Published by Atlantic Books, 2025, 340 pages Feranmi Falodun, a beautiful young woman, seduces a man who comes to her village. In the morning, her father demands that the man provide a bride price for his daughter. The man agrees and buys her a house. But, sometime later, when the man’s wife insists on seeing …
Category: Fiction
Veiller sur elle: Jean-Baptiste Andrea
Published by L'Iconoclaste, 2023, 581 pages. Published in English as Watching Over Her, Simon & Schuster, 2026.Translated from French by Frank Wynne An old man lies dying in the abbey, Sacra di San Michele in Piedmont, Italy, watched over by 32 monks. The man, Mimo Vitaliani, has lived in the monastery for 40 years, but …
Last Date in El Zapotal: Mateo García Elizondo
Translated from Spanish by Robin MyersPublished by Charco Press, 2024, 157 pages. Original version published in 2019. “I’d say you start existing in a kind of limbo. That’s where I live now, that’s what this whole town is: limbo. That’s what heroin is too. You’re halfway between the world of the living and the world …
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The Director: Daniel Kehlmann
Translated from German by Ross BenjaminPublished by riverrun, 2023, 333 pages. Original version published in 2023. The book begins with Franzl Wilzek, an old man with dementia, being taken to a television studio, where he is interviewed by Heinz Conrad, a well-known host. He is confused about why he is there and unsure of what …
Of Ghosts and Goblins: Lafcadio Hearn
Published by Penguin Classics, 2022, 203 pages. Original stories published 1894–1905. A dying wife summons her husband’s youngest concubine under the guise of handing over her husband’s welfare to the young woman; a monk wandering in a desolate landscape is persuaded by a poor man to spend the night in his home; and a dead …
Hello Wife: Lisa K. Friedman
Published by SFWP, 2025, 251 pages “My wedding dress was made by a costume designer I met while buying weed at the 7-Eleven one February, which is also where I met Jimbo, my husband to be. I went to the 7-Eleven every day. I liked standing around the counter, drinking coffee and talking to Plots, …
Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia: edited by Evelyn Flores and Emelihter Kihleng
Published by University of Hawai'i Press, 2019, 358 pages “The work remains of breaking down myths and building up re-visioned ones that empower rather than demean. It remains to tell new stories that are really ancient ones, persisting in our blood, paradoxically and endearingly both familiar and breathtakingly novel, stories that deconstruct the lies and …
What We Can Know: Ian McEwan
Published by Jonathan Cape, 2025, 301 pages The United Kingdom, 2119. Tom Metcalfe, an academic, studies the 1990s to the 2030s, a period he romanticizes. Looking back, this was a time of plenty: when you could go into a supermarket and buy anything you wanted, walk for miles on dry ground, and be surrounded by …
The Secret of Saint Olaf’s Church: Indrek Hargla
Translated from Estonian by Adam CullenPublished by Pushkin Press / Peter Owen Publishers, 2015, 364 pages. Original version published in 2010. Tallinn, 1409. A knight is beheaded and the murderer walks away, leaving no trace. To put the story into context: sea traffic between Estonia, Germany and Scandinavia was at an unprecedented level. This was …
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The Eleventh Hour: Salman Rushdie
Published by Jonathan Cape London / Random House, 2025, 254 pages This is Salman Rushdie’s latest book, a collection of three longish stories bookended by two short ones. Given the attack on him that almost killed him and the fact that he is now 78, it is not surprising that many of the stories deal …
