Serotonin – Michel Houellebecq
[Houellebecq’s] aloof intensity remains paradoxical, provocative, and singular, the atrophy-inducing alienation of someone who has intellectually absconded from everything human while somehow remaining attuned to the redemptive nature of something he believes can no longer exist.
The Madwoman of Serrano – Dina Salústio
In a novel where speech and silence are linked to power, it feels important that this novel, the first English-language translation by a female author from Cape Verde, can now reach a wider audience.
Labyrinth is the mystery novel at its most existential, in which the person who has disappeared is the protagonist himself, in which the mystery is the greatest of them all.
Three Brothers: Memories of My Family – Yan Lianke
Yan is concerned with death in this arresting work, not only the death of loved ones, but of a whole moment in Chinese history that, for ever more young people, is incomprehensible and even non-existent.
Me & Other Writing – Marguerite Duras
Even for the French it is nearly impossible to pin down exactly how Duras does what she does.
The great news is that if you’re not looking for a cardigan in book form, then ALL MY CATS is an extraordinary, heartrending read.
Ríos develops the dream as a genre to itself — a real fiction, a fictional real.
Space Invaders – Nona Fernández
Fernández does something vitally important here, something rare in American narratives of collective protest: she does not equate uncertainty with foolishness.
Excess—The Factory – Leslie Kaplan
Leslie Kaplan’s EXCESS—THE FACTORY has nine circles, but you don’t get to the bottom of it.
The Storyteller Essays – Walter Benjamin
Stories rely on their iterability, extant within a system of circulation, mobile and memorable.