The first novel I ever read in Spanish was his. El amor en los tiempos des colera. It was before I even took a Spanish class and the fact that I understood what I was reading, as if by a…
As a french and spanish litterature major living in Bucharest, going to the Institut Français or French Cultural Institute was an invaluable step in my personal growth. The institute would organise live readings of French authors followed by an informal…
One of the most poetic writers of the contemporary French litterary scene, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt has a rich and sensitive univers that transpires through every one of his books. Translated all over the world, he has known fame through novels and…
If you want the moon, do not hide from the night.If you want a rose, do not run from the thorns.If you want love, do not run from yourself. Rumi There’s a specific kind of restlessness that settles in when…
The land of the Rising Sun… So many pictures come to mind while saying that. It very often feels like I could never fully understand a civilisation so different than mine. But every once in a while, a book comes…
There where white houses covered in the scrags of last year’s vines and decked with bright geraniums and bougainvillea; mules were ploughing; boiler-suited growers were bent bum-up amid perfect lines of vegetables; a palm tree shaded the road where hens…
Chinese stories… we each have our own, and I’m guessing it’s mostly a remix of clichés we picked up along the way. But every once in a while, we cross paths with a book or a movie that makes us…
If someone could guarantee my safe passage through the Amazon jungle, I would go in a heartbeat. But since that’s rather unlikely, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder has become the closest I’ve gotten to that extraordinary, frightening, life-altering experience. This…
Today we are setting sail for the hypnotic Ibis Trilogy of Amitav Ghosh, with Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire. We begin in Calcutta – India , in the first half of the 19th century, as…
