The Book Censor’s Library – Bothayna Al-Essa
In this world, the internet no longer exists, religion has been reconstituted into state-approved mush, the buildings are all gray slabs, and everyone wears khaki—for the good of the people, of course.
Ōsaki recognizes our fundamental freedom—a freedom that becomes apparent once we accept that we are little more than noisy animals.
Glorious People – Sasha Salzmann
History, even personal history, is tidal. Whether we know or don’t know our own histories, we repeat them. Feelings, relationships, and identities recede and advance across generations. There are tragedies, too, and world-historical moments that repeat with numb predictability.
For all its bleak imagery, ATLANTIS is also a poem of beauty and redemption.
Mourning is a recognition of change, and a processual reckoning with nostalgia; in Mourning a Breast, Xi Xi testifies to the tectonic labor of grieving, learning, renewing, reviving.
In Two Plays, Alekar’s sense of whimsy, bolstered by the translator’s ear for colloquialism, becomes an antidote to the intellectually stifling nature of the modern world.
In The Abyss, Vallejo reevaluates his relationship with Colombia, his family, and his queerness, even though there appears to be no space for absolution.
Nauetakuan, a Silence for a Noise – Natasha Kanapé Fontaine
In NAUETAKUAN, Indigenous characters’ laughter disrupts the serious, restrained norms of literary fiction.
My Cousin Maria Schneider – Vanessa Schneider
Perhaps a story told through the prism of deep love will always be molded to the contours of its creator; a twinning of subject and author.
No paean to Montreal’s transformation into a global capital of commerce and culture . . . [Bock’s novel] imagines one of the countless souls who built contemporary Montreal, giving their bodies for the city . . .