Jon Fosse: Aliss at the Fire
Jon Fosse’s Aliss at the Fire (2003, tr: Damion Searls, 2010) is as much a showcase of his talent as dramatist as well as writer of prose. His characters converse…
Mike Ashley (ed): From the Depths
From the Depths and Other Strange Tales of the Sea (2018, ed: Mike Ashley) heralded the start of a book series that, seven years later, is showing no signs of…
Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening
Life is what happens in the moments between birth and death, and there’s much mystery found in this fleeting gap in Jon Fosse’s Morning and Evening (2000, tr: Damion Searls,…
Petina Gappah: An Elegy for Easterly
The thirteen stories that comprise Petina Gappah’s debut collection, An Elegy for Easterly (2009), examine Zimbabwe under the regime of Robert Mugabe. While that experience may not be comparable to…
Éric Vuillard: The War of the Poor
The war in Éric Vuillard’s The War of the Poor (2019, tr: Mark Polizzotti , 2021) is not a single point in time but an ongoing campaign fought throughout history.…
Kathryn Scanlan: Kick the Latch
Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch (2022) is an engaging compression of one woman’s life in the Midwest horse racing circuit. Based on transcribed interviews with the subject, Sonia, Scanlan has…
Chingiz Aïtmatov: Jamilia
When I first read Jamilia (1957, tr: James Riordan, 2007) by the Kyrgyz writer, Chingiz Aïtmatov, I could never square it with the Louis Aragon quote adorning the cover, declaring…
Natalia Ginzburg: The Road to the City
Natalia Ginzburg’s first novel, The Road to the City (1942, tr: Francis Frenaye, 1952) is a coming-of-age of story, cool in its delivery, and hard in its truth. The opening…
Annie Dillard: The Writing Life
Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life (1989) is less an instruction manual for would-be writers and more a reality check. “Why people want to be writers I will never know”, she…
Jon Fosse: A Shining
I was reading a book. It was good. It felt good to be reading. I didn’t know where the story was going. I was just reading. Curiosity had taken hold…