18 - Pauls Bankovskis

Whilst visiting their country home a family discovers a mysterious digital camera in their dead grandfather's overcoat. The camera contains pictures that he couldn't possibly have taken, many of them at impossible angles and containing a ghost-like figure. Nearly a century earlier, amidst the chaos wrought by the Russian Revolution, a Latvian soldier deserts his post and travels the country by foot, recording his many strange experiences in a small journal. The backdrop of this novel is a pivotal moment in Latvian history, however, its scope is much broader. It presents a wonderful exploration of what it means to be human, and the ways in which civilisation's many products can alienate us from the natural world and from ourselves, and simultaneously drive us back into nature's embrace.