European Fiction

A trove of strange, arresting, short masterworks - five stories and two essays - by Roberto Bolano, a writer who pulls bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat. As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolano’s short stories is that they can do the “work of a novel.” The Insufferable Gaucho contains tales bent on returning to haunt you.

Joseph Fouché begann als Priesterlehrer. Während der französischen Revolution plünderte er hemmungslos Kirchen und verbreitete...

Sicilia, prima metà del Settecento. Marianna Ucrìa, una bambina che appartiene a una nobile famiglia...

Late one night, a man calls the local emergency line. He's in a cemetery, and he's just discovered a freshly dug grave marked with a wooden cross bearing his name. The dispatcher thinks it's the ravings of a drunk - until the police find the man's body the next day. What seemed like a morbid prank soon becomes a living nightmare for Berlin detective Jan Tommen. Recently reinstated to the force after a harrowing case's tragic conclusion, Jan enlists his friends.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's collection of fairytales called Kinder- und Hausmärchen ( Children's and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Filled with moral lessons that are not wrapped up in the now-expected "Disney-esque" feel, these stories may shock or scare you, but they have been the inspiration for some of the most beloved modern fairytales we know and love. Sixty-two fairytales are included in this collection.

Робинзон Крузо - это даже не книга и не персонаж, а нечто большее: человек-миф, от века к веку он существует, обрастая легендами. Перед нами жизнь сильного человека; пример человеческих возможностей, концентрации духовных и физических сил.

" Dis-leur Jeannot, dis-leur de raconter tout cela de ma part, avec leurs mots à eux, ceux de leur époque. Les miens ne sont faits que des accents de mon pays, du sang que j'ai dans la bouche et sur les mains. ". Mars 1943. À Toulouse, Raymond, 20 ans, et son frère Claude, 17 ans, rejoignent la Résistance ; ils y rencontrent des garçons et des filles de leur âge. Planques, traques, combats, arrestations au petit matin, leur périple les conduira jusqu'au train fantôme. Quand l'un d'entre eux tombe, un autre sort de l'ombre...

Narin ist neun, als in dem ezidischen Dorf am Tigris Planierraupen auftauchen. Ihre Heimat soll einem Dammbauprojekt der türkischen Regierung weichen. Die Großmutter, fest entschlossen, die Enkelin an einem ungestörten Ort taufen zu lassen, bereitet alles für die Reise ins heilige Lalisch-Tal vor. Kurz vor Aufbruch stößt Narin auf das Grab eines gewissen Arthur – direkt neben dem ihrer Ururgroßmutter Leila.

Ein überreiches Potpourri deutscher Literatur erwartet die Hörerschaft, mit Meisterwerken aus vielen Jahrhunderten. Die vorliegenden zwanzig Erzählungen, Novellen oder Geschichten künden vor allem von der Freude am Erzählen. Mit dabei: Joseph Roth (Stationschef Fallmerayer), Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (Krambambuli), Wolfgang Borchert (Die Hundeblume), Kurt Tucholsky (In der Hotelhalle), Friedrich Glauser (Verhör), A.J. Mordtmann (Der Untergang der Carnatic), Franz Kafka (Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle), Johann Peter Hebel (Unverhofftes Wiedersehen), Wilhelm Hauff (Das kalte Herz).

In un tempo e un luogo non precisati, all'improvviso l'intera popolazione perde la vista per un'inspiegabile epidemia. Chi è colpito dal male è come avvolto in una nube lattiginosa... Un romanzo fantastico giocato sulla metafora della cecità dove gli istinti bestiali, la ferocia irrazionale, la sopraffazione gratuita si rivelano i tratti tipici della natura umana.

L'action se déroule sous la Régence, période aux mœurs débridées succédant à l'austère fin de règne de Louis XIV. Le jeune chevalier des Grieux rencontre une belle adolescente : Manon Lescaut. Une passion irraisonnée naît entre ces deux très jeunes gens. Leur inconséquence et leur candide immoralité vont projeter le couple dans des aventures qui aboutiront à leur déchéance. Eduqué pour un avenir honorable, des Grieux, par passion amoureuse, ne pourra résister aux penchants licencieux de Manon.

"Svegliarsi una mattina e non sapere più se ami ancora la donna che hai vicino, la donna con cui hai costruito una famiglia, una vita. Non sai come sia potuto accadere. Non è stato un evento, una situazione, un tradimento ad allontanarvi. È successo senza esplosione, in silenzio, lentamente, con piccoli, impercettibili passi. Un giorno, guardando l'uno verso l'altra, vi siete trovati ai lati opposti della stanza. Ed è stato difficile perfino crederci". Quello di Marco e Anna sembrava un amore in grado di mantenere le promesse.

Filomena Obrist is in fear for her life. Her new husband is a passionate collector of morbid works of art from Roman antiquity. His magnificent estate on the Moselle River is crammed with grotesque statues, magical paraphernalia, curse tablets, and other eerie artifacts. Philomena suffers strange accidents, is haunted by ghostly apparitions, and her new family hasn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms either. Penny Küfer is hired to protect the frightened woman. But when she reaches the family's mansion, Filomena has just fallen out of a window. Suicide, according to the police … … ...

When London Rose, 33, is proposed to by her longtime boyfriend, she realizes she is facing a stable, predictable, predetermined (and passionless) life. She freaks out and runs the other way, accepting instead a job across the Atlantic, as a tour-guide on a high-end European cruise line that travels through a country a day. London and her crew sail into the beautiful northern city of Oslo, admiring its gorgeous archipelago of islands and its local architecture and cuisine. It is the perfect stop - until, on a fishing outing, London reels in not the local cod, but a dead body.

Noora Nieminen was destined to become a world champion. But when the sixteen-year-old skating sensation is found slain with her own skates, her promising career is unexpectedly cut short. Detective Maria Kallio is seven months pregnant, but that isn't going to stop her from putting everything she has into solving the murder. With a promotion on the line and her arrogant adversary, Pertti Ström, vying for the new job, Maria is determined to make an arrest.

The Salpêtrière asylum, 1885. All of Paris is in thrall to Doctor Charcot and his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad or hysterical, outcasts from society. But the truth is much more complicated - for these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives or strong-willed daughters. Once a year, a grand ball is held at the hospital. For the Parisian elite, the Mad Women's Ball is the highlight of the social season; for the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope.

A delightful anthology of great works by some of Europe's greatest short story writers....

A riveting classic of European literature, this superb collection of fiction and reportage is set in Italy's most vibrant and turbulent metropolis - Naples - in the immediate aftermath of World War II. These writings helped inspire Elena Ferrante's best-selling novels, and she has expressed deep admiration for the author of this volume. Goyaesque in its depiction of the widespread suffering and brutal desperation that plagued the city, it comprises a mix of masterful storytelling and piercing journalism.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake consists of a series of texts written in the style of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own beliefs. Composed between 1790 and 1793, the book makes reference to Milton and Swedenborg, and adopts a device from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost: a visit to hell. Blake expresses a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are both part of the divine order.

G. K. Chesterton was a journalist, playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, literary commentator, editor, orator, artist, and theologian. Orthodoxy is his great apologia for the Christian faith, which was prompted by a serious attack in 1903 against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford.