Every year begins in expectation and, for readers, that optimism is often engendered by the books they hope to read. While the media tends to focus on a small band of UK writers, there are other exciting publications already scheduled for the year ahead.
Already published (in a handsome slip case edition) in January is Roberto Bolano’s The Third Reich, an earlier novel of his which was only released after his death. While Bolano’s place in world literature continues to be debated, any new volume is to be welcomed. Penguin Modern Classics also published two of Elias Canetti’s books towards the end of the month, the pick for me being Kafka’s Other Trial, an exploration of the letters Kafka wrote to his fiancée, Felice.
The same imprint also brings us Hans Fallada’s A Small Circus in February, building on the success of Alone in Berlin and once again translated by the wonderful Michael Hofmann. This earlier novel is set in 1929 and reflects the political turbulence of Germany at the time. The aftermath of the Second World War is explored in Dasa Drndic’s Trieste – I know nothing about this writer but I am intrigued by the novel’s description as being ‘like no other’.
March sees a new Cesar Aira, Varamo, from New Directions – always a good thing. This month’s treat from Penguin Classics is The Gold Rimmed Spectacles by Giorgio Bassani set in Italy in the 1930s. Anyone looking for anything a little different might try Harlequin’s Millions by Bohumil Hrabal published by Archipelago Books and set in an old folks’ home.
Briefly venturing into the mainstream in April, I must admit to looking forward to Peter Carey’s latest novel, The Chemistry of Tears, a double narrative centred on the reconstruction of a 19th century automaton.
May sees two other UK novels by writers who are always interesting. Adam Thorpe’s Flight is unfortunately described as ‘his most commercial yet’, but for a writer who has never settled on one particular type of novel this is perhaps not as bad as it sounds, a thriller about a pilot on the run from his past. Alan Warner’s The Deadman’s Pedal suggests a return to his earlier, more surreal style after The Stars in the Bright Sky. May also sees a new novel Ismail Kadare from Canongate, The Fall of the Stone City, set during the German invasion of Albania in 1943.
In June we will be able to read the one translated novel that has been generally noticed this year, Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt. Llosa’s political novels tend to be better than his relationship ones, and this fictional biography of the Irish revolutionary, Roger Casemont, has the potential to be as good as The Feast of the Goat. June will also see Enrique Vila-Matas’ James Joyce novel, Dublinesque –as usual with Vila-Matas, it is difficult to know what to expect.
Finally, in July, we find new novels from two individualists, James Kelman (Mo Said She Was Quirky) and Nicola Barker (The Yips). Barker presents her usual quirky cast of characters in what is described as a ‘state of the nation’ novel (for the nation in 2006); Kelman gives us twenty four hours in the life of an ordinary woman. And there is another dark fable from one of my favourite writers, Philippe Claudel, in The Investigation.
Most exciting of all, of course, is that great novel that we have yet to hear of, the one we will come across by chance or recommendation, and love more than any other.
Tags: new books 2012
