Paris. P.O.L. 2013. ISBN 9782818017555
The hero of Iegor Gran’s latest novel, his tenth for Editions P.O.L, is a twenty-something Parisian man named José. When his girlfriend leaves him, citing his la…
FICTION
- Frank Wynne, tr. London. Heinemann. 2012. ISBN 9780434019410 The Spanish edition of Alonso Cueto’s The Blue Hour was awarded the coveted Premio Herralde de Novela when it was first published…
- New York. Reagan Arthur Books / Little, Brown. 2013. ISBN 9780316230810 Written with kinetic energy that crackles with life, NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel should be read by anyone interested in emer…
- New York. Little, Brown. 2013. ISBN 978-0316217385 This powerful first novel explores the history of Croatia and its diaspora from World War II to the present through the Moric family on a fictional…
- Ljouwert, Netherlands. Afûk. 2012. ISBN 9789062738854 Daniel Mûnema, the main character of Rekkenskip (Calling to account), is very much in search of the self he has been and should have been…
- Paris. Buchet/Chastel. 2013. ISBN 9782283026274 Sylvie Weil has recently written a couple of fine books about family life, but in neither case are the families she describes conventional ones. In …
- Arch Tait, tr. Moscow. Glas (Consortium, distr.) 2013. ISBN 9785717200967 Alexander Snegirev’s Petroleum Venus stands out against the backdrop of Russia’s contemporary literary scene, where c…
- New York. Knopf. 2013. ISBN 9780307596901 Claire Messud is a confident and stylish writer, as she has proven in previous novels such as The Emperor’s Children. Those adjectives set her apart…
- James Coon et al., ed. Warsaw. New Europe Writers. 2012. ISBN 9780956859815 It is difficult to get a coherent sense of Ljubljana from the sixty-six items in Ljubljana Tales, but a few things…
- Madrid. Caballo de Troya. 2013. ISBN 9788415451204 Working women are the protagonists of Diario de campo, the first novel by Rosario Izquierdo Chaparro (b. 1963). The author is a sociologist…
- Højbjerg, Denmark. Hovedland. 2013. ISBN 9788770703581 Ole Hyltoft’s Copenhagen trilogy (see WLT July 2006 and January 2008) spans an entire century. In the first volume the milieu is that of…
- Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf. 2013. ISBN 9781555976422 On Sal Mal Lane belongs to that subgenre of postcolonial literature that treats ethnonational violence resulting from decolonization…
- Brendan Riley, tr. Champaign, Illinois. Dalkey Archive. 2013. ISBN 9781564788733 The first of Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue’s six books to be published in English, Hypothermia comprises twen…
- Patty Paine et al., ed. Highclere, Berkshire. Berkshire Academic Press (ISBS, distr.). 2013. ISBN 9781907784125 This is a beautifully produced book with large-size pages and glossy paper. It contains…
- Paris. Mercure de France. 2013. ISBN 9782715234536 An earthquake is one manifestation of the forces of nature. In the province of L’Aquila, Italy, an extracom is subject to two other forces:…
- Gillian Ania & Doug Thompson, tr. Leicester, England. Troubador. 2013. ISBN 9781780882642 Paola Capriolo’s The Dual Realm was first published in Italian in 1991 and translated into Englis…
- Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf. 2013. ISBN 9781555976408 The final words of Nigerian author A. Igoni Barrett’s debut collection of short stories are “love does not mean marriage, a baby, forever. Lo…
- Norman. University of Oklahoma Press. 2013. ISBN 9780806143576 Love, grief, and memory form the thematic triad in Rudolfo Anaya’s The Old Man’s Love Story, a novel that speaks to our shared h…
- Andrew Bromfield, tr. Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern University Press. 2012. ISBN 9780810126626 A Displaced Person: The Later Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin round…
- Jonathan Hunt, tr. New York. Faber & Faber. 2013. ISBN 9780865479371 Giorgio Vasta’s Time on My Hands is a yearlong adventure in the footsteps of a young boy in Palermo, Sicily, whose lif…
- Anthea Bell, tr. Minneapolis. Graywolf. 2013. ISBN 9781555976439 Whatever “light” the utopian vision of communism brought people, it fades under the grinding duress of “real socialism” as it is lived…
- Will Firth, tr. New York. Black Balloon. 2013. ISBN 978936787050 This postmodern, postcommunist picaresque hilariously skewers Croatian, Western, and global culture as it follows the rapid descent of…
- Mumbai. Almost Island. 2013. ISBN 9788192129518 In three books published over a period of eighteen years, Sharmistha Mohanty has been showing, with increasing consistency and verve, that there is mor…
- New York. Hogarth. 2013. ISBN 9780770436407 After reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, I can only echo the amazement of other reviewers: that such an accomplished novel is Ant…
- Cromer, England. Salt. 2012. ISBN 9781907773280 Whereas much exile literature foregrounds educated urbanites voicing nostalgia for lost cultures, Adnan Mahmutović portrays Bosnian villagers who renoun…