Kiss of Santa: Crime Short Fiction (Finland)

Leena Lehtolainen, born in Vesanto in 1964, is Finland's most successful female crime author, with her titles consistently topping the country’s best-seller lists. More than two million copies of her books have been sold worldwide, and her works have been translated into twenty-nine languages. In addition to her career as an author, Lehtolainen has worked … Continue reading Kiss of Santa: Crime Short Fiction (Finland)

Crime Excerpt: The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (Japan)

Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai  Chapter 1 - The Three-Fingered Man Before recording the strange history that follows, I felt I ought to take a look at the house where such a gruesome murder was committed. Accordingly, one afternoon in early spring, I set off, walking stick in hand, for a stroll … Continue reading Crime Excerpt: The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (Japan)

Crime Fiction Publisher Spotlight: Soho Crime

For more than twenty years, Soho Crime has been publishing atmospheric crime fiction set all over the world. Some of Soho’s most popular stories will whisk you away to France, China, England, Laos, Northern Ireland, Thailand, Australia, Japan, Germany, South Africa, Italy, Denmark, India, Cuba, and Palestine, to name but a few. Soho Crime’s list run the … Continue reading Crime Fiction Publisher Spotlight: Soho Crime

ITALIAN CRIME SERIES IN TRANSLATION

The killer was a young Calabrian male whose mother’s virtue had been slandered. He had been in town for only a few days and didn’t know that, in this part of Italy, slandering someone’s mother was almost as common as saying ‘Ciao’. A sad story of cultural misunderstanding.  These lines, from Marco Vichi’s Death in … Continue reading ITALIAN CRIME SERIES IN TRANSLATION

#GlobalPRIDELitMonth: Celebrating PRIDE With LGBTQ2IA+ Literature From Around the World

This June, we celebrated PRIDE at the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative through focusing on books written by LGBT2QIA+ authors and/or featuring characters that identify with these communities. Many books featured this month are #ownvoices titles, and cover an incredible range of genres; literary fiction, memoirs, young adult fiction, experimental fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, poetry … Continue reading #GlobalPRIDELitMonth: Celebrating PRIDE With LGBTQ2IA+ Literature From Around the World

#GlobalPRIDELitMonth: The Hungry Ghosts

Stretching from Colombo in Sri Lanka to Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, Shyam Selvadurai’s The Hungry Ghosts is about a mixed Tamil and Sinhalese boy named Shivan Rassiah. Hanging over a story that is deeply entrenched in control over power and land, migration, and desire and belonging, is the Buddhist concept of hungry ghosts. The … Continue reading #GlobalPRIDELitMonth: The Hungry Ghosts

#GlobalPrideLitMonth: Interview with author Danton Remoto

Danton Remoto is a writer, educator, media personality, and the founder of Ladlad, the LGBTQ political party of the Philippines. His novel, Riverrun, about a gay young man’s coming of age in a military dictatorship, is one of the first gay novels -- if not the first gay novel -- published in the Philippines. Originally … Continue reading #GlobalPrideLitMonth: Interview with author Danton Remoto

#WorldKidLitWednesday: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Make way for Kiki! A beloved children’s classic in Japan ever since it was originally published in 1985, Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono has been out of print in English translation for over a decade, despite its continuing fame via Hayao Miyazaki’s animated adaptation. And adaptation it is: there are significant differences between the book and the movie. … Continue reading #WorldKidLitWednesday: Kiki’s Delivery Service

#GlobalPRIDELitMonth: Queer Africa: #ownvoices books from LGBTQ2IA+ African Writers

Check out these 11 books of poetry, comics, short stories, novels and non-fiction anthologies. All by African writers. All #ownvoices. Meanwhile... Graphic short stories about everyday queer life in Southern and East Africa. By the Qintu Collab. English. Short Story Collection. So this work that we all do as artists and culture makers – we … Continue reading #GlobalPRIDELitMonth: Queer Africa: #ownvoices books from LGBTQ2IA+ African Writers

#GlobalPRIDELitMonth: Little Blue Encyclopedia (For Vivian)-A Quirky Queer Experimental Novel about Love and Grief

This is a joyful book about grief. I didn’t think such a book existed, but here it is. Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) is a bizarre, whimsical, and beautiful testimony to friendship, love and grief. Written by Canadian queer trans librarian Hazel Jane Plante, this fantastic, experimental novel is somehow her first novel. It is … Continue reading #GlobalPRIDELitMonth: Little Blue Encyclopedia (For Vivian)-A Quirky Queer Experimental Novel about Love and Grief