The Blue Light – Hussein Barghouthi
In this autobiographical novel, translated from the Arabic by Palestinian poet Fady Joudah, Hussein Barghouthi searches for a solution to his spiritual desolation.
The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos – Fernando Pessoa
Simply being is rarely enough for Campos; he needs to think intensely about being, and feeling, and everything else.
The Book of Desire – Tiruvalluvar
Meena Kandasamy’s The Book of Desire reframes translation both as intimate practice and as a necessary political project.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings – John Lorinc
Compiling an anthology about possibly the most common food in the world practically guarantees an interesting mix of histories and perspectives . . .
Incendiary . . . an innovative subversion of the male gaze in a dark comedy packaging.
Weak in Comparison to Dreams – James Elkins
WEAK IN COMPARISON TO DREAMS [may] look like a recovery narrative, but it’s actually a re-cover-up story.
[Quintana] strips away the illusions that parents hold that they can just “cloak” their language or argue behind closed doors. Children see through it. They always have.
Mistaken for an Empire – Christine Imperial
“Where do you call home?” the world seems to ask . . . Imperial finds herself unable or unwilling to decide.
Tales of Tangier: The Complete Short Stories of Mohamed Choukri
Even in the stories that project a more lighthearted air . . . there is a looming sense that something is horribly wrong, that the party is over.
Always Crashing in the Same Car – Lance Olsen
[Olsen’s novel] doesn’t blur the lines between history and invention, fiction and nonfiction—it doesn’t recognize the existence of these lines in the first place.