Kay Heikkinen, tr. Northampton, Massachusetts. Interlink. 2013. ISBN 9781566569262
Best known as the author of Saddam City (2003), a harrowing, partly autobiographical account of life in Sadd…
FICTION
Mara Faye Lethem, tr. New York. Knopf. 2013. ISBN 9780307700681 To its great credit, this extremely competent novel has prompted uncritical vacuity and petty comments in some American book reviews. Th…
Ljouwert, Netherlands. Frysk en Frij. 2013. ISBN 9789085660279 Leo Popma has written an intriguing story with an intriguing title, As gong dêr in oar (As if another went there), a story that…
New Delhi. Prakash Books India. 2012. ISBN 9788172344474 It’s not very often a book locates itself in the 1990s of both India and England. This period is a particularly interesting one for India, yet…
New York. Ecco / HarperCollins. 2013. ISBN 9780062120397 Chronologically, Philipp Meyer’s The Son starts in 1849 with Eli McCullough—one of the three perspectives presented in the book—being…
Silvester Mazzarella, tr. New York. MacLehose (Random House, distr.). 2013. ISBN 9781623650346 In this dystopian novel, Davide Longo explores the true human nature that comes out during times of despe…
New York. Knopf. 2013. ISBN 9780307265746 In this exquisite novel, Jhumpa Lahiri revisits some of her major themes—dislocation, assimilation, family connection, and the difficulties of love—but in thi…
Gale A. Kirking, tr. Brno, Czech Republic. Real World Press. 2012. ISBN 9788090535718 Jiří Hájíček is a Czech author, born in České Budějovice, southern Bohemia, where he spent his formative years in…
Paris. P.O.L. 2013. ISBN 9782818017555 The hero of Iegor Gran’s latest novel, his tenth for Editions P.O.L, is a twenty-something Parisian man named José. When his girlfriend leaves him, citing his la…
Frank Wynne, tr. London. Heinemann. 2012. ISBN 9780434019410 The Spanish edition of Alonso Cueto’s The Blue Hour was awarded the coveted Premio Herralde de Novela when it was first published…
New York. Reagan Arthur Books / Little, Brown. 2013. ISBN 9780316230810 Written with kinetic energy that crackles with life, NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel should be read by anyone interested in emer…
New York. Little, Brown. 2013. ISBN 978-0316217385 This powerful first novel explores the history of Croatia and its diaspora from World War II to the present through the Moric family on a fictional…- Ljouwert, Netherlands. Afûk. 2012. ISBN 9789062738854 Daniel Mûnema, the main character of Rekkenskip (Calling to account), is very much in search of the self he has been and should have been…
- Paris. Buchet/Chastel. 2013. ISBN 9782283026274 Sylvie Weil has recently written a couple of fine books about family life, but in neither case are the families she describes conventional ones. In …
- Arch Tait, tr. Moscow. Glas (Consortium, distr.) 2013. ISBN 9785717200967 Alexander Snegirev’s Petroleum Venus stands out against the backdrop of Russia’s contemporary literary scene, where c…
- New York. Knopf. 2013. ISBN 9780307596901 Claire Messud is a confident and stylish writer, as she has proven in previous novels such as The Emperor’s Children. Those adjectives set her apart…
- James Coon et al., ed. Warsaw. New Europe Writers. 2012. ISBN 9780956859815 It is difficult to get a coherent sense of Ljubljana from the sixty-six items in Ljubljana Tales, but a few things…
- Madrid. Caballo de Troya. 2013. ISBN 9788415451204 Working women are the protagonists of Diario de campo, the first novel by Rosario Izquierdo Chaparro (b. 1963). The author is a sociologist…
- Højbjerg, Denmark. Hovedland. 2013. ISBN 9788770703581 Ole Hyltoft’s Copenhagen trilogy (see WLT July 2006 and January 2008) spans an entire century. In the first volume the milieu is that of…
- Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf. 2013. ISBN 9781555976422 On Sal Mal Lane belongs to that subgenre of postcolonial literature that treats ethnonational violence resulting from decolonization…
Brendan Riley, tr. Champaign, Illinois. Dalkey Archive. 2013. ISBN 9781564788733 The first of Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue’s six books to be published in English, Hypothermia comprises twen…- Patty Paine et al., ed. Highclere, Berkshire. Berkshire Academic Press (ISBS, distr.). 2013. ISBN 9781907784125 This is a beautifully produced book with large-size pages and glossy paper. It contains…
- Paris. Mercure de France. 2013. ISBN 9782715234536 An earthquake is one manifestation of the forces of nature. In the province of L’Aquila, Italy, an extracom is subject to two other forces:…
- Gillian Ania & Doug Thompson, tr. Leicester, England. Troubador. 2013. ISBN 9781780882642 Paola Capriolo’s The Dual Realm was first published in Italian in 1991 and translated into Englis…
- Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf. 2013. ISBN 9781555976408 The final words of Nigerian author A. Igoni Barrett’s debut collection of short stories are “love does not mean marriage, a baby, forever. Lo…