Contemporary fiction: literary and general

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Book SynopsisA classic story of superstition and sorcery set in 1950s France. "The village which had so charmed her had grown sinister…" Exhausted after years of unhappiness, 20-year-old Juliet Cunningham is delighted to find herself living in a village in the French Alps. Recovering in the fresh air of the mountains, she becomes involved in local life. As Juliet makes new friends and meets fellow wanderers – such as the handsome young Michael – she hears of stories of witchery, of fortunes told, of spells, and murder … but are the rumours of the witch true, and can Juliet escape in time? First published in 1953, Dark Enchantment evokes a magical pre-war France, and was written after Macardle’s other successful and influential novels The Uninvited and The Unforeseen. This edition of Dark Enchantment features an introduction by Caroline B Heafey. For fans of Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier and Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. Also by Dorothy Macardle, The Uninvited and The Unforeseen.Trade ReviewNEW YORK TIMES 'A vanished enchantment... perfect escape literature.' KIRKUS 'Casts its own spell.' BENEDICT KIELY 'Remarkable.' IRISH TIMES 'A novel in the French fairytale tradition... A wonderful story, wonderfully written.'

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Book SynopsisIn a poverty-stricken neighbourhood wedged between the city and the sea, a father and son struggle to keep their heads above water. Rather than being discouraged by their difficulties and hardship, their response is to come up with increasingly bizarre and imaginative plans in order to get by. Even when a horrifying, macabre event rocks the neighborhood and the locals start to flee, father and son decide to stay put. What matters is staying together.This is a bold, poignant text that juxtaposes a very tender father-son relationship with the son's sexual liberation and a brutal depiction of homophobic violence. Giuseppe Caputo uses delicate – yet electrifying – lyricism and imagery to weave a tale that balances desire, violence, discrimination, love, eroticism and defiance, while evoking with surreal humor the social marginalization of the protagonists as they struggle to keep afloat in a society where there are no safety nets.Like a brightly-lit theme park with its house of horrors, reminiscent in parts of James Baldwin’s Another Country or Virginie Despentes’ Vernon Subutex trilogy, An Orphan World defies the reader to look away, and the reward is an exhilarating carnival ride filled with beauty, compassion and loss.Trade ReviewEnglish PEN (Award)"A delirious, tender fable." —The Times Literary Supplement"Colombian writer Caputo’s transfixing debut explores the poverty, sexuality, and community found in a hardscrabble neighborhood….Caputo’s arresting novel hits hard." —Publishers Weekly"An extraordinary book. (Garth Greenwell)" —Literary Hub"Caputo is a blazing new talent in world literature. Everyone should read this book!"" —Garth Greenwell , author of WHAT BELONGS TO YOU"He’s a talent."" —Niven Govinden , author of THIS BRUTAL HOUSE"Gritty...an effortlessly multi-layered plot that challenges the reader to question everything." —The Skinny"Caputo writes with his pen on fire." —Books and Bao"One of the best debut novels I’ve read this year and it marks Caputo out as one of the most striking new voices coming from Latin America." —Morning Star"Caputo tells a difficult story with urgency and a master skill of narration, prose and poetry. It is truly a work of horrific beauty and indulgent joy (or the promise of it)." —Wasafiri

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Book SynopsisWinner PEN Translates Award (UK)Recovering from an unspecified accident, the narrator of Loop finds herself in waiting rooms of different kinds: airport departure lounges, doctors’ surgeries, and above all at home, awaiting the return of her boyfriend, who has travelled to Spain following the death of his mother. Loop is a love story told from the perspective of a contemporary Penelope who, instead of weaving and unravelling her shroud, writes and erases her thoughts in her ‘ideal’ notebook. At once, funny and thought-provoking, her thoughts range from her stationery preferences to the different scales on which life is lived, while a cast of unlikely characters cross the page, from Proust to a mysterious dwarf, from a dreamy cat to David Bowie singing ‘Wild is the Wind’. Written in an assured, irreverent style, Loop is the journal of an absence, one in which the most minute or whimsical observations open up universes. Combining aphoristic fragments with introspective narrative, and evoking Italo Calvino and Fernando Pessoa in its playfulness and wry humour, this original reflection on relationships, solitude and the purpose of writing offers a glimpse of contemporary life in Mexico City, while asking what it really means to find our place in the world.Trade ReviewEnglish PEN (Award)"A glorious tapestry of ideas." —The Guardian"In this novel, the stream of consciousness is more like a whirlpool." —New York Times"It should be read, period." —The Quietus"A meditation on writing itself." —3:AM Magazine"Absolutely marvelous from first to final sentence….an unmitigated delight." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Bookshop"A delightful meditation on waiting, love, and the inevitability of change." —Publishers Weekly"Unforgettably marvelous from its very first sentence to its final one, Loop is a delighting, discursive, diary-like novel full of personality, humor, and profundity." —, Powell's Bookshop"Lozano is a marvellous writer, bright, funny, subtly perverse, always moving."" —Francisco Goldman , author of THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER"Lozano knows she is gifted, and has no shame in showing it."" —Margarita García Robayo , author of FISH SOUP and HOLIDAY HEART"An astonishingly successful notebook narrative that blends a solid plot with considered and funny musings on purpose and loneliness." —Books and Bao"Experimental, witty and disruptive." —Splice"Clever, innovative...an erudite observation of the everyday." —Translating Women"A truly original reflection on love, relationships, solitude and the aesthetics and purpose of writing." —Elif the Reader"Tremendous fun and an immensely rewarding read." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Bookshop"This is not a work that represents the irreducible violence of the place, solves loneliness, or is about death in every respect, but rather an attempt to live with these realities and still miss your boyfriend." —Air/Light Magazine"Filled with many weird and wonderful curiosities." —Full Stop"utterly charming and fun, philosophical and strange" —Loop"Incredible...I loved every second of this book." —The Tartan

