more than the haunting images of war is the spirit of defiance and of indefatigable courage.

• Forfatter: Hassan Blasim
• Publisert: September 2009
• Språk: Engelsk
• ISBN: 9781905583256

In her very dusty provincial museum of fake exhibits lovingly crafted from cardboard, wire and glue, Tanya dreams of Russian art's long colours and wonders when Yuri will stop fishing long enough to notice how she adores him, while she tries the zero-one-zero diet in order to meet Aeroflot's maximum waist requirements for trainee cabin crew. When her boss at the museum gives her the vast responsibility of cultivating some potential benefactors from America, and persuading them to give their money to the very needy All-Russian All-Cosmopolitan City Museum, Tanya finds herself involuntarily enlisting all her neighbours in the scheme. But their shared hopes of riches and dreams of escape start to rot.

And the rounded corpse of Mircha in the courtyard refuses to decompose, as the snow turns it into a hill, and its spirit takes flight around the apartments, dispensing more advice than anyone desires, goading the men, annoying the women, in a block where too many mothers and fathers are missing and too many memories lie stagnant on old battlefields.

Forfattere: Gina Ochsner
Publisert: Apr 2010

Sider nr: 370

A sexually charged satire of the Cultural Revolution and a huge underground hit in China, where it is banned. 'Slanders Mao Zedong, the army, and is overflowing with sex & Do not distribute, pass around, comment on, excerpt from it or report on it.' Chinese Central Propaganda Bureau This political satire by one of China's most distinguished authors has been banned in its native land for its depiction of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the Cultural Revolution.

Set in 1967, at the peak of the Mao cult, when 'Serve the People' was one of the great man's most famous slogans, it tells the story of the bored wife of a military commander who artfully seduces a peasant soldier. When the lovers discover that the sacrilegious act of breaking a statue of Mao deliciously increases their desire, they compete to see who can destroy the most sacred icons of their Great Leader - smashing the commander's beloved Mao icons, ripping up the "Little Red Book" or defacing the Great Helmsman's epigrams. Defacing an image of Mao was punishable by death during the Cultural Revolution. Yan Lianke tramples on the most sacred taboos of the army, the revolution, sexuality and political etiquette. As a subversive critique of official corruption, leadership hypocrisy and the insanity of the Cultural Revolution, his book has a huge cult following in China.

• Forfatter: Yan Lianke
• Publisert: 2007
  
• Antall sider: 144
• Språk: Engelsk
• ISBN: 9781845295042

Rock star Alexandre Bleach might be dead, but he has a secret. It's a secret that concerns several people, but the only person who can unlock it is Vernon Subutex, former record shop proprietor turned homeless messiah and guru, last seen hallucinating and feverish on a bench in the parc des Buttes Chaumont. Aïcha wants to know the truth behind the death of her mother, Vodka Satana. And if she finds the bastards responsible, she wants to make them pay, whatever Céleste thinks of her plan.

Céleste wants Aïcha to get a grip and stop hanging around with Subutex's gang of disciples. The Hyena wants to find the Bleach tapes. She wants to untangle her complicated feelings about Anaïs, her boss' assistant. And speaking of her boss, she does not want Laurent Dopalet to discover how badly she has double-crossed him. Laurent Dopalet wants the Hyena to find and destroy the Bleach tapes. He wants to forget he ever knew Vodka Satana. He wants people to stop graffitiing his apartment with ludicrous allegations. Above all, he wants people to understand: none of this is his fault.

• Forfatter: Virginie Despentes
• Publisert: 2019
• Antall sider: 320
• Innbinding: Heftet
• Språk: Engelsk
• ISBN: 9780857055835

Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for thousands of years. Kayo is a forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries. But as events in the village become incomprehensible, Kayo finds that Western logic and political bureaucracy are no longer equal to the task.

• Forfatter: Nii Ayikwei Parkes
• Publisert: 2010
• Språk: Engelsk
• ISBN: 9780099526124

From the author of the internationally acclaimed, Whitbread Award-winning 'The Harmony Silk Factory' comes an enthralling new novel that evokes an exotic yet turbulent and often frightening world. Sixteen-year-old Adam is an orphan three times over. He and his older brother, Johan, were abandoned by their mother as children; he watched as Johan was adopted and taken away by a wealthy couple; and he had to hide when Karl, the Dutch man who raised him, was arrested by soldiers during Sukarno's drive to purge 1960s Indonesia of its colonial past.

Adam sets out on a quest to find Karl, but all he has to guide him are some old photos and letters, which send him to the colourful, dangerous capital, Jakarta. Johan, meanwhile, is living a seemingly carefree, privileged life in Malaysia, but is careening out of control, unable to forget the long-ago betrayal of his helpless, trusting brother. 'Map of the Invisible World' is a masterful novel, and confirms Tash Aw as one of the most exciting young writers at work today.

• Forfatter: Tash Aw
• Publisert: April 2010
• Innbinding: Heftet
• ISBN: 9780007349982