Frank Wynne, tr. New York. Bloomsbury. 2015. ISBN 9781620402245 Boualem Sansal dedicates this novel to illegal immigration. The term harraga is an Arabism that literally means “path…
FICTION
Artarmon, New South Wales. Giramondo. 2014. ISBN 9781922146533A Million Windows is whimsical fiction, nearly satirical. In its delivery of a sustained monologue, the novel evokes Nabokov’s Hu…
Portland, Oregon. Tin House Books. 2014. ISBN 9781935639817Highly regarded as an influential writer and critic in the world of independent music, Sean Michaels writes his first full-length work o…
Susan Bernofsky, tr. New York. W.W. Norton. 2014. ISBN 9780393347098“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed into a gigantic insect.” This is how generations…
Michael F. Moore, tr. New York. Other Press. 2014. ISBN 9781590516812 There are books that become a part of us as we read them, books we return to again and again. There are also books that we re…
Doral, Florida. Alfaguara. 2014. ISBN 9781622639403 Jorge Franco studied filmmaking before turning his talents to fiction writing. He has produced six novels and a book of short stories. Alt…
Wien. Styria Premium. 2014. ISBN 9783222134081In this year of memories, when historical studies and new evaluations of the circumstances leading to the outbreak of World War I in 1914 abound, a histor…
Budapest. Magvető. 2014. ISBN 9789631431964László Darvasi (aka Ernő Szív) is a Hungarian prose writer whose fiction has entertained at least two generations of readers. His grand novel, Virágzabál…
Nice. Éditions Rod. 2014. ISBN 9791093467023 Mehdi Dadsetan’s semi-autobiographical second novel, La danse des ombres (The dance of shadows), tells the story of Saïd, an Iranian pol…
Anna Heath, tr. London. Berforts Information Press. 2014. ISBN 9781908616739 This anthology of contemporary Peruvian short fiction, beginning in the 1950s, is comprised of eight short storie…
Dublin. Liberties Press. 2014. ISBN 9781909718340 I love the ocean. I love the sea. I love the sounds, smells, and sights that abound when one sits on the beach looking out to sea. For a landlubb…
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Black Lawrence Press. 2014. ISBN 9781937854959After publishing several novels, a volume of essays, and over two hundred short stories in literary journals and anthologies—win…
Katy Derbyshire, tr. London. Seagull Books (University of Chicago Press, distr.). 2014. ISBN 9780857421869Dedicated to her husband on their anniversary, Christa Wolf’s final story tenderly relays the…
Ljouwert, Netherlands. Friese Pers. 2013. ISBN 9789033004223The reader of this debut novel will be surprised to get two stories for the price of one. Author Ale S. Van Zandbergen is indeed off to an a…
Madrid / Bogotá. Alfaguara. 2013. ISBN 9788420415574 / 9789587586008Colombian author Fernando Vallejo (b. 1942, Medellín) is currently in a privileged position within the world of literature written i…
Lima. Alfaguara. 2013. ISBN 9786123090999 Raúl Tola is one of Peru’s most respected print and television journalists; in addition, he is an accomplished fiction writer, as his third novel,…
Budapest. Magvető. 2014. ISBN 9789631431667László Szilasi’s novel Szentek hárfája (see WLT, Jan. 2011, 68) was largely about the history of his hometown, Békéscsaba, in southeas…
Michael F. Moore, tr. New York. New York Review Books. 2014. ISBN 9781590177235 Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) is a writer who deserves to be more widely read than he is these days. The author of co…
New York. Knopf. 2014. ISBN 9780307266385The temptation to use the term “ripped from the headlines” is strong, but this remarkably moving novel about the kidnapping of thirty African girls predat…
Sue Branford, tr. London. Latin American Bureau. 2013. ISBN 9781899365777In Bernardo Kucinski’s novel K, an elderly man searches for his adult daughter, a political militant who vanishes at t…
Michael M. Naydan, ed. London. Glagoslav. 2014. ISBN 9781909156012The common thread that unites the diverse works of fiction presented in Herstories is that they were all written by Ukra…
Clarissa Botsford, tr. London / New York. And Other Stories. 2014. ISBN 9781908276346 Sworn Virgin, winner of the English PEN Award, highlights the consequences of a little-known cu…
Paris. Gallimard. 2014. ISBN 9782070146284 In his third novel, Ousmane Diarra (who works as a librarian in Bamako) describes the disasters caused by the Islamic fundamentalists who have attempted…
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France. Cheyne. 2014. ISBN 9782841161973 Marie Cosnay’s latest novel, like many of her other books, involves a quest for origins, as a young woman named Helen searches for…
Iowa City. Rescue Press (SPD, distr.). 2013. ISBN 9780988587335One aspiration of many writers is to maintain a comical thread throughout a serious work. Jonathan Blum is just such a writer. In his deb…