Reviews

The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks –Agnieszka Taborska

by Jess Jensen Mitchell

At its heart, The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks is a quirky love letter to the city of Providence.

Human Sadness – Goderdzi Chokheli

by Michael Schapira

HUMAN SADNESS has the unique feature of being translated by five different translators, all based around the Oxford Georgian Translation Project, to preserve the tonal differences between the various chroniclers . . .

The Translator’s Daughter – Grace Loh Prasad

by Vika Mujumdar

Framed through the lens of Prasad’s shifting relationship with her parents across geographies, THE TRANSLATOR’S DAUGHTER is a startling, aching account of [her] relationship to home.

Groove, Bang and Jive Around – Steve Cannon

by Chris Robinson

Discomfort is the mission. Comic madness is the method. After reading Cannon, there’s no going back to the world you came from.

A Mouth Holds Many Things – Dao Strom and Jyothi Natarajan, eds.

by Justin Duyao

A MOUTH has paved the way for future collections to follow . . . in a freshly de-canonized publishing universe, wherein works are able to discover a readership on the merits of their ingenuity and strangeness, rather than merely because they contribute or respond to whatever host of works precede them.

The Berlin Wall – David Leo Rice

by Theodore Sovinski

In The Berlin Wall, the cycle between tragedy and farce spins on, gaining speed as spells of incredible violence are desperately suppressed by the forces of order, only for the boil to begin bubbling against the lid once more.

The Book Censor’s Library – Bothayna Al-Essa

by Alana Mohamed

In this world, the internet no longer exists, religion has been reconstituted into state-approved mush, the buildings are all gray slabs, and everyone wears khaki—for the good of the people, of course.

Noisy Animal – Sayaka Ōsaki

by Fatima Aamir

Ōsaki recognizes our fundamental freedom—a freedom that becomes apparent once we accept that we are little more than noisy animals.

Dionysos Speed – Rainer J. Hanshe

by Soni Wadhwa

In order to make the horror of it all a part of lived experience, Hanshe . . . does not use logic, rhetoric, or story . . . instead, he lets the run-on lines speak about the non-stopness of notifications that surround us.

Glorious People – Sasha Salzmann

by Eamonn Gallagher

History, even personal history, is tidal. Whether we know or don’t know our own histories, we repeat them. Feelings, relationships, and identities recede and advance across generations. There are tragedies, too, and world-historical moments that repeat with numb predictability.