Books published by Pushkin Press

A bestselling and internationally-acclaimed masterpiece of the locked-room mystery genreJapan, 1936. An old eccentric artist living with seven women has been found dead- in a room locked from the inside. His diaries reveal alchemy, astrology and a complicated plan to kill all seven women. Shortly afterwards, the plan is carried out: the women are found dismembered and buried across rural Japan. By 1979, these Tokyo Zodiac Murders have been obsessing a nation for decades, but not one of them has been solved. A mystery-obsessed illustrator and a talented astrologer set off around the country - and you follow, carrying the enigma of the Zodiac murderer through madness, missed leads and magic tricks. You have all the clues, but can you solve the mystery before they do? Born in 1948 in Hiroshima prefecture, Soji Shimada has been dubbed the 'God of Mystery' by international audiences. A novelist, essayist and short-story writer, he made his literary debut in 1981 with The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which was shortlisted for the Edogawa Rampo Prize. Blending classical detective fiction with grisly violence and elements of the occult, he has gone on to publish several highly acclaimed series of mystery fiction, including the casebooks of Kiyoshi Mitarai and Takeshi Yoshiki. In 2009 Shimada received the prestigious Japan Mystery Literature Award in recognition of his life's work.

A highly contagious book virus, a literary society and a Snow Queen-like disappearing author 'She came to realise that under one reality there's always another. And another one under that.' Only very special people are chosen by children's author Laura White to join 'The Society', an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back. Now a tenth member has been selected: Ella, literature teacher and possessor of beautifully curving lips. But soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual, 'The Game'? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura's winter party, in a whirlwind of snow? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves? Was there once another tenth member, before her? Slowly, disturbing secrets that had been buried come to light... In this chilling, darkly funny novel, the uncanny brushes up against the everyday in the most beguiling and unexpected of ways.

A darkly hilarious tale of a model family's disintegration. Professor Siem Sigerius - maths genius, jazz lover, judo champion, Renaissance man. When Aaron meets his girlfriend Joni's family for the first time, her multitalented father could hardly be a more intimidating figure, but somehow the underachieving photographer manages to bluff his way to a friendship with the paterfamilias. With his feet under the table at the beautiful Sigerius farmhouse, Aaron feels part of the family. A perfect family. Until, that is, things start to go wrong in a very big way. A cataclysmic explosion in a firework factory, the advent of internet pornography, the reappearance of a forgotten murderer and a jet-black wig-all play a role in the spectacular fragmentation of the Sigerius clan... and of Aaron's fragile psyche. "e;Great European art: the Dutchman Peter Buwalda explodes the bourgeois family saga. The narrative pyrotechnics alone are a tour de force."e; Die Zeit "e;Peter Buwalda's impressive family saga is a genuine page-turner, with a forceful, precise style. The author races with unstoppable speed towards the finish, without getting entangled in the numerous gripping narrative strands, without even steering out of the curve."e; Libris-Prize Jury Report, 2011 "e;Buwalda's debut novel [is] daring in its linguistic power and freedom, and impressive, even frightening, in its psychological sharpness and precision ... great and outrageous."e; Frankfurter Rundschau

A young secular writer's journey along ancient religious pilgrimage routes in Spain, Japan and the Ukraine leads to a surprise family reconciliation in this literary memoirGideon Lewis-Kraus arrived in free-spirited Berlin from San Francisco as a young writer in search of a place to enjoy life to the fullest, and to forget the pain his father, a gay rabbi, had caused his family when he came out in middle age and emotionally abandoned his sons. But Berlin offers only unfocused dissipation, frustration and anxiety; to find what he is looking for (though he's not quite sure what it is), Gideon undertakes three separate ancient pilgrimages, travelling hundreds of miles: the thousand-year old Camino de Santiago in Spain with a friend, a solo circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku, and finally, with his father and brother, a migration to the tomb of a famous Hassidic mystic in the Ukraine. It is on this last pilgrimage that Gideon reconnects with his father, and discovers that the most difficult and meaningful quest of all was the journey of his heart. A beautifully written, throught-provoking, and very moving meditation on what gives our lives a sense of purpose, and how we travel between past and present in search of hope for our future.Gideon Lewis-Kraushas written for numerous US publications, includingHarper's,The Believer,The New York TimesBook Review,Los Angeles TimesBook Review,Slate, and others. A 2007-08 Fulbright scholarship brought him to Berlin, a hotbed of contemporary restlessness where he conceived this book. He now lives in New York, but continues to find himself frequently on the road to other places."e;Beautiful, often very funny... a story that is both searching and purposeful, one that forces the reader, like the pilgrim, to value the journey as much as the destination."e;New Yorker"e;Gideon Lewis-Kraus has written a very honest, very smart, very moving book about being young and rootless and even wayward. With great compassion and zeal he gets at the question: why search the world to solve the riddle of your own heart?"e; Dave Eggers"e;If David Foster Wallace had writtenEat, Pray, Loveit might have come close to approximating the adventures of Gideon Lewis-Kraus"e; Gary Shteyngart

Close to the Machine, Ellen Ullman's cult classic memoir of the world of computers in the 1980s and early 1990s is an insight into a world we rarely see up-close but which permeates all of our lives ever more deeply. Includes a new introduction by Jaron Lanier, author of You are Not a Gadget (Penguin).

