Lucifer Over London: A Guide to the Adopted City

by Saleh Addonia (Contributor), Chloe Aridjis, Vanni Bianconi

London, a city of constant transition, transaction, translation. London does not exist; London is a language without a place and it is the aphasic city; it’s the mother of all languages.

Lucifer Over London is a new anthology nine narrative essays written by a host of international prize-winning authors including Chloe Aridjis, Viola di Grado, Xiaolu Guo, Joanna Walsh and Zinovy Zinik.

First published in Italy by Humboldt Books, Lucifer Over London is now appearing in English for the first time. This is a version of London as seen from the immigrants of recent migrations, of deportations to come, from those who create London even as they contradict it.

Genres: London, Essays, Anthologies

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 12, 2018

Reviews

[Daria Tyuneva · Rating 3 out of 5]

This came across as a rather dull collection and it was certainly challenging to keep going.

[Peter Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another interesting anthology from Influx Press, written by new(ish) arrivals — fly-ins that make our capital buzz and literally keep it ticking over. This is a good companion to another Influx Press anthology, *An Unreliable Guide to London* (2016), which also features Chloe Aridjis; having given my copy to our station library earlier in the year, I rebought it because it also features Chloe Aridjis, who has now led me to double down with Carlos Fuentes.

Stand-outs here are Chloe’s piece, obviously, partly about some of the groundwork for her novels *Asunder* and *Book of Clouds*. Comparing Berlin with London, she finds Berlin more “mysterious”, yet both are “equally layered” — an interesting observation, particularly for the ambiguity of “layered”, as cities are layered in many different ways, from bones to carpets and everything else in between.

Xiaolu Guo’s “Oath to the Queen”, where people from other countries seeking permanent residency have to take an exam that most home birds — certainly me — if asked these questions would gawp ’n blank, but these wood bees need to know about our quirks and quarks in order to stay in the nest, support the Queen and make honey.

Lastly, Viola Di Grado’s “Getting Better”, which lifted me out of my day for several hours — oh, and not forgetting Joanna Walsh’s “Tube”.

The anthology was first published in Italian in Italy in 2018, which is totally weird (same title — well, the subtitle was different: *Guida alla città adottiva*). Anyway, it’s taken him a couple of years to get here, but it’s nice to have you home and amongst us once more — such a blast!

[Juliano · Rating 3 out of 5]

“As the product of several migrations, there will always be a small nomad within me, and a tendency to feel foreign wherever I am.” So writes Chloe Aridjis in ‘World Outlook’, one of the nine narrative essays that comprise Lucifer Over London, an anthology edited by Influx Press, that first appeared in Italian in 2018. Its first essay ‘Oath to the Queen’ sets the tone, Xiaolu Guo considering Britishness, ideology, and ideas of home and assimilation, noting a thought that the “invisibility of ideology was part of the reason why [the English] had this knack for deflecting all direct engagements”. In Viola Di Grado’s ‘Getting Better’, translated by Antony Shugaar, the city offers a new way of thinking about addiction; Zinovy Zinik’s ‘My Private Prime Meridian’ is an exploration of talk and status in Soho spaces. Chloe Aridjis’ aforementioned essay explores history, home and visibility in the city — in its museums and galleries especially — and then, in ‘London, an exercise in learning’, Susana Moreira Marques reflects on personal, often familial growth in the city. There’s an essay on architecture and stairs, ‘The Loveless House’ by Vanni Bianconi, and the unusual photographic essay ‘Hop-On Hop-Off London’ by Wolfgang Lehrner. I very much enjoyed reading Saleh Addonia’s ‘The Film Shop’, its proximity to my Islington home, and Joanna Walsh’s Tube, which declares that London is at once “a matter of approach” and “language, always open to interpretation.”

[Nataly Garofoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucifer Over London moved me. It helped me empathize with immigrants in London and gave me a completely new perspective on the city. I live in Italy and my boyfriend is from London, and I often feel like I don't fully understand what Londoners say or how they behave. This book made me realize that the problem isn’t me—London is a city that contains entire worlds within it, and coming from the outside can leave you feeling constantly disoriented. But there's a strange beauty in that confusion, and this book captures it perfectly

[Rachel Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nine non-fiction (some more non-fictional than others) tales from London by immigrants (Chinese, Italian, Ethiopian, Swiss, Portuguese, Austrian, Brazilian, Russian and, um, non-London British) covering the whole gamut of London life, from taking the British citizenship test, to recovering from addiction in Camden, tube tales of love and longing and unemployment in Islington (not as much fun as it sounds), London's lessons in life, the weather and migration, the architecture of Berthold Lubetkin, Russian dissidence in Soviet times, and the view(s) from an open top bus tour.

Despite the evils of Brexit – the small town/suburban vision foisted on Londoners who didn't vote for it – the city is still the archetypal melting pot with everyone telling their story, all unique, all similar.