Other Literatures

When an ageing, poverty-stricken nobleman decides to style himself “Don Quixote” and embark upon a series of daring endeavours, it is clear that his ability to distinguish between the fantasy world of literary romance and day-to-day reality has...
By: Miguel De Cervantes

Introduction by Tibor Fischer Although he is now mostly remembered as a novelist, it is as a poet and translator of poetry that Sándor Márai – the acclaimed author of Embers and Conversations in Bolzano – first made his name in the literary world....
By: Sándor Márai

By writing what he called a “secret book” – taking the shape of a conversation between himself and St Augustine – Petrarch aimed to compose a cathartic text which would alleviate his spiritual crisis and help him make further inroads towards...
By: Petrarch

Documenting the colourful escapades of the former gladiator Encolpius and his less than faithful lover Giton, the Satyricon plunges the reader into the lives of ordinary Roman citizens, vividly revealing the Empire’s seamy underbelly. A host of...
By: Petronius Arbiter

This collection of short stories, previously unpublished in English, displays the disturbing and evocative force of Hedayat's writing, and confirms his place in the literary canon. They depict a world of revelation, uncanny similarity, grotesquery...
By: Sadeq Hedayat

Originally written in Persian, The Blind Owl is predominantly a love story, an unconventional love story that elicits visions and nightmare reveries from the depths of the reader's subconscious. A young man, an old man and a beautiful young girl...
By: Sadeq Hedayat

Based on a famous Spanish folk tale and set in rural Andalusia, The Three-Cornered Hat recounts the tribulations of a lecherous local magistrate as he attempts to have his way with the miller's beautiful and devoted wife, with unforeseen and...
By: Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

The goddess Folly gives a speech, praising herself and explaining how much humanity benefits from her services, from politicians to philosophers, aristocrats, schoolteachers, poets, lawyers, theologians, monarchs and the clergy. At the same time,...
By: Erasmus