Books published by Alma Books Ltd

After a failed attempt on his life by an unknown terrorist cell, Professor Daniel Dupont decides to fake his own death. The government authorities, believing that the attack is part of a series of political assassinations, send Wallas, a recently promoted special investigator, to the provincial town where the crime took place. As he wanders the confusing streets of the town, he finds himself increasingly lost in a web of conspiracies, doppelgängers and memories.Cleverly deconstructing the detective genre, The Erasers, Alain Robbe-Grillet's first published novel, shifts between various characters and time frames, while maintaining the suspense of a conventional thriller. The result is an engrossing examination of consciousness and reality which is also one the founding texts of the nouveau roman school.

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 distressed young man murders the woman he loves in a café, watched by a large crowd. Fascinated by the crime she has witnessed, Anne Desbaresdes returns several times to the scene, forming a relationship with a man who also saw the murder, and drinking through the afternoon with him as he patiently answers her eager questions. Slowly, they find themselves being taken over by forces which threaten their own stability.Moderato Cantabile is a carefully woven tapestry of emotion, in which the characters' inner lives are reflected by the story's spaces and landscapes.

In his most famous and perhaps most typical work, Robbe-Grillet explores his principal preoccupation: the meaning of reality. The novel is set on a tropical banana plantation, and the action is seen through the eyes of a narrator who never appears in person, never speaks and never acts. He is a point of observation, his personality only to be guessed at, watching every movement of the other characters' actions as they flash like moving pictures across the distorting screen of a jealous mind.The result is one of the most important and influential books of our time, a completely integrated masterpiece that has already become a classic.

Spurred by a lifelong fascination with the great emperor, French novelist Honore de Balzac set himself the painstaking task of collecting a selection of Napoleon's aphorisms from his public speeches and the gazettes of the time.

A collection of lesser-known early short fiction - ranging from absurd humorous sketches to psychological dramas and tragic tales - which demonstrates Anton Chekhov's mastery of the genre, with stories about marital infidelity, betrayal, deception and love in its various forms.

This collection of Dante Alighieri's "Canzoniere", translated for the first time in its entirety into English, charts his poetic evolution and displays the ground on which his "Vita Nova" and "Divine Comedy" developed.

A story of the siege of a small post office by a group of rebels, who discover to their embarrassment that a female postal clerk, Gertie Girdle, is still in the lavatory some time after they have shot or expelled the rest of the staff.

These hilarious adventures make Queneau's novel, presented in the form of a script and parodying various genres, one of the best literary jeux d'esprit in modern literature.

With a cast of eccentric characters, amusing incidents and an uplifting tone, The Sunday of Life - its title playfully alluding to Hegel's theory of history - is a scintillating novel which showcases Queneau's trademark punning, sly wit and delight in the absurdity of people and situations.

This new edition contains more than 35 illustrations by acclaimed illustrator David Mackintosh and a wealth of extra material.

This new edition of Robinson Crusoe contains more than 21 illustrations by acclaimed illustrator Adam Stower and a wealth of extra material.

This guide contains articles about the historical background to the opera, as well as musical and dramatic commentaries. Further articles deal with the changes in musical performance brought about in recent times by the period practice movement and with the particular uses Mozart makes of recitatives.

Recounts the tribulations of a lecherous local magistrate as he attempts to have his way with the miller's beautiful but devoted wife, with unforeseen and hilarious consequences.

"Secretum" - Petrarch's best-known work in Latin - is a fascinating and pioneering example of the autobiographical genre.

Foscolo ranks among the most famous and enduringly popular poets in Italian literature. This book is here presented in brand new translation English next to Italian.