A Stranger in the Sunday Times

Wed 22 Apr 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

When I was a kid my dad liked getting a whole stack of Sunday newspapers — which was easier in early years in Ayrshire than in later years in Argyll. Walking, or occasionally biking, a mile down to pick up the Times, Observer, and Sunday Post(!) at the hotel once they’d arrived off the ferry wasn’t always a joy but the memories of afternoons reading those papers does mean teenage me gets a spark of joy to see Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria in Jessie Lethaby’s “guide to great classic fantasy novels” in the London Sunday Times: 

Jevick is born on an insignificant island off the coast of Olondria, a land he has grown up listening to stories about. As the son of a merchant he is afforded a good education and eventually the chance to visit this place of his dreams. When he arrives he loses himself in the pleasures of cosmopolitan life after his backwater upbringing, but is ultimately drawn to the ghost of a girl from home, taking him across Olondria into its stranger and more disquieting corners. Sofia Samatar’s writing is unearthly and strange as she fully immerses you in her world, but she also plays with the reader’s expectations of what a hero’s journey should look like. In her emphasis on the magic of the written word and her utterly believable world-building, you can see echoes of Le Guin.