A Meal in Winter by French author Hubert Mingarelli is a subtle book that quietly but methodically stalks the reader’s sympathies. It does so through a beautiful, spare prose style that begins with the first line: “They had rung the iron gong outside, and it was still echoing, at first for real in the courtyard, and then, for a longer … Continue reading Book Review: A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli
Someone who looks like a banker walks into the BNL bank on Piazza Matteoti. Someone who looks like a crook—with a broken nose, low forehead, and big, protruding ears—comes out of the police station next door, while eight carabinieri stand smoking on the pavement and laughing and acting out on a friend how they’d arrest … Continue reading Excerpt: La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
WEDNESDAY 1. No one walks through London with a machete. Unless you count the two men passing him just now. Niall had already wrapped up taking pictures of the spot where the Effra River had once emptied into the Thames, when one of the two men looked back at him. The man’s gaze lingered … Continue reading Fade to Black by Zoë Beck
Mr. Squirrel and the Moon Sebastian Meschenmoser, David Henry Wilson (Trans.) NorthSouth Books, 2015 ISBN 978-0735841567 Winter 2015 Top Ten IndieNext Pick When Mr. Squirrel awakens to find that the moon has landed on his tree, he frantically tries to get rid of it before someone suspects him of stealing it and puts him in jail. … Continue reading Title Pick: Mr. Squirrel and the Moon
WHEN I WAS SIX, my grandfather stopped recognizing me. He lived in the house down the hill from ours, and because I cut through his orchard on the way to school, occasionally he threw a piece of wood at me, saying I had no business on his land. Sometimes, though, he liked to see me … Continue reading The Old King in His Exile by Arno Geiger
Tonight It's Very Clear We took my car. I drove; Armin was sitting next to me and Blank was in the back seat. He sat right in the middle and he had both windows open, his hair fluttering in the wind. Just was written in large gold letters on the rear window behind him. The … Continue reading The Gentlemen’s Tailor by Marianna Leky
Eugene H. Hayworth The American film version of the novel Jakob the Liar opens with a scene that departs from the events described in the book, but depicts one of the key themes of the novel through a visual metaphor. The actor Robin Williams, as the protagonist Jakob, darts and dashes madly through the early … Continue reading Cinematic Translation on Film and Paper: A Case Study
by Kathryn Bodnar The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo; translated from the Spanish by Isabelle Kaufeler; Atria Books 2016 Following in the strong tradition of the Spanish novela negra, The Invisible Guardian is the first of Dolores Redondo’s Baztán trilogy. This crime thriller blends traditional elements of the genre with mythologies and superstitions of … Continue reading Book Review: The Invisible Guardian
Loosely based on the little-known 1859 Mexican invasion of the United States, Carmen Boullosa’s newest novel Texas: The Great Theft is a richly imagined evocation of the volatile Tex-Mex borderland, wrested from Mexico in 1848. Described by Roberto Bolaño as “Mexico’s greatest woman writer,” Boullosa views the border history through distinctly Mexican eyes, and her sympathetic portrayal … Continue reading Title Pick: Carmen Boullosa, Texas: The Great Theft
Super Extra Grande by Yoss Translated from the Spanish (Cuba) by David Frye Restless Books, 2016 ISBN 1632060566 Excerpt: In 2054, Father Salvador González formulates the Tunnel Macroeffect Theorem, and Ecuador confounds the world in sending a satellite to Mars in minutes. Soon after, a politically and racially divided humankind, unready for such a leap, … Continue reading Super Extra Grande by Yoss
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 