Other People’s Pleasure
By Quynh Tran
Other People’s Pleasure is a novel about a mother and a daughter, about violence and desire, and about the longing for the unknown that waits around the corner.
“He knew nothing and she knew everything; she could already see it in her mind, how she would break his heart, but not yet.”.
Lana hasn’t had a boyfriend in six months. The memory of that spring night, when she and her friends were stalked, throbs in her head, and a raw anger sweeps over her. Now she’s wary of everyone. Even her mum, Maggie - what kind of name is that?
Maggie is preoccupied with her work at the Japanese salon in Lund, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. She and Lana are about to move to a bigger apartment - Maggie struggles to afford the deposit, while old memories come flooding back: the Vietnamese rainy season and the first lover, the sugar cane leaves that scratched her skin; the man she married instead, who brought her to Sweden. The dreams of a nice little life.
READING MATERIAL
Swedish edition & PDF
Sample translation 30 pp.
Synopsis
Publishing information
Reviews
“He has skilfully avoided the clichés and drawn contradictory portraits that challenge the reader's expectations and expose the limitations of our ability to see.”
“Tran more than succeeds in portraying the thoughts and traumas of two different generations. Not only through the flowing and stylistically dense prose, but also by putting the reader in a trance by depicting the everyday mood.
“It is with astonishing accuracy that he appropriates the idioms of both the mother and the sixteen-year-old daughter, with extra plus for having channelled a teenager's taste in music.”
“A pleasurable experience to once again enter Quynh Tran's literary world.”
“With Other People’s Pleasure, the difficult second book, he fulfils the promises of his incomparable debut novel”
“Quynh Tran is a writer of moods, where soft chords are occasionally broken by violent outbursts in what could be an ordinary youth novel, but is not.”
“The sharp psychological portraits make the novel a page-turner - proof of a mature authorship.”
“Quynh Tran is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting authors in the Nordic countries right now.”
