Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated by Sophie Hughes (4th Estate, £16.99)
There’s no hanging about in Chilean author Alia Trabucco Zerán’s third novel, which opens with images of rabbits being frightened to death, life-threatening fungus, a piglet killed – and the warning that in the end, “the girl dies”. Our narrator is Estela (“I’ve killed before”), who worked as a nanny to a wealthy couple – doctor, lawyer – and “the girl” is their daughter Julia. Estela appears to be under questioning by police, held in a room and talking directly to “you who’ll eventually pass judgment on me”. Her story proceeds at pace, building its depth from an accumulation of small details: the family’s cruelty to her; the father’s shocking way of teaching Julia to swim; the secret behind the household maid. A strong narrative energy drives the novel to its conclusion, by which time the atmosphere is so full of dread you could weigh it.
Comrade Papa by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose, £12)
This funny, ebullient, often chaotic tale of French colonial exploitation of Ivory Coast tells two alternating stories. In the late 19th century, a young man joins a colonial expedition, caught between self-styled “Negrophiles” and “Negrophobes” – who disagree on everything except their shared loathing of the British – as he experiences his own bumpy personal voyage of discovery. Meanwhile, a century later, a European Black boy gives an account, filled with comic malapropisms (“lumpy proletariat”), of his own trip to Ivory Coast, and his upbringing by his communist father – Comrade Papa – who rails against everything from tulips (markers of capitalism) to Philips lightbulbs (made by fascist collaborators). Ivorian author GauZ’ was shortlisted for the International Booker prize for his novel Standing Heavy. Comrade Papa is even better.
