The Rivals of Dracula: Stories from the Golden Age of Gothic Horror edited by Nick Rennison (No Exit Press, £9.99)
Many of these stories – including one by long-forgotten Scots writer Hume Nesbit – were published around the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Some, like Nesbit’s, suffer from our over-familiarity with the horror genre and so feel a little predictable, but others retain a larger sense of being on the cusp of a frightening age.
Planet Cuba: Art, Culture and the Future of the Island by Rachel Price (Verso, £19.99)
Now that Cuba’s relationship with the US has changed, Price takes a more forensic look at recent Cuban literature and art to trace the island’s journey from Raul Castro to the present day. A big undertaking, then, and if Price is a little disappointed with literature (“somewhat anemic”), she does praise the global outlook of current artworks.
The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill (Vintage, £7.99)
Hill knows better than anyone how to create an air of suspense. But there’s a danger that, in this more unpleasant mystery featuring her regular investigator Simon Serrailler, the grim reality of child sexual abuse will simply overwhelm. Hill does show bravery, though, by placing her detective right in the heart of it all.
Life From Elsewhere: Journeys Through World Literature With an introduction by Amit Chaudhuri (Pushkin Press, £7.99)
This collection of short essays marks the tenth anniversary of English PEN’s ‘writers in translation’ programme, and not surprisingly, anxiety about both the world and literature’s place in it features heavily. But as Syrian writer Samar Yazbek shows, it’s often through particular experience that we convey the universal and so promote wider understanding.
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