Published by Peepal Tree, 2004, 158 pages. “We live by our hair.“It never lies.“We welcome rain when our plaits undo of their own volition and retreat into themselves. We are pregnant when our hair turns the colour of beetroot and are about to die when it lies still against our scalps and becomes straight and …
A Heart So White: Javier Marías
Translated from Spanish by Margaret Jull CostaPublished by Penguin, 1995, 279 pages. Original version published in 1992. “[W]e spend our lives in a process of choosing and rejecting and selecting, in drawing a line to separate...identical things and make of our story a unique story that we can remember and that can be told.” “Listening …
Brer Rabbit Retold: Arthur Flowers, illustrated by Jagdish Chitara
Published by Tara Books, 2017, 74 pages. In the late 1800s, Joel Chandler Harris collected stories told by slaves in the southern United States, which he later published. In his version, the stories are told to a little white boy by Uncle Remus, a genial, happy slave, who recounts the adventures of Brer Rabbit, Brer …
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The Anomaly: Hervé Le Tellier
Translated from French by Adriana HunterPublished by Michael Joseph, 2022, 336 pages. Original version published in 2020. March 2021. Air France flight 006 from Paris to New York is nearing JFK airport when it flies into a huge cloud and experiences severe turbulence. After some terrifying moments, the plane emerges and lands. Three months later, …
Telling an Untold Story: Interview with Hafsa Zayyan
Hafsa Zayyan is a Nigerian-Pakistani author and a dispute resolution lawyer working in the City of London. Her book We Are All Birds of Uganda won the MerkyBooks inaugural New Writer’s Prize. She has contributed to Of This Our Country, essays that explore writers' relationships with Nigeria; and Will You Read This Please?, short stories …
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Co-Wives, Co-Widows: Adrienne Yabouza
Translated from French by Rachael McGillPublished by Dedalus Africa, 2021, 128 pages. Original version published in 2015. Lidou has a good life. He is married to two beautiful women, Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou. His construction business is doing well: “he was throwing up building after building in the [Central African] Republic, and he’d carry on …
Word Beads—Short Stories: Slavko Milekić
Published by Graphic and Photo Studio Kaligram, 2019, 103 pages. A physician has a heart attack; a man remembers his parent’s relationship while composing a foreword to his father’s unpublished manuscript; and a couple in a foreign country find a way to throw a birthday party for their child although they have very little money. …
Trout, Belly Up: Rodrigo Fuentes
Translated from Spanish by Ellen JonesPublished by Charco Press, 2019, 97 pages. Original version published in 2017. A man put in charge of a trout farm lets his emotions get the better of him; a farmer stands up to armed men; and a man’s friend calls in his debt, forcing the man to sell his …
The Trees: Percival Everett
Published by Influx Press / Graywolf Press, 2021, 335 pages. “Money, Mississippi, looks exactly like it sounds. Named in that persistent Southern tradition of irony and with the attendant tradition of nescience, the name becomes slightly sad, a marker of self-conscious ignorance that might as well be embraced because, let’s face it, it isn’t going …
Great Circle: Maggie Shipstead
Published by DoubleDay / Knopf, 2021, 593 pages. “I was born to be a wanderer. I was shaped to the earth like a seabird to a wave.” In 1950, aviator Marian Graves undertook a round-the-world flight, going from north to south. She disappeared over Antarctica—neither her body nor the plane was ever found. Over half …
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