An author of a crime story gets caught up in a real-life crime. In Black and White introduces us to Mizuno, a comically hapless writer virtually powered by a tendency to think himself into corners. The novel was penned in 1928 by the famous Jun’ichirō Tanizaki but only published in English translation last year. When we first … More Colorful Crime: In Black and White by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
I’m honestly not sure where to start with Jordan Stump’s recent English translation of French writer Marie NDiaye’s My Heart Hemmed In, because it feels like I’ve been preparing to read this book for a long time, a long time before I knew of its existence and perhaps even before it was published in its original … More Haunted Hemming & Hawing: My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDiaye
You can judge a book by its cover, to an extent. You can also, maybe to an even greater extent, judge a book by its title. Debut novelist Ava Farmehri borrows this one from Dante, and subsequently presents a work that lives up to its impact. Sheyda Porrouya, a twenty-year-old Iranian born at the time … More Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang by Ava Farmehri
Kafka’s Metamorphosis has in part occupied such a terrifying place in the modern imagination because Gregor Samsa’s awakening in the body of a “monstrous insect” involves the change of both his appearance and perceived usefulness. The idea that a person could simply wake up one day, look different, be considered less relevant to society and therefore … More Get (Sucked) In: The Hole by Hye-young Pyun
I read both French and English, but I’m not sure how my binary is. Normally, when it comes to French texts I’m curious about, I grab either the original or the English translation, depending on what’s most readily available. If it’s the translation, I nurse the intention of reading the original French and comparing the … More Binary Banter: The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise, Perec-style
Probably mostly due to fear of popular culture, I’m immediately mistrustful of a book that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited entirely by children. That these feelings are somewhat mitigated by the thought of these plot parameters being plunked down in Sicily rather than, say, New York, doesn’t absolve me of my pre-judgment so … More Adolescent Amaro: Niccolò Ammaniti’s Anna
Francophone Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou’s Black Moses, out this year in an English translation by Helen Stevenson, is the story of a man whose full name in the Lingala language means “Thanks be to God, the black Moses is born on the earth of our ancestors.” Moses also frequently goes by “Little Pepper,” having earned the moniker … More Alain Mabanckou’s Piquant Picaresque: Black Moses
Exploring the lives of unpleasant people in fiction always carries risks. Awfulness for its own sake or to hammer home a point, no matter how skillfully rendered, can easily grow tedious. Mere jabs at capitalism, materialism and the like will grate on the nerves of the intelligent reader the fifth or sixth time around. Nature … More Smothering Heights: Nature and Necessity by Tariq Goddard
What I love about Mary Gaitskill is that she somehow managed to never be corrupted by, I mean, learn, the writer’s code of conduct. There are many things you’re not supposed to do, as a writer. For one, you’re not supposed to write a long personal essay about the grief you suffered over a runaway … More Tap, Tap, Tap: Somebody with a Little Hammer by Mary Gaitskill
If I say, “This book, the chapters of which are separated by descriptions of painter’s pigments, alternates between the point of view of the main character, Yuki—who grew up with Japanese parents in New York, made friends with a future model in high school and went on herself to become an artist and move to … More Girls & Monsters: Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s Harmless Like You
LIT ALL OVER 