Books published by Skomlin

The old man Sage taught Maurice Farinet many things and one of them was the location of a secret vein of gold. After Sage died, Farinet began to make coins. This story commences with Farinet's second escape from prison, hiding from the police in his beloved mountains, aided and abetted by the locals, in particular the waitress Josephine. It was she who smuggled file and rope into prison for him. But the law closes in and Farinet understands he cannot stay an outlaw forever. When a local offical brings him an offer from the government - to turn himself in and serve just six months Farinet has to consider. Based on a true story, Ramuz tells an extraordinary tale of mountains and villages, of independence and the price of freedom.

A mountain falls down and an alpine village is frozen in its summer state. When a ghostly figure appears beyond the last house, the villagers are terrorised. Is it a soul trapped in limbo, come to make his baleful complaint? Only one of them recognises him as a survivor, her husband in flesh and blood. The village rejoices, but when the survivor declares his intention to return beneath the rubble, the old doubts resurface. Swiss writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz sets his masterful tale of love and loss against the tectonic indifference of the high Alps.

Jean-Michel Olivier's novel, L'Enfant secret, winner of the Swiss Dentan prize, is a profound exploration of those secrets we all inherit as part of our DNA. It is a foray into the hidden deeds and misdeeds of our ancestors about which we know little but sometimes discover through the inadvertent confession of a distant cousin or a box of photos.The Secret Child narrator attributes his becoming an artist to life experiences inherited from his grandparents. Set in Trieste during its transition from Austrian to Italian rule after WWI, the narrative includes cameo appearances by James and Nora Joyce, Ezra Pound and Vladimir Nabokov. But the central episodes of this memoir-novella concern Olivier's maternal grandfather, né Anton Buchacher, who transforms himself into Antonio Campofaggi, and whose artful photographic images help metamorphose Benito Mussolini into Il Duce. Oliver's own impressionistic "images" are a self-conscious anagram/metaphor for "magic," which equally epitomizes the translator's feat of legerdemain in rendering the author's lyrical style in English-a challenge Laurence Moscato meets with remarkable success

The City of the Discreet is set in the traditional Andalusia of the 19th century. This gentle parody with its vast gallery of characters demonstrates Baroja's powers of description and his subtle humour. The description of his Cordova and its environs are an invaluable guide to a recent but now, lost city.

Turgenev's iconic tale of love and mortality, set in 19th century Tsarist Russia, is a skillfully written sad story of heartache and unrequited love. It is also is one of literature's finest portraits of alienation, loss and hopelessness.