Sometimes it feels like authors are in a race to see who can write the longest novel. In the age of Christmas market doorstoppers it can come as a relief to encounter a novella. You don't see novellas in the new releases list much anymore, but one this year has burst onto the bookstore shelves and shows that if you can tell one story well, the readers will come. I Wish, I Wish by Zirk Van Den Berg is set in mortuary centred around a mortician who has slowly forgotten how to live. The novella was written in English, originally published in Afrikaans and then republished in New Zealand in English by Cuba Press.