SHORT STORIES
Because I Don’t Know What You Mean And What You Don’t
(Canongate £16.99, 208pp)
(Canongate £16.99, 208pp)
There’s a charming conversational トン to these 井戸／弁護士席-観察するd short stories from stand-up comedian Josie Long.
They’re funny, as you’d 推定する／予想する, but they’re also sad and unsettling, unspooling the lives of characters who are at the mercy of mercenary landlords, bad boyfriends and 堅い family 状況／情勢s. The opener, A Good Day, delves into the mind of a teenage girl who’s unhappy with her 団体／死体 and with her stepfather, and is 絶えず worried about what her friends think, even as they 乗る，着手する on witchy rituals to make their lives better.
どこかよそで there’s happiness to be 設立する in the freedom of a bike ride, when everything else is の近くにd in and claustrophobic (Poet’s Rise), while the pin-shar p 2021, 20/21 is fuelled by the 激怒（する）ing realisation that an all-消費するing ‘love’ was, in fact, an abusive 関係.
Human Sacrifices
(Influx 圧力（をかける） £9.99, 95pp)
by Maria Fernanda Ampuero, translated by フランs Riddle
(Influx 圧力（をかける） £9.99, 95pp)
Dark and 乱すing, the characters 占領する a shadowy place where the 脅し of 暴力／激しさ is ever 現在の and the world is eerie, disconcerting and horrific. Ampuero is a stylish writer, but her stories are dangerous whirlpools, dragging the reader into their deadly undertow.
Here, an undocumented woman is held 人質 by a man who has a drawer 十分な of パスポートs and locks of hair from 行方不明の 移民，移住（する） women (Biography); and a loving marriage 速く turns abusive, the disbelieving wife realising that she has become ‘one of those women who can be 述べるd using words like 乱打するd, 強姦d, 乱用d, 殺人d’ (Lorena).
どこかよそで
(Faber £12.99, 336pp)
This English language debut of acclaimed Chinese author Yan Ge is beguilingly 変化させるd. The nine nuanced stories are 始める，決める across centuries ― from modern-day Ireland to the 古代の world ― but the characters are all at the mercy of 誤解s, jealousies and bad memories.
Communication, miscommunication and the space in between are at their heart, an 激烈な／緊急の insight into how language can fail and 滞る in the 直面する of 異なるing experiences and emotions.
A 蜜柑 陰謀（を企てる）s to 避ける 暗殺 while entertaining the man sent to kill him (When Travelling In The Summer); a woman grieving after a miscarriage and dreaming of home comes to 条件 with her new life in Dublin (狙撃 An Elephant); and in the superb Hai, 計画／陰謀ing Confucius scholars 支援する-を刺す, squabble and abandon 倫理学 for personal 伸び（る）.
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