Photo by jplenio / Pixabay“Acknowledging my illness,” writes Melyssa A. Harmon in Flecks of Red (Nautical Life Press, 2018), “allows me to take emotional ownership of all that comes with it w…
Book Reviews
November 20, 2018
September 18, 2018Background photo by tsauquet / PixabayGenre is the most significant category in which books trade on the literary marketplace. Nonfiction or fiction. Memoir or novel. Literary fiction or romance, horr…
September 11, 2018Photo: Jarle VinesNorway is a country that shows up on the stage of Weltliteratur quite regularly. Henrik Ibsen had to live for more than two decades abroad to find the Archimedean point nece…
August 23, 2018Orientalism is over. The era of our culture, history, and image being constructed, codified, and represented by Western scholars is gone. Today we tell our own stories and are given voice by our own w…
July 24, 2018Aside from romance, horror is perhaps the least globally diverse genre of popular fiction by measure of the authors writing in or translated to English. While film seems to have no trouble making horr…
July 9, 2018Photo of Tracy K. Smith by Rachel Eliza GriffithsReading Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018), US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s fourth book, is an experience unlike any I’ve had bef…
June 6, 2018America has long been at the crossroads of accepting diversity and empire-building. American interactions with diverse peoples have often been less than ideal. During confusing, often unjust, dealings…
May 16, 2018Photo: Zakaria WakramTheologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language. – Meister EckhartWe live in unexemplary times, maddened by fear, murderou…
March 28, 2018Photo of Lea Goldberg and drawing by Goldberg from She’erit HaChayim (1971) / Courtesy of the Gnazim Institute, Hebrew Writers’ AssociationLea Goldberg (1911–1970), one of the most impor…
February 20, 2018Major Jackson / Photo courtesy of the author. Kehinde Wiley’s Morpheus (2008) appears on the cover of Roll DeepMajor Jackson’s latest book of poetry, Roll Deep (Norton,…
January 31, 2018Leïla Slimani / Photo courtesy of FrenchCulture.orgI have barely read any critical pieces on Leïla Slimani’s novel Chanson douce (Gallimard, 2016), winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt in…
January 18, 2018Naomi Klein / Photo by Kourosh Keshiri“It is easier,” Mark Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, “to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalis…
January 17, 2018“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and our aim is to reach the unattainable, the unknown through the “viewless wings of Poesy.” “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” thinks the R…
January 10, 2018Misuzu Kaneko (1903–1930) is a poet who holds a special place in the hearts of many Japanese as a voice of compassion in a difficult time for the country. The recently published Are You an Echo? T…
December 20, 2017Jonas Zdanys is a master lyricist. The bilingual poet (English and Lithuanian) displays his versatile ability with a variety of poetic styles in several recent collections. In Red Stones (201…
October 9, 2017Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), a poetry finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards, contends with the U.S. federal terminologies in relationship to Indigenous people and reins…
September 18, 2017A still from Buñuel’s Un Chien AndalouThe word CAMERA never appears in my scripts. I don’t prepare. I never know what I’m going to do in the next scene.—Luis BuñuelSimply me…
June 28, 2017Mathias Énard / Photo © Marc Melki / Courtesy of New DirectionsThe quickest way to turn someone off from the possibility of reading Mathias Énard’s astounding novel, Compass (New Directions,…
June 7, 2017Biljana Obradović captures the immigrant’s distrust of the permanent in Incognito.Serbian American poet Biljana Obradović has lived in Yugoslavia, Greece, India, and in the US, where…
May 31, 2017Tanure Ojaide / Urhobo Historical SocietyTanure Ojaide seamlessly blends the personal with the political in this volume of verse to paint a compelling portrait of a Nigeria always in transition.…
May 24, 2017Poet John Kinsella inhabits and lends voice to the landscapes around him in Firebreaks. In Firebreaks (Norton, 2016), the title John Kinsella chooses for his twenty-third co…
May 17, 2017Samrat Upadhyay’s newest story collection offers political engagement shot through with humanism and hints of spirituality.Political unrest looms as large in Samrat Upadhyay’s newest collecti…
May 5, 2017Cardoso’s magnum opus offers a glimpse into the hidden world of postwar Brazil’s upper echelon.Editor’s note: When a publisher brings forth a much-needed translation of a class…
May 3, 2017Laurens explores the seductive danger of a digital fountain of youth in this novel about women’s identity and agency in midlife.Technology and gender standards collide in Camille Laurens’s ne…
April 19, 2017Hungarian-born author Magda Szabó lays bare the dangers of settling too deeply into routine as a daughter helps her mother navigate life as a widow.New York Review Books is almost si…
Recent Posts
To view the photo captions, toggle the circled “i” in the upper lefthand corner of the image frame.The following is excerpted, with…
Photo by marco / Adobe Stock
The publication this week of Marayrasu: Stories, by Peruvian author Edgardo Rivera Martínez,…
Still from Bugonia (from IMDB)
Editorial note: The following review contains plot spoilers.1.“Inhuman” is…
Jonas Elbousty
Mohamed Choukri (1935–2003) is considered among the most ambiguous twentieth-century authors in the Arab world due to his bold…
Hélène Dorion / Photo by Maxime G. Delisle / helenedorion.com
Hélène Dorion is a major figure of contemporary French-Canadian literature.…
