literature in translation – What Cathy Read Next…

About the Book

Book cover of French Windows by Antoine Laurain

Nathalia, a young photographer, is seeing a therapist. Having accidentally photographed a murder, she finds that she can no longer do her job.

Instead, Doctor Faber suggests that she write about the people she observes in the building opposite. Starting with the actor turned YouTube life coach on the ground floor and going all the way up to the fifth floor, Nathalia creates vivid accounts of the lives of each of her neighbours. Are her stories real or imaginary?

With each session, the doctor and his mysterious patient will get closer to the truth. But as they approach the final floor of the building, Nathalia’s stories take a truly deadly turn . . .

Format: Hardcover (208 pages) Publisher: Gallic Books
Publication date: 6th June 2024 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery

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My Review

In my eyes, a new book by Antoine Laurain is always cause for celebration because you can be sure you’ll be entertained in fine style. I was first introduced to his writing when I read The President’s Hat in 2016, which I described as ‘quirky, humorous and charming’. I found The Reader’s Room (2020) equally entertaining and I loved Red Is My Heart (2022), a collaboration with artist Le Sonneur.

French Windows pays an obvious homage to the 1954 film Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on a short story by American author, Cornell Woolrich, but has a deliciously French flavour and displays the author’s trademark wit. As well as being a clever mystery, the accounts Dr Faber encourages Natalie to write describing the lives of the occupants of the apartment building across from her own are wonderful ‘stories within a story’, little snapshots if you’ll pardon the pun of other lives. Something the individuals have in common is change in their lives, in some cases prompted by quite inconsequential things such as a computer screensaver.

Dr Faber has his own little quirks. For example, his passion for collecting passepartout keys (keys that can open any door in a building), perhaps seeing a parallel with his role as a therapist. He regards smoking as akin to an art form, proudly recalling how he acquired the skill of smoking a cigarette ‘hands-free’ and describes himself as ‘a very gifted smoker’. He cannot imagine life without a cigarette, all previous attempts to give up – at the urging of his wife – having failed. But he finds pleasure even in the failed attempts, relishing the ‘special joy’ of each ‘tender reunion’.

From feeling he is control of their therapy sessions, Faber finds himself increasingly compelled to discover whether the stories Nathalie brings him are works of imagination or true. It now seems to be her controlling him as he waits expectantly for her to deliver the next story. When the final one arrives, he gets more than he bargained for.

Even if you’ve worked some of it out before that point, perhaps inspired by the title of one of the author’s previous books, French Windows is still a wonderfully quirky and entertaining read.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Gallic Books. French Windows is book 1 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

In three words: Clever, stylish, witty
Try something similar: Watch Rear Window (1954)

About the Author

Antoine Laurain is the award-winning author of novels including The Red Notebook and The President’s Hat. His books have been translated into 25 languages and sold more than 250,000 copies in English. He lives in Paris. (Photo: Publisher author page)

Connect with Antoine
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About the Book

Book cover of Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek

Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole – is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn’t there … While trying to understand the extent of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety.

Through rich vignettes of Ali’s memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage.

Format: ebook (150 pages) Publisher: World Editions
Publication date: 6th February 2024 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Translated Literature

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My Review

In my review of Planet of Clay, Samar Yazbek’s previous novel set in war-torn Damascus, I noted that the book’s narrator, a young girl called Rima, has a very different view of the world from those around her. She senses things in colours, expressing the things she experiences through drawings rather than in words. Ali, the protagonist of Where the Wind Calls Home, also sees the world differently having formed from early in his life an intense relationship with nature, particularly trees. ‘Trees were simple, unlike people.’

As a boy, one particular oak tree became his sanctuary, a place from which he observed the clouds, and the mountains that surrounded his village. As he lingers between life and death, injured – probably fatally – by a bomb dropped in error on its own soldiers, his sole objective becomes to reach a nearby tree in search of that familiar sanctuary. He sees the tree’s presence as a sign that it will take care of him, that it is no coincidence he finds himself close to it.

Hallucinating because of his injuries, he relives moments from his life: the death of his brother, an arduous trek to a shrine with his mother Nahla, a visit to the palace of a local chief whose lavish lifestyle demonstrates how power and wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a few. These episodes give an insight into life in a rural village whose peaceful, albeit harsh, existence has been transformed by war: its menfolk killed leaving grieving families without fathers, sons, brothers.

Although any loss of life in war is devastating, it seems particularly tragic that a gentle soul like Ali, who harboured ambitions to follow a religious life, should be caught up in a violent conflict – ‘one of the many wars that humans are so busy inventing’. In fact, as we learn, his involvement results from an act of sacrifice. Ali recalls his mother’s anguish at not being able to view the body of Ali’s brother, so devastating were his injuries, and is determined she not should not suffer in the same way again. ‘Ali reflected that even if he didn’t survive, at the very least, he had to keep this promise to himself: to make sure his body stayed whole, so Nahla could see it and say goodbye to him…’

Where the Winds Calls Home has a dreamlike quality as Ali’s thoughts move, often imperceptibly, between past and present. There is striking imagery, particularly the presence of a mysterious ‘Other’ whose movements seem to mirror Ali’s own struggles to achieve his objective. It’s a heartbreaking story of the destructive impact of war and a reminder that seemingly intractable conflicts persist in many parts of the world.

My thanks to Christine at World Editions for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

In three words: Lyrical, moving, powerful
Try something similar: Held by Anne Michaels

About the Author

Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer, novelist, and journalist. She was born in Jableh in 1970 and studied literature before beginning her career as a journalist and a scriptwriter for Syrian television and film. Her novel Planet of Clay, also published by World Editions, was a finalist for the National Book Award and longlisted for the Warwick Women in Translation Prize. Her accounts of the Syrian conflict include A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution and The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria. Yazbek’s work has been translated into multiple languages and has been recognized with numerous awards – notably, the French Best Foreign Book Award and the PEN-Oxfam Novib, PEN Tucholsky, and PEN Pinter awards. She was recently selected to be part of the International Writers Program with the Royal Society of Literature.

About the Translator

Leri Price is an award-winning literary translator of contemporary Arabic fiction. She has twice been a Finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, in 2021 for her translations of Samar Yazbek’s Planet of Clay, and in 2019 for Khaled Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work. Her translation of Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work also won the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.