How to Feed a Dictator by Witold Szabłowski is the result of the author’s travels across the world to track down and interview the personal chefs of dictators known for the oppression and massacre of their own citizens: Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot.
The New York Times describes the book as “dishy, deliciously readable, and dead serious.” It is to be published by Penguin in April, in a translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
The other book on the NYT list is Szczepan Twardoch’s novel The King of Warsaw. It is set shortly before the outbreak of World War II.
Its main protagonist is boxer Jakub Szapiro, who is revered as a hero of the Jewish community in the Polish capital. With fascism on the rise, however, the tide is changing for him.
The King of Warsaw is Twardoch’s first book translated into English. It is to be published in April by Amazon Crossing, in a translation by Sean Gaspar Bye.
(mk/pk)