Euronews Culture Book Club: Four picks for April

Brilliant new works expected to be released this month include "Days of Light", the latest novel from Megan Hunter, whose book "The End We Start From" was adapted into a Jodie Comer film last year.

There's also a new non-fiction book from lawyer-author Philippe Sands, author of "East West Street", who now turns his shrewd historical eye to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in "38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia".

Fiction: "Vanishing World" by Sayaka Murata, translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori

The queen of surreal Japanese fiction returns with a near-future tale where all children are born by artificial insemination and sex has become a social taboo. Japanese author Sayaka Murata’s upcoming new novel "Vanishing World" brings the Yorgos Lanthimos-styled conceit and takes it to a thrilling new place.

At the centre is Amane, who is unique as the child of parents who still believe in making babies the old-fashioned way. As Amane is torn between following her parents’ example and falling in line with society, she is drawn to a mysterious social experiment living space, called Paradise-Eden. There, she embraces a new way of life where everyone is considered a Mother to all children, men use artificial wombs, and children are nameless.

Murata has been a successful writer in Japan for over 20 years with her taboo-challenging work. It was only 2018 when her novel "Convenience Store Woman" was translated into English that Europe discovered her talents.

"Convenience Store Woman" borrowed from Murata’s own experiences as a part-time clerk for 18 years to create a unique literary character of an introvert who shuns the career and social expectations of Japanese society. "Vanishing World" was first published in Japan in 2015 and this is its first English translation from Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Non-fiction: "Matriarch: A Memoir" by Tina Knowles

What does it take to parent young Black women in Texas during the 20th century? Tina Knowles has knowledge in spades as she didn’t just raise any girls, she raised the two powerhouse musical icons Beyoncé and Solange Knowles.

American businesswoman Tina Knowles bares it all in a new memoir that takes us back to her birth in Galveston, Texas, in 1954. As the youngest of seven, Knowles’ story is of a bold young woman who grew up to the sounds of Motown and facing the barriers to her race and sex that the US forced upon her.

Despite this, "Matriarch" shows Knowles at her most powerful, succeeding in beautify, hair and fashion industries. At the same time, her memoir navigates grief, heartbreak and tragedy. All of this created the woman who raised two of the world’s biggest superstars today.

This is an essential read for any Beyoncé fan, but more than that, it’s an expansive peek into the multigenerational saga behind one of pop culture’s most fascinating families.

Food for thought: "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner

Last month, American indie pop band Japanese Breakfast released their fourth album ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’. It’s another entry of shoegaze-inflected melodious pop from frontwoman Michelle Zauner.

If you’re looking for the perfect soundtrack to enjoy the new album, look no further than Zauner’s memoir of matriarchal grief – wow, we’ve really got a theme this month – "Crying in H Mart". Published in 2021, it retells Zauner’s childhood and her experience losing her mother to cancer in her 20s.

More than just a portrait of her mother’s death, "Crying in H Mart" is also an insight into the complexities of being a third-culture kid, born to a Korean mother and American father to be raised in the US. Zauner straddles the two cultures and engages mostly with Korea through her difficult relationship with her mother and the food she makes.

Expect to salivate over the endless descriptions of sumptuous Korean delicacies before tearing up when Zauner spares no punches describing the processes of end-of-life care.

Revisit this classic: "The Waste Land and other poems" by T.S. Eliot

“April is the cruellest month”, T.S. Eliot opens his epic poem "The Waste Land". Okay, so technically Eliot actually opens up his vast masterpiece with a Latin/Greek dedication to Ezra Pound before a section title “I. The Burial of the Dead”.

But you can’t blame me for wanting to put one of the greatest modernist poems in our April classics recommendations just for that opening line alone. Published in 1922, Eliot’s "The Waste Land" stands alongside his modernist peers James Joyce and Virginia Woolf with this rivetingly complex work that alludes to the greats of the literary canon while carving itself into it.

Eliot’s skill is to capture so much of the human experience within the confines of his verse. It may be a 434-line poem, but his ability to breathe myriad life into concepts as broad as love, decay, religion and war make it seem crammed to the brim. If you have the patience for it, "The Waste Land" is a life-altering work of genius.

For a bit of extra reading on Eliot, I’d also highly recommend Anthony Julius’ book "T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form". Julius creates a remarkable analysis of Eliot’s poetry that uncovers the deep-seeded antisemitism at the heart of the man, while juggling the conundrum of recognising his masterful poetic abilities.