New York. Knopf. 2021. 176 pages.
WHEREABOUTS is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel written in Italian and translated into English by herself. It is also her first novel since T…
FICTION
- New York. Knopf. 2021. 256 pages. FIRST PERSON SINGULAR, a surprisingly poignant collection of eight short stories by Haruki Murakami (b. 1949), feels like an old book. It is…
- Manchester. Comma Press. 2021. 112 pages. THE BOOK OF RAMALLAH brings together ten short stories to deliver a stunning and evocative portrait of this thriving city in Palesti…
- Toronto. Coach House Books. 2020. 166 pages. WHEN READERS MEET The Imago Stage’s narrator, she has been offline so long that she’s “starting to suffocate.” Her solution? “I’v…
- Hyderabad. Eka. 2020. 250 pages. IN ESTUARY, HIS LATEST NOVEL in English translation, Tamil writer Perumal Murugan depicts the predicament of the generation gap between paren…
- New York. Overlook Press. 2020. 391 pages. LARS MYTTING’S Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way became an international best-seller soon af…
- Montreal. Drawn & Quarterly. 2020. 228 pages. NORI TAKES PLACE IN 1986 in the suburbs of Osaka, and it follows the daily adventures of a young girl named Noriko, or Nori…
- New York. Ballantine Books. 2020. 274 pages. FRANCES CHA, A FORMER travel and culture reporter for CNN in Seoul, aims to engross in her debut novel If I Had Your Face, a desp…
- McLean, Illinois. Dalkey Archive Press. 2020. ROSSANA CAMPO (b. 1963) burst on the Italian literary scene in 1992 with a picaresque novel about underwear: her own. A…
- New York. Atria Books. 2020. 384 pages. SUSAN ABULHAWA TITLES her latest work with the words of James Baldwin. One book at a time, she continues to personify the Palestinian story in…
- Barcelona. Editorial Anagrama. 2020. 421 pages. ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA—who frequently expounds on why the Great Latin American Novel will be distinguished by its poeticity and keeps garneri…
- New York. Other Press. 2021. 128 pages. IN A RECENT INTERVIEW in La Vanguardia, Catalan author Sergi Pàmies remarks that “we are fiction and reality at the same time.” Accord…
- New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2020. 160 pages. IN THE BLOOD-MIRED trenches of World War I, an unwilling soldier ascends to an agent of death. Though David Diop anchors At N…
- Portland. Tin House. 2021. 180 pages. WHEN SHE GOES TO SCHOOL , which isn’t often, the seven-year-old protagonist of this terrific novel is reminded that she has atypical interests. L…
- Edinburgh. Charco Press. 2021. 174 pages. IN THE AFTERWORD TO A Perfect Cemetery, translator Jennifer Croft contemplates the crucial translation challenge of rendering the re…
- Kolkata. Seagull Books. 2021. 312 pages. WHAT IS CHESS if not a metaphorical microcosm of a myriad of human institutions, conflicts, and systems? In Chess with My Grandfather,…
- New York. Pantheon Books. 2021. 304 pages. AT FIRST IT APPEARS that Morningside Heights is yet another campus tale of the professor-meets-grad-student variety, but Joshua Hen…
- New York. Tor Books. 2020. 336 pages. CIXIN LIU likes to think big. Macromolecules, vast time spans, galaxies, and universes: these are just some of the materials Liu plays with (ofte…
- Cairo. Hoopoe Press. 2021. 401 pages. THE ARABIC READER IS witnessing an evolution in the Arabic novel, particularly in the past decade and in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Noveli…
- New York. Verso. 2020. 196 pages. FOR HER SPLENDID Will and Testament (2019), Vigdis Hjorth allegedly based her narrative on family history (WLT, Spring 2020, 100).…
- New York. Seven Stories Press. 2021. 48 pages. “ONCE UPON A TIME there was a man who worked very hard and very quickly, and who had left his soul far behind him long ago . . .” So beg…
- New York. Random House. 2021. 384 pages. HOW BEAUTIFUL WE WERE is Imbolo Mbue’s second novel to be published; however, Mbue started writing it long before her first novel,…
- New York. Europa Editions. 2021. 192 pages. FORTY-SIX-YEAR OLD Mieko Kawakami refuses to trivialize the agony of adolescence; instead she bears witness to it. She has described her ow…
- Windsor, Canada. Biblioasis. 2021. 399 pages. “SEA LOVES ME,” the title story of Mia Couto’s latest collection, brims with secrets, seduction, and the wisdom of ancestors. Zeca Perpét…
- New York. Riverhead. 2020. 328 pages. DRIFTS. An appropriate title for a book of mostly one-page stands? A noun perhaps, short for whatever washes up from the depths? No, Kat…