Reviews

In a Deep Blue Hour — Peter Stamm

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“In a Deep Blue Hour, the latest novel by Swiss writer Peter Stamm, unfolds in . . . [the] interstice between documentary and narrative film, reality and fiction, memory and dream.”

Wave of Blood – Ariana Reines

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She wrestles and keens, freezes and thaws in private, in public, and alongside a group of people “with whom a shared sense of intimacy and care earned from years of study together makes possible a warm way of thinking.”

Ṣẹ̀gílọlà Arómirẹ́ Ògìdán – Àrẹ̀mọ Yusuf Àlàbí Balógun

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Her anger lives in the syntax, in sentences that run long, breathless, or suddenly halt.

Sakina’s Kiss – Vivek Shanbhag

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SAKINA’S KISS is an attempt to travel between two […] islands, the village Gothic and the urban global

Things a Bright Boy Can Do – Michael Chang

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Chang revels in the chaotic energy of contemporary randomness

Motherhood and its Ghosts — Iman Mersal, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger

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Forced into memory after becoming a mother herself, Mersal seeks to arrive at an understanding of who her mother was in order to understand who she will become.

Heart Lamp — Banu Mushtaq, Translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi

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One of the most inventive and profound aspects of Heart Lamp is how Mushtaq layers these multiple points of view: in “Black Cobras” alone there are at least six, most of them the perspectives of women and girls. A few stories are told in the first person, but most of the time the close third-person narrator moves between those who have all the power and those who have none.

Places in the Dark – Lidmila Kábrtová

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Why bother being good when paradise was never promised?

Wickerwork – Christian Lehnert

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Nature crafts its own metaphors

The Porno President – Bruna Kalil Othero

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“Tits or ass?” Othero’s novel urges us to consider this question in today’s political landscape