Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wiseblood Books. 2024. 76 pages.Tightly argued and curiously poignant, James Matthew Wilson’s monograph on the life and work of John Martin Finlay opens a previo…
MISCELLANEOUS
Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press. 2024. 144 pages.Heather Clark’s mission in her second and considerably more compact study of the poet Sylvia Plath’s life and work remains the sam…
Edinburgh. Charco Press. 2025. 233 pages.“The world is chaotic . . . difficult to classify,” writes Ida Vitale, who considers an alphabetical approach the “most innocent opt…
Philadelphia. Paul Dry Books. 2024. 272 pages.Dana Gioia, one of America’s best living poets, also a critic and former chairman of the NEA, has gathered seventeen essays into his new…
Rochester, Massachusetts. Eastover Press. 2024. 304 pages.What Is It Like to Be Alive? is the question Chris Arthur ponders in this collection of fourteen seemingly unconnect…
Evanston, Illinois. Curbstone Books. 2024. 124 pages.I received my copy of Traveling Freely in the mail a few weeks before the US presidential election in November. It could…
New York. Mariner Books. 2024. 357 pages.Doubtless many readers of this annual anthology were, like me, anticipating its 2024 edition with some apprehension. Begun in 1986 by Robert A…
London. Seagull Books. 2024. 303 pages.Just as A Land Like You, Tobie Nathan’s novel, celebrates the fusion of Muslim and Jewish cultures in pre-Nasser Egypt…
Pasadena, California. Red Hen Press. 2025. 206 pages.Twelve years ago, Andrew Lam, a writer and journalist who left Vietnam as “a plane person” at the end of the Vietnam War at the ag…
University Park, Pennsylvania. Graphic Mundi. 2025. 160 pages.Prose can be a visually descriptive medium, but it is not without limitations. This may explain why journalist Yazan al-S…
New York. Crown. 2025. 256 pages.What does a sixty-four-year-old gay, white college professor and literary translator who grew up in small-town Oklahoma have in common with a thirty-t…
Curated by Collective Antigone. Oakland. University of California Press. 2025. 336 pages.“Writing is the highest form of resistance,” articulates acclaimed Egyptian journalist and wri…
New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2024. 710 pages.Thom Gunn was born William Guinneach Gunn in Kent, England, in 1929. The name William came from his paternal grandfather; Guinneac…
New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2024. 224 pages.Dionne Brand’s Salvage: Readings from the Wreck is a timely foray into the “forensics of how readers a…
Stuttgart, Germany. Ibidem Press. 2024. 266 pages.Packed with firsthand accounts of resilience, survival, and fortitude, Dark Days, Determined People captures the innovation,…
New York. One World. 2024. 232 pages.When politics is turned into art, its message can become powerful and far-reaching. Ta-Nehisi Coates, an American journalist, shows exactly how that can be achieve…
New York. Bloomsbury Academic. 2024. 235 pages.Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction is an unusually fascinating book that explores and interrogates Afro-centere…
Buenos Aires. Blatt & Ríos. 2024. 111 pages.Ours is a good time to think about how novelists expand their ideas. Various Latin Americans of different backgrounds…
New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2024. 852 pages.The virtues of this authoritative biography of Christopher Isherwood are clear enough. Katherine Bucknell, who edited the great ga…
Paris. Éditions Gallimard. 2024. 73 pages.Within the scene of French letters, Philippe Sollers is an heir to Maurice Blanchot: the standout literary voice in constant communication wi…
Vancouver. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2024. 272 pages.Seven segments titled Niizhoziibean, Anishinaabemowin for “two rivers,” are interspersed through Métis writer Andrea Currie’s memoir. Re…
Huntsville, Texas. Texas Review Press. 2024. 325 pages.“Pour the rose petals / draw close and cosmic / move with me,” concludes a poem inviting artist Ponce to participate in one of G…
Athens. Vine Leaves Press. 2024. 305 pages.Landed can be read as the sequel to the author’s powerful debut, Places We Left Behind: A Memoir-in-Miniature…
Grass Valley, California. Fieldmouse Press. 2024. 244 pages.In this color-drenched graphic memoir reminiscent of the dreaminess of Chagall, Jesse Lee Kercheval has moved the genre to…
Paris. Editions Stock. 2024. 304 pages.Who would have thought that Alina Gurdiel’s idea to put a Japanese tradition on its head would have such editorial success? Her “Ma nuit au musé…