Recently the European Literature Network published The Swiss Riveter, a compendium of writing about contemporary fiction, poetry and memoir from Switzerland. It contains essays on Swiss literature’s richness and diversity, as well as reviews and extracts, including an exclusive English excerpt of Peter Stamm’s The Gentle Indifference of the World (to be published this year in Michael Hoffman’s translation) and an essay by Swiss-British writer Alain de Botton.
My review of Pascale Kramer’s Autopsy of a Father (Bellevue Literary Press, 2017) appears on pp. 56-57. Kramer won the Grand Prix Suisse de Littérature in 2017 for her oeuvre. Autopsy of a Father is a powerful novel for our times: it tackles xenophobia, racism and nationalism. You can access the review here.
The European Literature Network promotes literature in translation. The Swiss Riveter was produced with support from Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, the Embassy of Switzerland in the UK, Arts Council England and ELit Literature House Europe. Sections of it are now available also in digital form here.
This is the fifth of the European Literature Network’s Riveters. The first was devoted to literature from Poland, on the occasion of the 2017 London Book Fair’s Polish focus. The second, on literature from Russia, coincided with ELNet’s Russian events at the British Library. In The Nordic Riveter of October 2017, five countries were represented: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. The fourth covered the Baltics, the focus of the 2018 London Book Fair.
Image credits:
Images courtesy of The European Literature Network.
Valeria Vescina 