Reviews

At the Louvre: Poems by 100 Contemporary World Poets – ed. by Antoine Caro, Edwin Frank, and Donatien Grau

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[It’s a] privilege to witness such a wide variety of minds going at it, appreciating, remembering, confronting, excoriating an entire universe of art, from the canvases of Degas and Watteau to the Akkadian-carved basalt stele of Hammurabi.

Making Love with the Land – Joshua Whitehead

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MAKING LOVE WITH THE LAND is a revelation of the many forms queerness can take, an expansion, a celebration of an ever-widening canon.

Mothballs – Sole Otero

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A unique specimen of story and art that revisits the “personal is political” slogan of second wave feminism, while drawing attention to the intimate or personal aspects of living with the consequences of oppressive religion and patriarchy.

Spatriati – Mario Desiati

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The only good thing about living in the margins is finding others that have been cast there, too.

Wrong Heaven Again – Ryan Eckes

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The strange to-do list form makes strange these actions that become objects, the labors that become products.

Caesaria – Hanna Nordenhök

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If capital “H” history falls short and neglects the humanity of those it documents, Shibli and Nordenhök seem to reason, then it is the proper role of fiction to step in, and make those stories fuller.

Again I Hear These Waters – ed. Shalim M. Hussain

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AGAIN I HEAR THESE WATERS is a radical attempt to give voice to the many dialects now endangered in Northeastern India as well as Assamese.

Taiwan Travelogue – Yáng Shuāng-Zǐ

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The acts of translation throughout TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE show how language hides our blind spots and how caring deeply for others might help to reveal them.

Childish Literature – Alejandro Zambra

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How does it feel to be a father? It is a sensitive, self-reflective state. I am always aware of the political and social tenuousness of my position, the expectation that I will disappoint, the lack of a solid script.

Egypt + 100: Stories from a Century after Tahrir – ed. Ahmed Naji

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EGYPT +100 is anchored by an elegantly simple premise: invite a cadre of influential Egyptian writers to imagine what the country will be like in the year 2111—one hundred years after the 2011 Revolution.