Looking at the work of three writers—Han Kang, Mariana Enríquez, and Margaret Atwood—Catalina Infante Beovic finds stories that allow readers to freely exorcize the fears inherent to our times.
October 09, 2025
“Because genuineness constantly eludes the characters, questioning where reality lies, Y entonces Teresa is one of the most brilliantly controlled novels I’ve read.”
September is World Kid Lit Month, a time to step beyond our familiar reading borders and explore horizons new. Here are four middle-grade novels and a picture book from five continents: a globe-trotting tour of recent publications to enjoy as a family or add breadth to your children’s bookshelves.
What do the best book reviews do? What is the current state of the critical ecosystem? Chicago Review of Books founder Adam Morgan takes stock of book reviewing in the US.
Eight reviewers in search of an author . . . or themselves.
“When the hand writes / it becomes clear there’s a narrator / who thinks while invoking,” from “Fail Better,” by Anna Gual (trans. AKaiser)
“The tents become lilies / sleeping on sadness / and pale moans,” from “The Grain of Our Hearts,” by Donia Al Amal Ismael (trans. Omnia Amin)
“Every time we lay claim to something, we fall into the yarns of loss. Don’t let the pretense of ownership run away with you,” from a poem by Marie Lundquist (trans. Miriam Åkervall)
Death Takes a Holiday (an excerpt)
Crime novel reviewer Florence (Florrie) Granat takes a bus tour through 1950s Italy. When one of her travel companions dies, she decides to investigate whether it really was natural causes.
Es and Is
A writer faces a surprising request: to write a negative review.
Beach Penguins
“Things about the world that we learn at school: Penguins inhabit icescapes, they live closely packed together.”
The owner of a small, independent press considers the role of book reviews in getting books into readers’ hands.
A longtime publisher of books in translation—and reviewer of translations who reads some one hundred translations a year—offers some best practices for reviewing literary translations.
Myth lives on in Central Asia, but it has changed shape. Through multimedia projects, audiences become participants in rituals rather than mere participants, and multimedia artists create myth anew.
“Where the Reader Can Be Warned”: 7 Questions for George Gömöri
An interview with George Gömöri, a reviewer who has contributed to WLT for more than sixty years.
“Finding Affinities”: 8 Questions for Alice-Catherine Carls
An interview with Alice-Catherine Carls, an internationally published diplomatic and cultural historian of twentieth-century Europe, a translator, and a literary critic.
Doubt and Interpretation in Someone Like Us: A Conversation with Dinaw Mengestu
An interview with Dinaw Mengestu, whose latest novel Someone Like Us, is both “mystery and meditation” that “challenges [the] dominant narrative with a multiplicity of stories.”
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