Book Reviews
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November 20, 2018 |
Photo by jplenio / Pixabay “Acknowledging my illness,” writes Melyssa A. Harmon in Flecks of Red (Nautical Life Press, 2018), “allows me to take emotional ownership of all that comes with it... -
September 18, 2018 |
Background photo by tsauquet / Pixabay Genre is the most significant category in which books trade on the literary marketplace. Nonfiction or fiction. Memoir or novel. Literary fiction or romance, ho... -
September 11, 2018 |
Photo: Jarle Vines Norway is a country that shows up on the stage of Weltliteratur quite regularly. Henrik Ibsen had to live for more than two decades abroad to find the Archimedean point ne... -
August 23, 2018 |
Orientalism is over. The era of our culture, history, and image being constructed, codified, and represented by Western scholars is gone. Today we tell our own stories and are given voice by our own... -
July 24, 2018 |
Aside from romance, horror is perhaps the least globally diverse genre of popular fiction by measure of the authors writing in or translated to English. While film seems to have no trouble making hor... -
July 9, 2018 |
Photo of Tracy K. Smith by Rachel Eliza Griffiths Reading Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018), US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s fourth book, is an experience unlike any I’ve had before... -
June 6, 2018 |
America has long been at the crossroads of accepting diversity and empire-building. American interactions with diverse peoples have often been less than ideal. During confusing, often unjust, dealing... -
May 16, 2018 |
Photo: Zakaria Wakram Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language. – Meister Eckhart We live in unexemplary times, maddened by fear, murde... -
March 28, 2018 |
Photo of Lea Goldberg and drawing by Goldberg from She’erit HaChayim (1971) / Courtesy of the Gnazim Institute, Hebrew Writers’ Association Lea Goldberg (1911–1970), one of the most importan... -
February 20, 2018 |
Major Jackson / Photo courtesy of the author. Kehinde Wiley’s Morpheus (2008) appears on the cover of Roll Deep Major Jackson’s latest book of poetry, Roll Deep (Norton, 20... -
January 31, 2018 |
Leïla Slimani / Photo courtesy of FrenchCulture.org I have barely read any critical pieces on Leïla Slimani’s novel Chanson douce (Gallimard, 2016), winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt i... -
January 18, 2018 |
Naomi Klein / Photo by Kourosh Keshiri “It is easier,” Mark Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, “to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capital... -
January 17, 2018 |
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and our aim is to reach the unattainable, the unknown through the “viewless wings of Poesy.” “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” thinks the... -
January 10, 2018 |
Misuzu Kaneko (1903–1930) is a poet who holds a special place in the hearts of many Japanese as a voice of compassion in a difficult time for the country. The recently published Are You an Echo? T... -
December 20, 2017 |
Jonas Zdanys is a master lyricist. The bilingual poet (English and Lithuanian) displays his versatile ability with a variety of poetic styles in several recent collections. In Red Stones (201... -
October 9, 2017 |
Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), a poetry finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards, contends with the U.S. federal terminologies in relationship to Indigenous people and rein... -
September 18, 2017 |
A still from Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou The word CAMERA never appears in my scripts. I don’t prepare. I never know what I’m going to do in the next scene.—Luis Buñuel Simply... -
June 28, 2017 |
Mathias Énard / Photo © Marc Melki / Courtesy of New Directions The quickest way to turn someone off from the possibility of reading Mathias Énard’s astounding novel, Compass (New Directions... -
June 7, 2017 |
Biljana Obradović captures the immigrant’s distrust of the permanent in Incognito. Serbian American poet Biljana Obradović has lived in Yugoslavia, Greece, India, and in the US, whe... -
May 31, 2017 |
Tanure Ojaide / Urhobo Historical Society Tanure Ojaide seamlessly blends the personal with the political in this volume of verse to paint a compelling portrait of a Nigeria always in transition.... -
May 24, 2017 |
Poet John Kinsella inhabits and lends voice to the landscapes around him in Firebreaks. In Firebreaks (Norton, 2016), the title John Kinsella chooses for his twenty-third... -
May 17, 2017 |
Samrat Upadhyay’s newest story collection offers political engagement shot through with humanism and hints of spirituality. Political unrest looms as large in Samrat Upadhyay’s newest collec... -
May 5, 2017 |
Cardoso’s magnum opus offers a glimpse into the hidden world of postwar Brazil’s upper echelon. Editor’s note: When a publisher brings forth a much-needed translation of a classic... -
May 3, 2017 |
Laurens explores the seductive danger of a digital fountain of youth in this novel about women’s identity and agency in midlife. Technology and gender standards collide in Camille Laurens’s... -
April 19, 2017 |
Hungarian-born author Magda Szabó lays bare the dangers of settling too deeply into routine as a daughter helps her mother navigate life as a widow. New York Review Books is almost...
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Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spending time in her backyard—a “precious contained universe...
Photo credit: Elsa Noblet / Unsplash
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Barbara Epler started working at New Directions after graduating from college in 1984, and she has been its president and...
Photo by Matt Artz / Unsplash
I write with words that have shadow but don’t shelter
no sooner do I start this page insomnia burns it
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