After a European election with a surge for the UK Independence Party that showed just how xenophobic the English are prepared to be, a counterblast is being staged at the London Review Bookshop with a “More Bloody Foreigners” event scheduled for June 11th, featuring four continental European crime writers – Poland’s Mariusz Czubaj, Bosnian Andrej Nikolaidis, and Italians Marco Malvaldi and Ben Pastor – supported by their publishers Bitter Lemon Press, Europa Editions, Istros Books, Maclehose Press, and Stork Press, and the Polish Cultural Institute in London.
“Located in the heart of Bloomsbury, just a Rosetta Stone’s throw from the British Museum,” and “opened in 2003 by the London Review of Books,” the London Review Bookshop acts as the venue for a regular series of events, many of them featuring international writers. “The event is free but places are limited,” the organizers’ blurb states. Given an apparent jump in translated fiction sales in 2014, this could be an especially timely event.
“Tell me about your crimes and I’ll tell you about your society,” says the “More Bloody Foreigners” blurb. Looks like English society is guilty of bigotry, insecurity, ignorance, and hypocrisy for sure, judging by the criminal disgrace of the UKIP election win.
The British have issues with foreigners ever since the Romans showed up.