New York. Columbia University Press. 2023. 289 pages.
The risk of misunderstanding looms in Puppet Flower: A Novel of 1867 Formosa, Yao-Chang Chen’s second historical novel of five a…
FICTION
New York. Open Letter. 2023. 173 pages. From acclaimed Spanish writer Sara Mesa, Un Amor is a slim, provocative novel about love—adoring and reverential, tempestuous and pernicious.…
Edinburgh. Charco Press. 2024. 202 pages. Looking at the contents page of The Dark Side of Skin for the first time, I was drawn to the title of the book’s third section, “Back to St…
New York. HarperVia. 2023. 144 pages. In her first novel to be translated into English, Ia Genberg delivers a lesson on how to effectively tackle the primordial questions about human…
New York. HarperVia. 2024. 304 pages. The sufferings of the Ukrainian people are not just a matter for our evening news. Conquerors have rolled over the area from before the Scythian…
New York. Mariner Books. 2024. 400 pages. Paul Theroux’s Burma Sahib opens with a breeze-rumpled view of young Eric Blair, standing on the bow deck of the Herefordsh…
New York. Archipelago Books. 2024. 485 pages. Sixty-eight-year-old Paulina Chiziane doesn’t write for your approval but rather to protect the sanctity of her people’s memories. She d…
New York. Mulholland Books. 2024. 325 pages. A major distinction between the classic or English mysteries, most popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and the hard-boiled American or noir c…
New York. Overlook Press. 2024. 308 pages. Katya Apekina’s Mother Doll is the strange, visceral story of Zhenia, a Russian American living in Los Angeles, whose marriage crumbles aft…
New York. Penguin Random House. 2024. 142 pages. En agosto nos vemos is Gabriel García Márquez’s long-awaited posthumous novella, published ten years after the author’s death in 2014…
New York. Knopf. 2024. 352 pages. “My mom died for nothing. . . . My dad died anonymous after spending decades cleaning chicken shit on some corporate farm. I want my…
Beijing. Beijing October Literature & Art Publishing House. 2023. 320 pages. Fan Yusu’s literary journey transcends a mere tale of personal transformation; it represents a challe…
New York. Other Press. 2023. 352 pages. The thirteen exemplary character-driven stories in Chilean author Antonio Skármeta’s The Names of the Things That Were There, curated by Juan…
New York. W. W. Norton. 2024. 304 pages. Old King is basically a novel about two very different men, Duane Oshun and Ted Kaczynski, mostly about the former. The novel opens with Duan…
New York. Clarion Books. 2023. 240 pages. As a career evangelist for cross-reading, that magical practice in which adults allow themselves to gleefully devour books that are supposed…
New York. Knopf. 2023. 272 pages. The definition of a literary-minded author, Joyce Carole Oates has achieved greatness throughout her illustrious career and holds a special place am…
Edinburgh. Charco Press. 2023. 165 pages. The third of Martín Kohan’s novels translated into English, Confession is bookended by scenes from the life of one Mirta López, as narrated…
Dallas. Deep Vellum. 2023. 425 pages. Oksana Lutsyshyna’s Ivan and Phoebe tells the story of Ukraine’s early independence through the eyes of a disillusioned romantic from the…
Sheffield, UK. And Other Stories. 2023. 128 pages. If “childhood is another country” (as Saint-Exupéry suggested), few writers have mapped its topography, culture, and hidden cave sy…
New Haven. Yale University Press. 2023. 376 pages. Norman Manea’s Exiled Shadow comprises literary, philosophical, psychological, and metaphysical commentaries, memo…
Hamilton, Ontario. Stelliform Press. 2023. 99 pages. Six recovered paintings of Mi’kmaw landscape artist Rita Francis serve as a framework for Tiffany Morris’s debut eco-horror novel…
Berlin. Kanon. 2023. 287 pages. As a former resident of Berlin, I was thrilled to see Tim Staffel’s Südstern, billed as the great Berlin novel, nominated for the 2023 German Book Pri…
New Haven. Yale University Press. 2024. 144 pages. A ruptured coming-of-age story, or an assemblage of retrospective fragments, Chronicles of a Village is narrated by an unnamed nati…
New York. Europa Editions. 2024. 288 pages. Your sister knows you from before you have mastered the art of performance. That makes her dangerous, for she alone has seen you at your m…
Madrid. Alfaguara. 2023. 312 pages. In Le dedico mi silencio, Mario Vargas Llosa returns to his native Peru to tell the story of Toño Azpilcueta, a schoolteache…