The BookBlast® Translation Book Club meets in person on the second Monday of each month, hosted by Georgia de Chamberet, at Hatchards, Piccadilly, to discuss works of fiction in English translation published in the last ten years.

Hear special guest at our December translation book club, Frank Wynne, translator of The National Telepathy by Roque Larraquy (Charco Press, 2025). A heavyweight translator of contemporary French and Spanish literature, he has worked with  authors Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Frédéric Beigbeder, Virginie Despentes, Pierre Lemaitre and Jean-Patrick Manchette among many others. He has received many translation prizes and is frequently been shortlisted.

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | Edited by Gemma Jackson | A BookBlast® Production | 00:28:22

Elena Knows, Claudia Piñeiro translated by Frances Riddle, out with Charco Press, discussed at the BookBlast® Translation Book Club, Hatchards, Piccadilly, London, in person with the author and her publisher. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022. 

Elena Knows explores themes of illness, the influence of the Catholic Church, the mother-daughter relationship, and the oppressive social expectations placed on women.

The narrative unfolds through Elena's internal monologue after her daughter is found hanging in the belfry of the church. She refuses to believe that her daughter committed suicide as she never went near the church. Her interactions with Father Juan, Inspector Avellaneda and Dr Benegas leave her feel unheard and frustrated, exacerbated as her Parkinson's disease progresses.

The discussion also covers some of Piñeiro’s other novels and fiction in Argentina.  

With simultaneous translation from the Spanish by Carolina Orloff from Charco Press.

35 minutes  #podcast #bookclub

Fathers and Fugitives by S. J. Naude translated by Michiel Heyns, out with Europa Editions, discussed at the BookBlast® Translation Book Club, Hatchards, Piccadilly, London. 

Fathers and Fugitives follows Daniel, a gay journalist in London, who becomes involved with a Serbian couple after meeting them at the Tate Modern. What begins as a casual, sexually charged relationship evolves into a one-sided financial arrangement. The pair suddenly vanishes then reappears the trio embark on a strange trip across Europe, ending with a tragic event in Belgrade.

The second part of the novel shifts to South Africa, where Daniel cares for his dying father. He will inherit his father’s estate under the condition that he spends time with his cousin, Theon, on his isolated farm in the Free state. The narrative closes on an unexpected twist. A beautifully written, bleak exploration of loneliness and loss, Fathers and Fugitives is an odd and illuminating read.

21 minutes  #podcast #bookclub

Record of a Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Lucy North, published by Pushkin Press discussed at the BookBlast® Translation Book Club, Hatchards, Piccadilly, London. 

Record of a Night Too Brief is a collection of three surreal novellas imbued with a particular kind of magical realism that veer at times into the absurd, creating a tapestry of strange poetic imagery, episodes of bizarre shape-shifting, time warps, and a resonant exploration of identity, love, loss. What is real? What is a dream? The boundaries are blurred.

The discussion includes insights about the art of translation by Nicky Harman, translator from the Chinese, and Aneesa Higgins, translator from the French.

In April 2025, Hiromi Kawakami's novel, Under the Eye of the Big Bird, translated by Asa Yoneda, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025.

A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare translated by John Hodgson discussed at the BookBlast® Translation Book Club, Hatchards, Piccadilly

Ismail Kadare, the renowned Albanian novelist and poet, navigated the oppressive environment of communist Albania under dictator Enver Hoxha. This unusual book is based around Stalin’s alleged three-minute telephone call to Boris Pasternak. The discussion examined the relationship between dictators and writers, the power of fear and the game of divide and rule and everyone playing off each other, Osip Mandelstam and the gulag, Stalin’s purges of the intelligentsia, whether Stalin favoured Pasternak the way Lenin favoured Gorky, Putin’s regime today, Anna Politkovskaya and censorship, methods of eliminating those who speak out against a dictator, and more.

The discussion includes insights from publisher Christopher MacLehose.

Clara Reads Proust by Stephane Carlier translated by Polly Mackintosh discussed at the BookBlast Translation Book Club, Hatchards, Piccadilly.

Set in part in a hairdresser's salon in regional France this engaging novel about how Proust changes Clara's life answers many questions including: Why read Proust?; how can a book change your life?; the beauty of Proust's descriptions; Proust and Ernaux as observers of the zeitgeist; what lies behind the image; Proust suffering from the Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome and its impact; Proust's sexuality; Gallimard's publication in 2021 of never-before-published work by Proust; differences and parallels between the reading cultures of England and France; Proust: A Family Novel by Laure Murat, and more.

The BookBlast® Translation Book Club meets in person on the second Monday of each month, hosted by Georgia de Chamberet, at Hatchards, Piccadilly, to discuss works of fiction in translation published in the last ten years. Georgia and Hatchards’ booksellers, choose well-written, engaging storytelling to inspire reading for pleasure as well as illuminating cultures from around the world.

Hear our special guest at the October BookBlast® Translation Book Club, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, co-editor and translator of Warsaw Tales (OUP 2024). She is best-known for translating Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk. Hear highlights of Antonia's presentation and illuminating comments from book club members.

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | A BookBlast® Production

Pour célébrer la parution du livre 'Une femme, deux hommes Lesley Blanch, Théodore Kommissarzhevsky et Romain Gary' à la Maison de Balzac, Paris, le Mercredi 5 Juin 2024, Simon Bentolila de Lire Magazine a discuté avec Georgia de Chamberet, de la vie et des amours de Lesley Blanch (1904-2007). Femme libre et autonome, artiste complète et grande voyageuse, elle n’en était pas moins totalement dévouée aux deux hommes de sa vie, le dramaturge Théodore Kommissarzhevsky et l’écrivain Romain Gary, dont elle fut le première épouse.

"Il faudrait toujours chercher la femme exceptionnelle qui se cache derrière l'oeuvre d'un grand homme," Journal de Dimanche

A BookBlast® Production 

Georgia de Chamberet at BookBlast® is delighted to interview Sian Williams, the visionary founder of the Children’s Bookshow. Discover how this much loved and hugely popular national tour of writers and illustrators of children’s literature first began and who will be on tour this autumn.

Michael Rosen: “The Children’s Bookshow takes children’s authors to meet tens of thousands of children, introducing children to how and why writers write, illustrators illustrate. They give children insights into how they too can transform thoughts and feelings into words and pictures. This is not simply a matter of it being enjoyable, it’s a necessary part of what we understand by the word ‘education’.”

Presented by Georgia de Chamberet | A BookBlast® Production

Episode number 47

Prize-winning essayist, novelist, poet and academic, Abdourahman Waberi in conversation with Georgia de Chamberet about the events and cultures that have inspired him. Born in 1965 in Djibouti, he left his homeland for France in 1985 where he studied English at the University of Caen. He did a degree in English at the University of Dijon where he wrote a thesis on the work of the Somali novelist, Nuruddin Farah. In 2008 he moved to America. Since 2012 he is professor of Francophone literature at George Washington University.

Following on from the release of his first book – a short story collection called Le Pays Sans Ombre, Land Without Shadows – he has had 6 novels, 3 short story anthologies, 3 volumes of poetry and 2 essay collections published, and a great many articles. The recipient of numerous awards, he was recently named one of the “50 Writers of the Future” by LIRE magazine.

Abdourahman Waberi discusses his childhood in a deprived neighbourhood of Djibouti, a pocket-sized but strategically important African nation near the Suez Canal. He remembers the pains of growing up with polio, how he kept strong in the face of merciless bullying at school, and his love of storytelling. He talks about life in France and North America, how writers Annie Ernaux and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o inspire him, and more. So tune in!

Produced by BookBlast