Javier Calvo's "The Hanging Garden"
Javier Calvo—the author of Wonderful World which was published by HarperCollins a couple years ago—is in the States for a few events, including this one with Edith Grossman that’s taking place on Saturday at McNally Jackson in New York. To mark this, and to bring attention to an interesting young Spanish ...
>
Yingelishi: Sinophonic English Poetry and Poetics
If poets are, as P. B. Shelley wrote, “the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” then translation must be one of the unacknowledged legislators of poetry. Certainly translation of Chinese poetry has been essential to modern American writing: Ezra Pound’s Cathay didn’t just invent, as T. S. Eliot put it, “Chinese ...
>
The Russian Affair
Michael Wallner’s second novel opens with its female protagonist watching as a bearded man goes for a swim in the river. It is twenty degrees below zero and windy. Welcome to 1960’s Moskva (not Moscow), a place where national elites eat zakuski instead of hors d’oeuvres and drive chaiki instead of ...
>
The Legend of Pradeep Mathew
WG (Wije) Karunasena is a Sri Lankan sportswriter who has been forced into retirement because he is a drunk. He is also on a fast track to an early death. But he can only write when he’s intoxicated, and his lifelong fascinations for cricket and alcohol propel his obsessive search for Pradeep Mathew, a cricketer who had a ...
>
HHhH
There is no such thing as nonfiction. Without a doubt, someone will disagree with that statement, though they would be hard pressed to compile sufficient evidence to support their position. Even the most skilled biographer or historian must confront the reality that it is never possible to accurately recreate an event ...
>
From the Mouth of the Whale
SjĂłn’s From the Mouth of the Whale has been well received by readers and critics. Junot DĂaz has called the book “achingly brilliant – an epic made mad, made extraordinary.” A.S. Byatt gave it a hearty endorsement in The Guardian. Such praise for the book is well deserved. The book’s prose is lovely and its ...
>
Children in Reindeer Woods
In Children in Reindeer Woods, KristĂn Ă“marsdĂłttir, who is also a playwright, presents an interesting reflection on war. On what is introduced as a peaceful day, three paratroopers invade the temporary home for children where Billie lives and kill everyone except Billie right in front of her. Unexpectedly, one soldier ...
>