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 A physician has a heart attack; a man remembers his parent’s relationship while composing a foreword to his father’s unpublished manuscript; and a couple in a foreign country find a way to throw a birthday party for their child although they have very little money.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 …
Reading the World—How I Read a Book from Every Country: Ann Morgan
Published by Vintage / Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2022, 388 pages. First published in 2015. US title: The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe “Reading is a solitary act, but one that demands connection to the world.”—Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History “The world was changing. And its books were changing me.” …
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Exploring How We Interact with Nature: An Interview with Janice Pariat
Janice Pariat is an Indian author and poet. Her books include Everything the Light Touches: A Novel (2022), The Nine-Chambered Heart (2017), Seahorse (2014), and Boats on Land (2012). In 2013, Janice was awarded the Yuva Puraskar (Young Writer Award) by the Sahitya Akademi, and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction for Boats on Land. …
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Murder at the Grand Raj Palace: Vaseem Khan
Published by Mulholland Books / Hodder, 2018, 360 pages. An American billionaire is found dead in his room at the Grand Raj Palace in Mumbai with a knife sticking out of his chest. The room is locked, and there is no sign of anyone else having been there. On the mirror in the bathroom are …
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Glory: NoViolet Bulawayo
Published by Viking / Chatto & Windus, 2022, 403 pages. “The Father of the Nation...was at an age when what was most important to him was to be left alone, and besides, those who know about things said the state of affairs inside his head wasn’t unlike a tumultuous country without a clear leader.” Jidada, …
Doña Inés Versus Oblivion: Ana Teresa Torres
Translated from Spanish by Gregory RabassaPublished by Phoenix, 1999, 245 pages. Original version published in 1992. “[L]isten carefully, because I hold its whole history in the secret places of my memory.” Doña Inés, the matriarch of a wealthy Venezuelan family who owns a cacao plantation, fights a legal battle with her houseboy for some property …
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Talking About Books 