Apricot Jam – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
While Solzhenitsyn’s early work was engaged in uncovering the hidden reality of a still-existing system, this later work, a fascinating dive into the tragedy and absurdity of the most recent century, is engaged in the act of processing the past.
My Two Worlds – Sergio Chejfec
But what if this annoying character is a demonstration of how—deep down—freedom, truth, and everything modernity promised us from transcendental experience is what’s annoying?
Animalinside – Laszlo Krasznahorkai and Max Neumann
At times, I felt menaced by the narrator’s belligerence; at other times, I struggled to take his delusions of aggression seriously.
Albahari’s skill in immersing the reader in this grim conclusion justifies the energy required to follow the story, which at times feels like listening to a friend breathlessly recount a particularly confusing dream.
A rich but reserved examination of architectural themes while also an engaging story that opens up beyond romantic complications and addresses possible structures and forms a life could take.
Between Parentheses – Roberto Bolaño
In Bolaño’s world, writers are warriors and only the brave survive. Between Parentheses made me want to live there forever.
Funeral for a Dog – Thomas Pletzinger
Pletzinger foregoes polite innuendo and cheap sensationalism and writes self-determined characters. Matter-of-fact, imbued with emotion, disconnected, or a messy smorgasbord, the variety of desire is inked onto the pages.
The Book of Happenstance – Ingrid Winterbach
If there is something both moving and reassuring about looking back to the classics, to those texts, paintings, and sculptures of beauty that both precede and will surpass our lives and at the same time speak to us at a human level, what then do we make of the shell?
Day of the Oprichnik – Vladimir Sorokin
The atrocities of Sorokin’s dystopia are sparked not by futuristic weapons or surveillance devices but by good old-fashioned human nature.
The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise – Georges Perec
Once again, Perec manages to transcend gimmick, turning a laborious challenge into a conceit for the circuitous monotony of the workplace.