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Book SynopsisThis assured debut novel from acclaimed Chilean author Andrea Jeftanovic explores the devastating psychological effects of the conflict in the Balkans on a family who flee to South America to build a new life. It is told from the perspective of the young Tamara, as she tries to make sense of growing up haunted by a distant conflict. Yet the ghosts of war re-emerge in their new land – which has its own traumatic past – to tear the family apart.Staging scenes from childhood as if the characters were rehearsing for a play, the novel uses all the imaginary resources of theatre director, set paint- er and lighting designer to pose the question: how can Tamara salvage an identity as an adult from the ruins of memory, and rediscover the ability to love? With themes that echo Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul , a sensitive narrator recalling Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing , and a focus on the body in the style of Elfriede Jelinek, this is an artfully construct- ed, widely praised work from one of the most exciting novelists at work in Latin America today.Trade Review"A memorable novel of devastating poignancy." —Irish Times"Exquisitely constructed and executed."** —New Internationalist**"A memorable novel of devastating poignancy."** —Irish Times**"Jeftanovic’s prose, seamlessly reproduced by Frances Riddle, is exquisite, each sentence carefully crafted, doing so much on its own, while contributing to the whole."** —BookBlast**"Theatre of War is a confident debut and a powerful exorcism of one family’s inherited trauma."** —The Skinny**"It shows us that wars last far longer than battles in the hearts, minds, the very DNA of those who have to suffer them. Theatre of War is an absolute triumph or literature."** —Books and Bao**"Jeftanovic’s staccato rhythms, with short lines and stark and sometimes dark imagery, matches the urgency of the novel, along with its lyrical and symbolic qualities"** —Morning Star**"Jeftanovic explores the darkest corners of human psychology...a rare gem."** —El Cultural**"Restless and wholly engrossing."** —Sounds & Colours**

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Book SynopsisOutsiders often expect Muslim women to be timid, conservative, or submissive, the reality is different. While some of these authors express a quiet piety and explore poignant situations, others use black humour and biting satire, or play with possibilities. Still others shade into the territory of a Muslim Fifty Shades of Grey, creating grey areas where the mainstream media sees only black and white. The stories also reflect on gender differences, lesbian desire,and many other subjects.Table of ContentsForeword;Introduction;The Cat That Came in with the Dark;Love Letter;Ghazal;Her Trials; Boneland;Tears and Tantrums;Waiting for the Bus;Marriage of Convenience; Rearranged;Peter Pochmann Goes to Dinner;Moments in Time;Frida's Breakfast;A Simple Nature;Proper and Perfect?; Acid Reflux;Heartbeat

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Book SynopsisIt's January 1982, and Britain will soon be at war with Argentina. But that's not why Terry's life is falling apart. Forty-five and recently redundant from the only job he's ever had, he and his wife Pat are forced to sell their home and move into a static caravan.The only chink of light is the unlikely success of the White Hart darts team, but Terry's teammates face problems of their own: Phil suspects his wife is having an affair, while Tom's is depressed about their inability to conceive. Then Terry's son reveals some surprising news, and Terry makes a visit to the doctor that leaves him with no choice but to consider what matters most in his life.Slings and Arrows is a funny and moving novel about love, family, friendship and darts.

