Lindy Burleigh
Lindy Burleigh on a covey of first novels
Former bond trader Alex Preston’s quietly ambitious debut, This Bleeding City, tackles the recent financial crisis from an insider’s perspective. His novel follows the fortunes of a group of university friends who are lured into working in the City by the big bonuses on offer. Like his narrator Charlie Wales (a nod to Scott Fitzgerald, that great chronicler of boom and bust), a trader in a Mayfair hedge fund, Preston was at the heart of it all when the markets crashed.
For those of us who don’t know our derivatives from our sub-primes, Preston’s rendering of the arcane world of high finance makes gripping reading, and affords disturbing insights into the way in which the market is driven by greed, ego and an excess of adrenalin; ultimately it’s ‘just
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Intellect and sensuality commingle in most, whether they are about a recalcitrant schoolgirl or an ice princess.'
@MirandaFrance1 reviews 'Medusa's Ankles', a new selection of A S Byatt's short fiction.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/expect-the-unexpected
'What they created in the neighbourhood resembled more a distillation of the High German culture of their past than a fresh start.'
@GeorgeProchnik tells the story of the German–Jewish intellectuals who settled in Jerusalem in the early 20th century.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/vienna-by-temple-mount
'Good translation is ... a refined art. It requires not just excellent language skills, but experience, emotional intelligence and enterprise as well.'
@Bridget_Kendall on how interpreters navigate the 'perilous waters of diplomacy'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/to-put-it-diplomatically