Frances Riddle
Books by Frances Riddle
“Elena Knows is a day in the life of a woman with advanced Parkinson’s disease. Technically it’s a crime novel, a thriller—of sorts. It’s about a woman whose daughter has died recently, and wrapped up by the police who have said that it’s a straightforward suicide. But Elena knows that it’s not, because she knows that her daughter would never have gone near the church when it was raining, because she was terrified of lightening, and there was a lightning rod on the church, and so on, and so on. But actually, Elena Knows is an extraordinarily beautiful and harrowing description of aging and disability. Everything that happens in it happens to the rhythm of the pills she needs to take, every time she needs to stop and sit down, to pause on her way to get to the metro or the church. So, in fact, as a book, it is much closer to something like Elizabeth is Missing or Olive Kitteridge than a crime novel.” Read more...
The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist
Frank Wynne, Translator
Interviews where books by Frances Riddle were recommended
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1
Tomb of Sand
by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell -
2
Cursed Bunny
by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur -
3
A New Name: Septology VI-VII
by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls -
4
Heaven
by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd -
5
The Books of Jacob: A Novel
by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft -
6
Elena Knows
by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle
The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Frank Wynne
The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Frank Wynne
The International Booker Prize celebrates the best fiction in translation published over the previous year. Frank Wynne, acclaimed translator and chair of the 2022 judging panel, tells Five Books about the six novels that made the shortlist, and reminds readers that world literature need not be tough, consumed only in the interests of self-improvement—but is often joyful, surprising and full of feeling.