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Book SynopsisDramatic, detailed, and romantic.' Megan Bradbury, author of Everyone is Watching.2010. The end of the world has begun, but no one is paying attention. People are unaware of the breaking pandemic, code name, The Epilogue Event.Accidentally finding himself at centre stage, an unlikely and unwilling hero Peter Finch, must, if he is to survive, awaken powers he has been trying to forget for over thirty years. And time is not on his side. A mysterious Artificial Intelligence, the cause of the plague, is slowly gaining control over everyone Peter loves and everything he values.On the streets of West London, the most powerful slave of a New Order, Dr Gordon Langley, is projecting a terrifying message. Unless Peter, aided by a band of misfits and criminals, can confront Langley, and his accomplices at a research facility near Norwich, and discover the meaning of the virus and reverse it, their world will be overcome and those permitted to surv

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Book SynopsisLevrero's writing is distinguished by its bounteous imagination, and nowhere more so than in this 1970 story collection. From the Escher-like grammatical maze of The Boarding House' to the Lewis Carroll-esque The Basement', this book explores uncanny domestic spaces, using the structures of the stories themselves as tools for re-inventing narrative possibility.

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Book SynopsisShamed schoolteacher, Mathilde, moves to a dairy farm in the Norwegian countryside for an ‘easier life’, but she’s soon up to her old tricks … upending and unsettling the lives of two reclusive farmers.  Exquisitely written, razor-sharp and simmering with an unexpected tension, Toxic marks the return of one of Norway’s finest writers…   'Flatland has the gift that I most often covet in the work of other writers: the ability to make everyday events compelling … how the quietest existence can brim with urgency and drama' Ann Morgan   ‘Helga Flatland writes with elegance and subtle humour' Daily Express   ‘The author has been dubbed the Norwegian Anne Tyler and for good reason’ Good Housekeeping   –––––––––––&ndas

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Book SynopsisA universal recipe for when life feels barren. A botanical tale of closeness and caring.Anna is mourning the end of her marriage when she runs into Maria by chance at her mother''s gallery in Milan. When Maria suddenly collapses and is taken to hospital, the pair''s lives are irrevocably changed.Over the course of the long, dry summer that follows, the pair come together to convalesce. Maria, an avid gardener, observes half-dead plants on Anna''s terrace, and finds solace in teaching Anna how to care for them. In doing so, the pair also begin to care for each other''s loneliness, and find in the natural world a deeply restorative power one that will open them up to new love and life.InWe Will Be Forest, Ilaria Bernardini draws on a private affair illness, the end of a marriage, a child to protect to bring to life a powerful poetic universe in which words sprout like branches and leaves.

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Book SynopsisA powerful modern homage to a landscape and its people, Celebration is short fiction from Croatia's most respected contemporary writer, Damir Karakas, the most recent winner of the Mesa Selimovic Award for best fiction in the Balkans. Ellen Elias-Bursac is the award-winning translator of Dasa Drndic.

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Book SynopsisHaving just returned from a trip to Sicily, the art historian, Noah Glass is discovered floating face down in the swimming pool at his Sydney apartment block. His grieving grown up children Martin and Evie must deal with the shock of their father''s death but also with his involvement in a sculpture missing from a museum in Palermo.

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Book SynopsisFunniest novel of Soviet era.

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Book SynopsisA remarkable multigenerational novel, The Border of Paradise transports readers into the world of an iconoclastic midcentury family. In booming postwar Brooklyn, the Nowak Piano Company is an American success story. There is just one problem: the Nowak's only son, David. A handsome kid and shy like his mother, David struggles with neuroses. If not for his only friend, Marianne, David's life would be intolerable. When David inherits the piano company at just 18 and Marianne breaks things off, David sells the company and travels around the world. In Taiwan, his life changes when he meets the daughter of a local madame -- beautiful, sharp-tongued Daisy. Returning to the United States, the couple (and newborn son) buy an isolated country house in Northern California's Polk Valley. As David's mental health deteriorates, he has a brief affair with Marianne, producing a daughter. When Marianne appears at their doorstep, the couple's fateful decision to take the child as their own determines a tragic course of events for the entire family. Told from multiple perspectives, The Border of Paradise culminates in heartrending fashion, as the young heirs to the Nowak fortune must confront their past and the tragic reality of their future.Trade Review"The Border of Paradise is shaped by darkness and the kind of delicious story that makes for missed train stops and bedtimes, keeping a reader up late for just one more page of dynamic character-bouncing perspective (an idea which came to Wang in dreams). It is the author's stunning introduction to the literary world." -Alli Maloney, The New York Times "Wang's prose is beautiful and restrained, and her generous, precise characterization makes every perspective feel organic and utterly real in the face of increasingly theatrical circumstances. The result -- the story of an American family stretched and manipulated into impossible shapes -- is an extraordinary literary and gothic novel of the highest order." -Carmen Maria Machado, NPR "Gothic in tone, epic in ambition, and creepy in spades." --Kirkus Reviews One of Library Journal's picks for Top Spring Indie Fiction: "A well-wrought multigenerational novel that also appeals for its honest look at mental illness." --Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal One of the Lit Hub's Books to Read in April: "Wang takes Ahab's rant of... 'madness maddened' and infuses it through all of the characters in this book, not just the ones who are identified as crazy. A terrifying look at dysfunction, manipulation, and psychological torture and love, yes love. A very deftly written first novel." --The Lit Hub One of the Chicago Review of Books Best Books from Independent Presses in April "Esme Weijun Wang's new novel focuses on the complex relationships among a family with a prosperous business in the post-war United States, and the conflicts and questions of family that occur over time." --Vol. 1 Brooklyn "The Border of Paradise is a magnificent achievement -- an exhortation for human tenderness and individual dignity in the most difficult of circumstances. Wang explores identity and family with a sense of drama that borders on gothic, without ever sacrificing the psychological texture that connects us to her characters." --Adrienne Celt, author of The Daughters "Esme Weijun Wang's relentlessly moving debut The Border of Paradise is a profound epic of potent darkness with all sorts of unexpected light. The story of the Nowak family contains notes of Lidia Yuknavitch, Christine Schutt, and Kevin Wilson, and yet remains unlike anything I've ever read. Trauma is rendered gorgeously, from every angle, within every possibility. Whether tackling New York, California, or Taiwan, Wang performs this novel with glorious courage, ambition, passion, and style." --Porochista Khakpour, author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects and The Last Illusion "A stunning meditation on the meaning of marriage, the limits of language, and the inescapable solitude of the mind. Esme Weijun Wang's writing is spellbinding; her characters are hauntingly alive." --Jennifer DuBois, author of Cartwheel

