Rob Vollmar | World Literature Today

Rob Vollmar

Rob Vollmar is WLT’s book review and online editor. He is currently researching sustainability in the industrial food system while pursuing a master’s degree in integrated studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Autumn 2019

The Wild Boy by Paolo Cognetti

Paolo CognettiThe Wild Boy Trans. Erica Segre & Simon Carnell Washington Square Press / Atria FEELING A BIT overburdened by the demands of civilized life but lacking...
Summer 2019

Shouting for Less: A Conversation with David Holmgren

Photo: Bruce Hedge David Holmgren is an environmental designer, writer, and co-creator of the permaculture concept, which uses systems theory to create by design the resiliency found in natural...
September 2018

Hummingbirds Between the Pages by Chris Arthur

Hummingbirds Between the Pages Chris Arthur Ohio State University Press (2018) Chris Arthur’s most recent collection of essays, Hummingbirds Between the Pages, makes a compelling argument on...
January 2018

Compass, by Mathias Énard

Compass Mathias Énard Trans. Charlotte Mandell New Directions, 2017 At the very time one should be looking ahead to the excellent works in transl...
November 2017

The Exquisite Sounds of Silence

Photo: Claire Huteau (2017) Meïkhâneh La Silencieuse Buda Music La Silencieuse is the second album by Meïkhâneh, a musically expansive trio from Rennes, France, that brin...
September 2017

Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Blackbird

Photo: Andrew Cagle Hello Psychaleppo Toyour Hello Psychaleppo’s third release, Toyour, draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources, some musical, some literary, and all celeb...
September 2017

Dorchester

Thomas Hardy’s home, Max Gate, sits at the east end of Dorchester. Photo: Michael Day There are few British authors for whom place played a more important role in their work than Thomas Hardy. By all...
May 2017

Rob Vollmar’s Summer Reads

With a wealth of fiction, nonfiction, and verse stacking up in his office, Book Review Editor Rob Vollmar has narrowed his reading ambitions for the summer down to these three worthy titles....
May 2017

The Audacity of Peace

Rahim AlHaj Letters from Iraq: Oud and String Quintet Smithsonian Folkways Iraqi-born composer Rahim AlHaj’s latest album, Letters from Iraq, is his most ambitious to date. AlHaj...
March 2017

Dreams of a Plastic Future

OY Space Diaspora Crammed Discs This issue’s special section on climate dystopias set me wondering what kind of responses to an uncertain future dwell in the world music community. One...
January 2017

Dressing the Tongue: The Spoken-Word Albums of Alan Moore

In addition to his better-known work as a writer of comics and novels, Alan Moore has built a considerable body of spoken-word albums, most created in conjunction with a collective known as Moon and S...
January 2017

Northampton Calling: A Conversation with Alan Moore

Alan Moore. Photo: Joe Brown Alan Moore is the most celebrated comics writer living but doesn’t write comics anymore. For the past decade, he’s been working instead on his second novel, Jerusalem...
January 2017

Something Old, Something New

Beats Antique Shadowbox Antique American composer Henry Cowell traveled to a variety of countries in the 1950s on behalf of the State Department, building bridges between cultures conside...
September 2016

The Bible for Unbelievers: The Beginning: Genesis by Guus Kuijer

Guus Kuijer The Bible for Unbelievers: The Beginning: Genesis Trans. Laura Watkinson Seven Stories Press, 2016 The Bible has occupied a central position in Western culture sin...
September 2016

A Mediterranean Blend

Tajaliyatt Afoforo Music Club Tajaliyatt is the second album from the ambitious Achref Chargui Trio. Composed of the aforementioned Chargui, a Tunisian oud playe...
May 2016

Rob Vollmar’s Summer Reads

With a toddler to parent, WLT’s book review editor, Rob Vollmar, isn’t anticipating being able to go much of anywhere this summer, so he’s relying on his summer reads to take...
May 2016

1,001 Riffs

Ibrahim Maalouf Kalthoum Impulse! “Umm Kalthoum is the quintessential Arab,” Uncle Jihad said. “She’s probably the one person whom all Arabs can agree to love . . .”—Rabih A...
March 2016

Proximate Pairings

Vincent Segal & Ballaké Sissoko Musique de Nuit Six Degrees Now that a representative sample of the world’s recorded music is available at no greater cost than an hour’s worth of drill-do...
January 2016

A Second Reunion

Amjad Ali Khan and Rahim AlHaj The sarod is an instrument used in North Indian classical music whose origin is shrouded in mystery and no small amount of controversy. What is not in dispute is Amjad...
November 2015

World Music: “A Brief History of Tango,” by Rob Vollmar

From the opening ascending arpeggio of “Taquito Militar,” the thoughtful interplay between guitarist Berta Rojas and Argentina’s most beloved chamber group, Camerata Bariloche, takes center stage on...
September 2015

The Shape of Arab Music to Come

Photo by Tanya Traboulsi If ever an album has been created to invite the uninitiated to dip a toe into the deep water of contemporary Arab music, it is Alif’s debut release, Aynama-Rtama, re...
September 2015

Editor’s Pick: The Mountain and the Wall and The Vienna Melody

The Mountain and the Wall By Alisa GanievaDeep Vellum The Vienna Melody By Ernst LotharEuropa Editions Alisa Ganieva’s The Mountain and the Wall (201...
Daytripper by Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá

March 2012 WLT Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá. Daytripper. New York. Vertigo. 2011. ISBN 9781401229696 Daytripper is the rarest of graphic novels—a work meetin...
March 2012

Dark Side of the Manga: Tezuka Osamu's Dark Period

Tezuka Osamu spent the first two decades of his career entertaining Japanese children with his manga like Tetsuwan Atomu, but the rigors of being Japan's most visible creative public icon...

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