I Put the Evening in the Drawer – Han Kang
If the central question of the translation debate is how Han writes, her poetry poses a deeper one: can she write at all?
You, From Below – Em J Parsley
At only fifty pages, YOU, FROM BELOW is epic in scope.
The Surrender of Man – Naomi Falk
How do you articulate with the limited construct of language something as rich and malleable as an emotional response to art?
There’s No Turning Back – Alba de Céspedes
One by one, the women of the Grimaldi will abandon the security of its walls, rather like an Il Duce-era Virgin Suicides.
Tiang allows readers to build trust with Shuang as a Dongbei-raised, Beijing-based writer who tells heart-felt stories with abundant humor and little outwardly emotional display.
The book is organized around the person of Sinno’s stepfather. She renders his presence and domination as suffocating. I shudder to acknowledge: that is not a metaphor.
Apparent Breviary – Gastón Fernández
The breviary is “apparent” because the spaces on the page—the vacuum between words—is every bit as meaningful as the words themselves. For the poet, Gastón Fernández, words are only apparent. Real prayer happens in emptiness, in silence
A Fictional Inquiry – Daniele Del Giudice
In A FICTIONAL INQUIRY, representation is a matter of collecting loose ends and leaving them loose.
At times, it reads like a breathless impatience for the release of an orgasm: “Upon hearing the longed-for sound of the door after heaving my weight against it, I quickly put the key I’m already holding into the lock of my apartment and turn it, and once this second anticipated sound has been confirmed, I slip inside the door.”
Aristotle’s Wife: Six Short Plays About Women in Science – Claudia Barnett
This idea of science as a pure and separated sphere, divorced from politics and social dynamics, is a longstanding myth.