Language, poetry, and the act of translation are, then, inherently communal acts because they all involve ways of knowing one’s self, sharing that self, and as a result, eliminating a sense of otherness among communities.
Fish Soup – Margarita García Robayo
As she deftly mobilizes themes of mobility and immobility, García Robayo demonstrates not only how circumstances catch us with little promise of release but also how we get caught up in the idea of finding a way to escape.
The Tidings of the Trees – Wolfgang Hilbig
Dust, bodies, and digging all have thematic importance in Hilbig’s fiction.
The throbbing pulse of the book, which ties together its many disparate and overlapping narratives, is a confrontation with the ways that self-realization can also lead to violence and the objectification of others.
The Years, Months, Days – Yan Lianke
It is the confusion that comes with the real-life impact of intangible things that causes the most destruction.
Lion Cross Point – Masatsugu Ono
The structure of his sentences is direct, but meaning is slant.
The Eligible Age – Berta García Faet
Comprised of mostly declarative sentences verging on aphorism, THE ELIGIBLE AGE as a whole reads like a tractate.
The Geography of Rebels Trilogy – Maria Gabriela Llansol
Life for Llansol, at least going by these books, seems to have been something more flowing and organic than even an agua viva of the “I” as Lispector defines it.
Little Reunions – Eileen Chang
Chang has been referred to as China’s Joan Didion.
Tawada’s is a fiction of resistance — to capitalism, imperialism, normative emotional expectations — and that can, sometimes, look a lot like cruelty.