Reading around the world this month features new releases and updated classics, taking in folklore, international fantasy, dark comedy and biography. An interior designer stumbles into a medieval parallel world; David Bowie finds reinvention in Cold War Berlin; pre-modern Icelandic legends come to life; a homecoming turns into a chaotic murder mystery; and a timely biography unveils Cold War machinations behind the Congolese struggle for independence.
Air by Christian Kracht Tr. Daniel Bowles
From the author of International Booker-nominated cult sensation Eurotrash
“In his new novel — as stylistically compelling as ever — Christian Kracht takes the creation of a literary puzzle to the extreme. It is a mystery, as elusive as its title: Air. The plot moves between northern Europe and a medieval-seeming fantasy world. Paul, a Swiss interior designer, lives on the Scottish Orkney Islands with a one-eyed cat. There, he receives a commission: he is to paint in “perfect white” the halls of a massive data centre in Stavanger, Norway. The storage facility symbolises the fragility of human knowledge in the digital realm. As Paul inspects the space, he is caught in a solar flare and finds himself transported to a pre-industrial world where, because of his knowledge of inventions such as paper and glasses for reading, he is seen as a magician. The narrative unfolds in a diffuse and fantastical manner. Together with a young orphan, Paul embarks on an epic heroic journey that evokes Arthurian legend. But in which world does Paul eventually wake up?” Goethe.de/Rosinenpicker, The Literature Blog
Heroes – David Bowie and Berlin by Tobias Rüther Tr. Anthony Mathews
Tobias Rüther’s comprehensive portrait details David Bowie’s creative and personal reinvention in West Berlin, where he fled in 1976 from Los Angeles to escape drug addiction and psychological collapse. Praised by reviewers for its thorough research and fluid, ironic prose, Rüther’s narrative goes beyond typical celebrity biography to weave in rich contextual layers; Bowie’s time in Berlin was about more than producing new music. Set against the backdrop of a divided Cold War metropolis establishing its new role in Germany and the world, the book examines the environment that birthed Bowie’s ground-breaking Berlin Trilogy alongside collaborators Iggy Pop, Brian Eno and Tony Visconti. Bowie started to paint again and would cycle to the Die Brucke museum as well as explore the nightlife of the city; its wild side and gay scene. He also became close friends with Romy Haag. At Hansa Studios near the Berlin Wall, Bowie recorded ‘Heroes’. And he landed the part of a Prussian aristocrat in Just a Gigolo, starring alongside Marlene Dietrich. While some critics suggest that the author’s expansive vignettes are a distraction from Bowie’s immediate daily life, the work illuminates both a brilliant artist and a pivotal moment in twentieth-century cultural history.
Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends edited & translated by Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir
According to the Times Literary Supplement review of this intriguing anthology, pre-modern Iceland was a dark, gloomy place. The windowless, airless, turf-and-driftwood houses and harsh winters fostered a deep belief in the supernatural, blending the otherworldly with everyday rural life. Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir gathers nineteenth-century legends, when Iceland was under Danish rule, though unlike the Grimms’ roughly contemporaneous fairy tales from Germany, they tend to be tied to specific locations or landscape features since Icelandic national identity was deeply embedded in the local environment. Elfin workers, vengeful sea creatures and petrified trolls are enmeshed with specific local landforms. Organized topographically from the farm to the wilderness, the dark, the church, the ocean and the shore, the collection captures the raw anxieties and rich imagination of an isolated society of farmers and fishermen.
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The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves by Juan Pablo Villalobos Tr. Daniel Hahn
Juan Pablo Villalobos’s fast-paced, dark, comic thriller blends autofiction with a chaotic whodunit. When JP moves back to his hometown of Lagos de Moreno, Mexico, to care for his ageing mother, a feeble bar punch thrown at a childhood friend spirals out of control after the friend turns up dead, leaving JP facing an accusation of murder. Set against the ruthless, modern realities of local fraud and extortion, the novel balances laugh-out-loud hilarity with tender reflections on familial guilt and homecomings. Praised by the Financial Times as being “vividly drawn, darkly amusing and never dull” and described by The Times Literary Supplement as being a “combustible mixture” of self-portraiture and personal reminiscence, this exuberant and entertaining novel offers a perfect summer escape from the endlessly grim world news and op-eds.
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Lumumba by Leo Zeilig
Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) became an icon of anti-imperialist struggle after his assassination, having served as prime minister of the newly liberated Congo for only seven months. As news of his death spread, his picture was brandished at demonstrations in capitals around the world alongside those of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong.
Zeilig traces Lumumba’s personal evolution, showing how a young postal clerk who initially believed in the possibility of reform under Belgian rule became an unyielding voice against imperial exploitation. The 1960 Congo crisis established how Western powers covertly retain control over post-independence Africa. Intelligence agencies (including the CIA, Belgian intelligence and Britain’s MI6) colluded with local elites to get rid of a democratically elected leader who demanded economic independence. His life and his vision for a genuinely sovereign Congo make him a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, exposing both the brutality of ongoing Western influence and the fragile nature of African independence after World War Two.
This updated edition pulls back the curtain on newly-released British intelligence archives, offering fresh insights into the Cold War power-plays that doomed early Congolese democracy. It illustrates how internal political fractures were weaponised internationally to gain access to the region’s immense natural wealth (copper, cobalt, uranium). The current conflict and ongoing exploitation of resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo stem from this 1960-61 rupture. Unanswered questions about resource ownership and true sovereignty continue to impact the Global South today.
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