In 1913 a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance -- his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope.Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayalof both honour and love, realised against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

A novel of philosophy and love, politics and waltzes, history and the here-and-now, Andres Neuman's Traveller of the Century is a journey into the soul of Europe, penned by one of the most exciting South-American writers of our time.A traveller stops off for the night in the mysterious city of Wandernburg. He intends to leave the following day, but the city begins to ensnare him with its strange, shifting geography. When Hans befriends an old organ grinder, and falls in love with Sophie, the daughter of a local merchant, he finds it impossible to leave. Through a series of memorable encounters with starkly different characters, Neuman takes the reader on a hypothetical journey back into post-Napoleonic Europe, subtly evoking its parallels with our modern era. At the heart of the novel lies the love story between Sophie and Hans. They are both translators, and between dictionaries and bed, bed and dictionaries,they gradually build up their own fragile common language. Through their relationship Neuman explores the idea that all love is an act of translation, and that all translation is an act of love.'A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart' Juan Gabriel Vasquez, GuardianAndres Neuman (b.1977) was born in Buenos Aires and later moved to Granada, Spain. Selected as one of Granta magazine's Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, Neuman was included in the Hay Festival's Bogota 39 list. He has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. He received the Hiperion Prize for Poetry for El tobogan, and Traveller of the Century won the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize in 2009.

A side-splittingly funny coming-of-age novel set in the Japan of the sixties, Ryu Murakami's novel is an unusually funny and autobiographical book from an author known for his darkly violent and cynical side. Being young in the 1960s is the same in Japan as everywhere. This is a personal but profound insight into a much wider upheaval in society.

Separated for nine years by the First World War Ludwig has finally returned home to meet the woman he so passionately loved, and who had promised to wait for him. But circumstances have changed ... Confronted with an uncertain future, and still haunted by the past, together they will discover whether their love has survived hardships, betrayals, and the lapse of time. Zweig's long-lost final novella-recently discovered in manuscript form-is a poignant examination of the angst of nostalgia and the fragility of love.

"First published in French as La Pelouse in 1952"--Title page verso.

An ambitious, epic dystopian novel - part political thriller and part satire.

"One doesn't step into anyone's life, not even a dead man's, without having to live it to the end."A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered ... Twice filmed, I Was Jack Mortimer is a darkly captivating and twisting tale of misappropriated identity.

Winner of the European Book Prize "e;The East isn't far away at all. It clings to me, it goes with me everywhere. It's like a big family that you can't shake off ..."e; "e;Tender, acute and utterly absorbing"e; Anna Funder, author of Stasiland "e;A wry and unheroic witness... an unofficial history of a country that no longer exists"e; Julian Barnes Growing up in East Berlin, Maxim Leo knew not to ask questions. All he knew was that his rebellious parents, Wolf and Anne, with their dyed hair, leather jackets and insistence he call them by their first names, were a bit embarrassing. That there were some places you couldn't play; certain things you didn't say. Now, married with two children and the Wall a distant memory, Maxim decides to find the answers to the questions he couldn't ask. Why did his parents, once passionately in love, grow apart? Why did his father become so angry, and his mother quit her career in journalism? And why did his grandfather Gerhard, the Socialist war hero, turn into a stranger? The story he unearths is, like his country's past, one of hopes, lies, cruelties, betrayals but also love. In Red Love he captures, with warmth and unflinching honesty, why so many dreamed the GDR would be a new world and why, in the end, it fell apart. "e;Tender, acute and utterly absorbing. In fine portraits of his family members Leo takes us through three generations of his family, showing how they adopt, reject and survive the fierce, uplifting and ultimately catastrophic ideologies of 20th-century Europe. We are taken on an intimate journey from the exhilaration and extreme courage of the French Resistance to the uncomfortable moral accommodations of passive resistance in the GDR. "e;He describes these 'ordinary lies' and contradictions, and the way human beings have to negotiate their way through them, with great clarity, humour and truthfulness, for which the jury of the European Book Prize is delighted to honour Red Love . His personal memoir serves as an unofficial history of a country that no longer exists... He is a wry and unheroic witness to the distorting impact - sometimes frightening, sometimes merely absurd - that ideology has upon the daily life of the individual: citizens only allowed to dance in couples, journalists unable to mention car tyres or washing machines for reasons of state."e; Julian Barnes, European Book Prize With wonderful insight Leo shows how the human need to believe and to belong to a cause greater than ourselves can inspire a person to acts of heroism, but can then ossify into loyalty to a cause that long ago betrayed its people."e; Anna Funder, author of Stasiland "e;Heartbreaking... This very personal account allows us to better understand the reality of a kafkaesque regime, and the blindness of its elite that allowed it to survive for so long."e; La Tribune "e;The great charm of this book, about the gradual disintegration of the GDR, lies in the level-headed but loving attitude with which it investigates the interweaving of the private and political [in Communist East Germany], revisiting a child's-eye view of the era."e; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "e;A crucial book ... poignant ... a tragedy reminiscent of the great narrative poets, Dostoevsky or Koestler. Maxim Leo has earned his place alongside them."e; Sud Ouest "e;A lyrical story about a family in a divided city"e; Hamburger Abendblatt Maxim Leo was born in 1970 in East Berlin. He studied Political Science at the Free University in Berlin and at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. Since 1997 he is Editor of the Berliner Zeitung . In 2002 he was nominated for the Egon-Erwin-Kisch Prize, and in the same year won the German-French Journalism Prize. He won the Theodor Wolff Prize in 2006. He lives in Berlin.