The treasure chest

Sample

Gunter Grass

Based loosely on Grimm's The Fisherman and his Wife, this triumphant blend of folk tale and contemporary story takes place over the course of nine months, during which the wife of the narrator becomes pregnant and is regaled with tales of the various cooks the fisherman has met throughout his life. The emerging themes of the novel expose the periods when men made history and women's contributions went largely, in some cases gravely, unrecognized. Inventive, imaginitive and irreverent, this humorous, fundamentally brilliant novel highlights the value of modern-day myth and timeless legend.

Sample

Henryk Sienkiewicz

In a new translation by Miroslaw Lipinski, The Little Trilogy contains everything readers have come to expect of the celebrated Sienkiewicz - charming and alluring characters, romance, heartbreak, action and adventure, humor and bravery. Set against the breathtaking panorama of the Polish countryside and the French wilderness, The Little Trilogy follows the volatile friendship between Selim Mirza, a Polonized Tartar, and Henryk, a character based on Sienkiewicz himself. These close friends share confidences and dreams, court the same beautiful girl, and ultimately fight side by side in the Franco-Prussian War in an army unit full of dangerous ruffians and bandits. At each turn there are the possibilities of glorious death or victorious life, eternal love or melancholic despair. On each page there is full evidence of Sienkiewicz's mastery at character delineation and exciting narrative. And behind it all is the perceptiveness of an author who was able to reveal, with both insight and compassion, the timeless truths that inform the human soul.

Sample

Alberto Moravia

This story depicts a mother desperately struggling to shield her daughter from the horrors of World War 2, in this truly heartbreaking cinematic tragedy.

Sample

Juan Pablo Villalobos

Long before he was the taco seller whose 'Gringo Dog' recipe made him famous throughout Mexico City, our hero was an aspiring artist: an artist, that is, till his would-be girlfriend was stolen by Diego Rivera, and his dreams snuffed out by his hypochondriac mother. Now our hero is resident in a retirement home, where fending off boredom is far more grueling than making tacos. Plagued by the literary salon that bumps about his building's lobby and haunted by the self-pitying ghost of a neglected artist, Villalobos's old man can't help but misbehave: he antagonises his neighbors, tortures American missionaries with passages from Adorno, and flirts with the revolutionary greengrocer.