Ismail Kadare: AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER (4/5)

Well, Agamemnon's Daughter has very little to do with one of Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigenia. A very weak connection was made about the sacrifice of a father to a daughter- on one to calm the winds which would have big impact on winning an impending war and on another to protect one's political carreer.

The book contains a novella and two stories. More than the novella, Agamemnon's daughter, the most compelling read is the first story, The Blinding Order. It is about a decree to blind people who are afflicted with evil powers. It discussed the effects of a doltish decree in a dictatorial, cruel regime and the panic it caused to people.

Not the best Kadare book, but compelling just the same.

Imre Kertesz: LIQUIDATION (5/5)

' El delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido (Man's greatest crime is to be born)'
---- Calderon

A metafiction, an unforgetable work from the Nobel laureate for literature, full of great sentences that summed up what it was all about:

'To rebel is to stay alive.'

'The great insubordination is for us to live our lives to the end''

'It was easier to hate than to love, and love for losers was hate.'

Arnost Lustig: WAITING FOR LEAH (5/5)

Without melodrama, without overt manipulation, Arnost Lustig painted the pathos of how it was to be so young in a situation beyond one's control, squeezed by an unfathomable historical maelstrom, so forceful and unescapable: Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I felt very sad after reading this work, one great contribution to the growing collection of holocaust literature.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: LEAF STORM AND OTHER STORIES (4/5)

You can sense that there is a Sophoclean tone in Leaf Storm, as you can hear echoes from Antigone. It is a well-written novella about the town's decision not to bury the remains of a very unpopular doctor. Along the way, all recriminations have been splayed out to explain their collective anger. Unfortunately, while Leaf Storm is superb, all the other stories in the collection are forgetable.