Translated from the Danish by Michael Goldman (New York, NY: Spuyten Duyvil, 2017) Translated into English for the first time, Knud Sønderby’s essay collection Fragments of a Mirror is both a journey through the Danish landscape and through the writer’s … Continued
Translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2017) Politics, or perhaps I should say differing ideologies, divide families. I know this well since it has been years since I have spoken to my cousin … Continued
Translated from the Dutch by Hester Velmans (Los Angeles, CA: Doppelhouse Press, 2017) Is life a creation? Is the created life authentic? Or, like the work of art, does it two-step with commodification, a dance in which power over the … Continued
Books Discussed: Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture by Lisa Robertson (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2010) Medea by Catherine Theis (Plays Inverse Press, 2017) Lucinda by John Beer (Marfa, TX: Canarium Books, 2016) In a … Continued
(Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2010) I’ve always loved moments of crisis in literature—episodes that force characters to reevaluate and redefine themselves, and to recognize the false pretenses of their previous existences, or of any claim to personal consistency. (One of … Continued
Translated from the Italian by Jamie Richards (New York, NY: New Vessel Press, 2017) Adua, by Igiaba Scego, translated by Jamie Richards, is a lyrical novel that describes the cultural alienation of Somalis living in Italy, both in the present … Continued
(Buffalo, NY: Sunnyoutside, 2017) All right, folks. I’m going to admit it. I’m finding more and more that I enjoy a stellar chapbook over the sacred, full-length poetry collection. I’ve spent some time pondering why this might be, and I … Continued
Translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017) There is a line of dialogue in Robert Zemeckis’s cult science-fiction movie Back to the Future 3 between the famous Doc and Marty whereby the Doc … Continued
(New York, NY: The Overlook Press, 2017) To enter Leslie T. Sharpe’s narrative world is to consent to view the Catskills ecosystem through a lens of wonder and attention to modest detail. In The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of … Continued
(Denver, CO: Elixir Press, 2017) When bad things happen, there are certain words that inevitably pop up time and time again, like recurring by-products of tragedy. Everything’s going to be okay. This will pass. All things happen for a reason. … Continued
(Words Dance Publishing, 2016) Natalie Wee’s Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines is many things: 21st century guide to love and loss, statement of gender and body politics, and (this is the driving force of the book) a collection of … Continued
(San Francisco, CA: Outpost19, 2017) Vee is not adept at interpersonal connection, but she’s at a birthday party anyway for her nephew, Charlie. She has bought him a toy dinosaur and it’s sitting in a box that she can’t put … Continued
(Brooklyn, NY: Restless Books, 2017) Living abroad in a country that is neither your home nor the home of your ancestors is no doubt interesting and educational, but it can also be challenging. Separated from family and friends, you spend … Continued
(Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017) Afaa Michael Weaver reaffirms the value and necessity of a worker’s poetics in his latest collection, Spirit Boxing. Here, work is not celebrated for its own sake (as Americans are wont to do) … Continued
(New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2017) There is a bitter pleasure to encountering the work of a “new” poet – enjoying and even loving their work – only to learn that the poet is deceased. The poems then … Continued
(Oakland, CA: Transit Books, 2017) It may be that Kintu, the debut novel from Ugandan novelist Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, will stand as Uganda’s national narrative, in much the same way Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart has for Nigeria. Literary history … Continued
Translated from the Italian by Will Schutt (New York, NY: Europa Editions, 2017) Truth blends with fantasy in The Breaking of a Wave as young Luna grapples with her older brother’s death. Luca, her brother, is drowned by the same ocean … Continued
(Fredonia, NY: Leapfrog Press, 2017) The Subway Stops at Bryant Park, N. West Moss’s debut story collection, narrates a series of quiet metamorphoses, each infused with an intimate and understated yearning that leaves no character exempt. Each story, set in … Continued
Books Discussed: Future Sex by Emily Witt (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016) Thy Neighbor’s Wife by Gay Talese (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1980). My bus broke down on the way home from work one … Continued
(Guesswork: A Reckoning with Loss. New York, NY: Catapult, 2017) “Who can speak for her, for what she feels? One can only guess,” Martha Cooley meditates on a statue of Madonna in Guesswork: A Reckoning with Loss, her memoir in … Continued