Photo by Somak Sarkar. West Bengali singer-songwriter-politician Kabir Suman.Go look up “Bangladesh” in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Hmm. There is an entry for “Benga…
Varia
Writers of narrative or creative nonfiction often “immerse” themselves in places or with subjects for long periods in order to write about subjects intimately and in-depth. But due to familial res…
The Sarabande of Sara’s Band by Larysa DenysenkoMichael M. Naydan & Svitlana Bednazh, tr. Glagoslav Publications, 2013The familiar quotation from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, “H…- Inuit solo throat singer Tanya Tagaq Gillis. Photo: Sarah RaceThe Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic share an ancient form of music called katajjait (throat sin…
A friend recently came across a book review that described my novel, The Darlings, as a “financial thriller.” She wrinkled her nose. “Financial thriller?” s…
Angela Rodel, tr. Open Letter Books, 2013“I believe that the longer I keep the shutter open the more life gets captured on the negative.”Bulgarian-born novelist and playwright Zachary Ka…
Testimonial narrative is at once a discrete literary genre and an acknowledgment of the limits of literature itself. Rather than evoking oppression and brutality as fiction might, testimonial lite…
In Beauty Bright, Gerald Stern, W. W. Norton, 2012In “Four Crises,” an essay in his 2012 collection Stealing History, Gerald Stern writes: “Humans, because of their minds,…- History is usually about the “big picture”: geopolitics, religious change, social movements. Sometimes, it’s about the “little picture” and called “everyday.” I like the latter—the story of how pe…
- About her mixed-genre recommendations, Giannina Braschi says, “I am always looking for originality. And originality is going back to the origin and finding an empty chair. Would you gladly sit on…
- If poets as far-flung as France, Cuba, India, and Nicaragua comprised the avant-garde of literary modernism, a lookout in a turret in Chicago, Illinois, saw the invasion coming to America and, instead…
- Whether seeking upward mobility, pursuing adventure, or escaping war, the characters in these migration narratives unsettle myths and demonstrate how geographic shifts impact everything from ident…
- Krys Lee’s new collection of short stories, Drifting House, is a stirring debut that propels Korean literature further into a modern era of postnational themes. Lee’s characters are not heroe…
- Angharad PriceThe Life of Rebecca JonesLloyd Jones, tr.MacLehose PressWelsh author Angharad Price offers us a welcome respite from our frenzied twenty-first-century lives in her absorbi…
- Combining memoir, history, and political analysis, Nikolaos van Dam’s recommended books both bring to life the day-to-day struggles of a single family and provide broader insight into Syria today.…
- Bringing together crime fiction, memoir, and historical travelogue, poet and essayist Adrianne Kalfopoulou's genre-crossing recommendations portray Greece in all its modern-day complexity. …
- Top: One of the City of Asylum houses in Sampson Way. Photo by David Kent.Bottom: After Yusef Komunyakaa read "Ode to the Saxophone" (a poem he wrote for Jazz Poetry) in collaboration with the Big Ban…
- Zainab. Zaina-a-a-a-b. Zainab. Is it really you catching me in this muffled moment? No, you have not changed. But where is your body? You approach with your usual smile, seductive as ever…
- Through a variety of stories, voices, and genres, Ru Freeman's recommendations offer unique perspectives on Sri Lanka. By discussing cricket as a meditation on politics, postcolonialism at a dista…
- 4 Places to VisitBuilt by the Augustinians before 1696 and designed by A. M. Ricca, it owes its name to the revered statue by Gagini (15th century), standing today on the main altar. The sanctuary is…
- In this new series, WLT asks distinguished authors to recommend books about specific subjects within their area of expertise. In this installment, we've asked Iraqi writer …
- Plan your next excavation of modern world literature through New York City with managing editor Michelle Johnson's definitive list of her favorite New York City bookstores.View New York City Book…
- Poets House | Lower Manhattan Just two blocks northwest of Ground Zero is Battery Park City, a quiet pocket of southwest Manhattan running alongside the Hudson River. The Poets House (poetshouse.or…
- Nearly one hundred years after the first publication of Poetry magazine, the Poetry Foundation continues the mission of founder Harriet Monroe with the opening of its new home…
- Kenya is a country in transition. For decades, the country enjoyed a reputation as an oasis of peace in a troubled east African region. But behind this façade of peace, Kenya's full potential cont…