May 2020
Haiku and Suicidal Thoughts Haunt a Trip Across Japan in Marion Poschmann’s “The Pine Islands”
Reviewed by Max Radwin
In this unsettling novel, shortlisted for the 2019 International Man Booker Prize and just published in the US, an academic expert on the history of beards in cinema reads Bashō and tries to help a stranger find the perfect spot to kill himself.
Close-Up: An Experiment in Reviewing Translation
Reviewed by Words Without Borders
How should we review works in translation?
Family Life is Just Another Name for Tragedy in María Fernanda Ampuero’s “Cockfight”
Reviewed by Lily Meyer
This collection of stories by the Ecuadorean writer and journalist depicts episodes of abuse in a way that may not be exactly enjoyable to read, but feels urgent, gripping, and smart.
April 2020
In Matéi Visniec’s “Mr. K Released,” an Inmate Chooses Prison Over Freedom
Reviewed by Benjamin Woodard
Originally published in 2010, this funny, if faintly scattershot, novel relies on a Kafkaesque allegory to reconsider Romania’s late-1980s transition to democracy after decades of Communist rule.
Fernanda Melchor’s “Hurricane Season”: A Literary Triumph on the Failures of Mexican Modernization
Reviewed by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
A murder mystery, told through the thoughts and voices of the inhabitants of a small town in Veracruz, lays bare the shattered hopes of a community hit by rampant violence and economic austerity, as Melchor draws on disparate traditions (from crime fiction to García Márquez novels) to create a masterpiece that is very much her own.
March 2020
Monika Zgustova Collects Women’s Stories from the Gulag in “Dressed for a Dance in the Snow”
Reviewed by Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild
A volume of interviews with survivors of the detention camps first created by Lenin in 1918 documents harrowing abuses against dissidents and minorities that extend to present-day Russia.
February 2020
Rodaan Al Galidi Gives a Mordant Account of a Long Wait for Asylum in “Two Blankets, Three Sheets”
Reviewed by Matt Hanson
At once funny and bleak, this novel by the Iraq-born Dutch novelist draws on his personal experiences to expose the cruel and often absurd procedural challenges that immigrants must endure.
January 2020
A Balkan Road Trip Leads to a Reckoning with the Past in Olja Savičević‘s “Singer in the Night”
Reviewed by Hannah Weber
A successful soap-opera writer struggling with memory loss sets off on a quest to find her vanished first husband in this new book by the Croatian novelist, poet, and playwright.
Zeruya Shalev Connects Private Woes with Political Strife in “Pain”
Reviewed by Yael Halevi-Wise
The trauma of a terrorist attack and the disillusion of unrequited love haunt the protagonist of a new novel by the Israeli author, in whose work the past usually returns to impinge upon the present, clamoring for repair.
December 2019
“Space Invaders,” by Nona Fernández, Looks Back at the Unspoken Terrors of Pinochet’s Chile
Reviewed by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
A remarkable novel about the traces left by the Chilean dictatorship in the lives of children explores the tension between the unsaid and shreds of remembrance that acquire outsize importance when the reader connects the dots.
November 2019
Writing From Elsewhere: A Timely Anthology Collects Tales of Displacement and Resettlement
Reviewed by Hannah Weber
Edited by Dohra Ahmad, The Penguin Book of Migration Literature puts together a challenging and insightful collection that attempts to reveal the myriad ways of experiencing human movement across nations and cultures.
October 2019
“Me & Other Writing” Shows Marguerite Duras’ Recurring Exploration of Lifelong Obsessions
Reviewed by Allison Grimaldi-Donahue
Spanning thirty years, the essays selected and translated by Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes range from meditations on reading and writing to personal pieces bordering on autofiction.
A Poignant Memoir by Naja Marie Aidt Grapples with the Trauma of a Tragic Death
Reviewed by Nataliya Deleva
The Danish writer creates a meta-text of mourning as she grieves the loss of her son in "When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back: Carl’s Book."
Huzama Habayeb Challenges Myths of Motherhood and Exile in “Velvet”
Reviewed by M. Lynx Qualey
Distinguished with the 2017 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this multi-generational novel confronts traditional taboos to tell a late-in-life love story between two Palestinian refugees living in Jordan’s Baqa’a camp.
September 2019
A Family Drama Unfolds in Silence in Linda Boström Knausgård’s “Welcome to America”
Reviewed by Deborah Bragan-Turner
A Stockholm apartment where two children live with their mother is the main setting for this book, an intimate portrait of a family in crisis that won the prestigious Swedish August Prize and has been described as a chamber play.
Wang Anyi’s “Fu Ping”: An Ode to Ordinary People
Reviewed by Benjamin Woodard
In Fu Ping, one of Wang Anyi’s great feats is her ability to eschew narrative conventions and usher the background players to the fore.
August 2019
Nabarun Bhattacharya Conjures Ghosts of Revolutionary Dreams in His Masterful Novel “Harbart”
Reviewed by Arka Chattopadhyay
Conversations with the dead bring up explosive memories of Communist insurgency in this cult classic of Indian literature.
July 2019
Sparse, Monochrome Scenes in Selva Almada’s Debut Create a Believable and Powerfully Visual World
Reviewed by Frances Riddle and Mariano Vespa
With The Wind That Lays Waste, Almada may have invented an entirely new literary genre, something that could be called Southern Cone Gothic.
“Lisbon Tales” Captures Various Angles of Portugal’s Capital, with a Focus on Salazar’s Dictatorship
Reviewed by David Frier
A new anthology collects a wide range of writing inspired by the Portuguese city, from Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago to authors from former colonies like Kalaf Angelo and Orlanda Amarílis, but it leaves out some key short-story writers.
Lives and Deaths Imagined: A Review of Gabriela Ybarra’s “The Dinner Guest”
Reviewed by Craig Epplin
The Spanish author and Man Booker International nominee elides the distance between novel and memoir in a book that confronts the killing of her grandfather by the ETA and her mother's death from cancer.