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Looking Backward

Selections from the TLR Archive

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An International Journal of Contemporary Writing

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Fairleigh Dickinson University

Open Letter

A Review of The Endless Summer by Madame Nielsen

August 6, 2018

Greg Chase

Translated from the Danish by Gaye Kynoch (Rochester, NY: Open Letter Books, 2018) Early in The Endless Summer, the narrator comments that life is a dream, a dream from which you never wake up but which one day is nonetheless … Continued

A Review of Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristin Ómarsdóttir

April 30, 2018

Jena Salon

Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2012) One day recently I was out hiking with my husband in the woods by our new house, and we came upon a stranger. At first he pointed in … Continued

A Review of a thousand morons by Quim Monzó

January 1, 2018

Josh Billings

Translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2012) Quim Monzó’s a thousand morons is a flat book, and this can be either a good or a bad thing depending on which of its stories you’re reading. … Continued

A Review of A Greater Music by Bae Suah

February 20, 2017

Gretchen McCullough

Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith (Rochester, NY: Open Letter Books, 2016) Reading Bae Suah’s novel, A Greater Music, is much like the experience of listening to the concertos of Beethoven. I listened to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, … Continued

A Review of Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev

May 23, 2016

Cassie Hay

Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2016) Clocking in at only 121 pages, Georgi Tenev’s taut novel Party Headquarters is at once a tragedy, a comedy, a love story and thriller, with echoes of A … Continued

A Review of The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov

August 20, 2015

Elizabeth Bales Frank

Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2015) The unnamed narrator of Georgi Gospodinov’s inventive, ambitious novel The Physics of Sorrow suffers from “pathological empathy or obsessive empathetic-somatic syndrome,” most acutely in his childhood.  “Over the years … Continued

A Review of My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec

September 18, 2014

Daniel Reid

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret B. Carson (Rochester, NY: Open Letter Books, 2011) Everyone knows that a good walk through the park is an enriching, calming experience perfect for airing some of that figurative dirty laundry. It’s a way … Continued

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