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Book SynopsisA philosophical fable from a great forgotten German fabulist Billed by its author--the pseudonymous Mynona (German for “anonymous” backward)--as “the most profound magical experiment since Nostradamus,” The Creator tells the tale of Gumprecht Weiss, an intellectual who has withdrawn from a life of libertinage to pursue his solitary philosophical ruminations. At first dreaming and then actually encountering an enticing young woman named Elvira, Weiss discovers that she has escaped the clutches of her uncle, the Baron, who has been using her as a guinea pig in his metaphysical experiments. But the Baron catches up with them and persuades Gumprecht and Elvira to come to his laboratory, to engage in an experiment to bridge the divide between waking consciousness and dream by entering a mirror engineered to bend and blend realities. Mynona’s philosophical fable was described by the legendary German publisher Kurt Wolff as “a station farther on the imaginative train of thought of Hoffmann, Villiers, Poe, etc.,” when it appeared in 1920, with illustrations by Alfred Kubin (included here). With this first English-language edition, Wakefield Press introduces the work of a great forgotten German fabulist. Mentioned in his day in the same breath as Kafka, Mynona, aka Salomo Friedlaender (1871–1946), was a perfectly functioning split personality: a serious philosopher by day (author of Friedrich Nietzsche: An Intellectual Biography and Kant for Children) and a literary absurdist by night, who composed black humored tales he called Grostesken. His friends and fans included Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin and Karl Kraus.

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Book SynopsisA nonconformist satire of both bureaucracy and nonconformism from the French polymath and author of Foam of the Days Written at the age of 23 for his friends in the winter of 1943–44, Vercoquin and the Plankton was the first of Vian’s novels to be published under his own name. Published in 1947, the book came out two months after his succès de scandale I Spit on Your Graves and two months before the publication of his beloved classic The Foam of the Days. At once social documentary, scathing satire and jazz manifesto, Vercoquin and the Plankton describes the collision of two worlds under the Vichy regime: that of the youthful dandyism of the ever-partying Zazous and the murderously maniacal bureaucracy of a governmental office for standardization. In this roman à clef drawn from Vian’s own contradictory lives as a jazz musician on the Left Bank and an engineer at the French National Organization for Standardization, the reader is introduced to a handful of characters inhabiting a world lying somewhere between Occupied Paris and Looney Tunes. Boris Vian (1920–59) was a French polymath who in his short life managed to inhabit the roles of writer, poet, playwright, musician, singer/songwriter, translator, music critic, actor, inventor and engineer, before dying of a heart attack at the age of 39, after authoring ten novels, several volumes of short stories, plays, operas, articles and nearly 500 songs. Vian is remembered as one of the reigning spirits of the postwar Parisian Latin Quarter, a friend to everyone from Jean-Paul Sartre to Raymond Queneau and Miles Davis, playing trumpet with Claude Abadie and Claude Luter, and an influence on such future kindred spirits as Serge Gainsbourg.

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Book SynopsisA Rimbaudesque novella of wayward wanderlust and liberty from the cofounder of Surrealism Conceived in a hospital bed in 1917 and written a few months later after his fateful encounter with Lautréamont’s Maldoror, Philippe Soupault’s novella The Voyage of Horace Pirouelle preceded the author’s involvement with Parisian Dada and the Surrealist movement he would later launch with his friends. Inspired by a schoolmate’s sudden departure for Greenland on a whim and his subsequent disappearance, Soupault imagines his alter ego’s adventures as entries in a journal both personal and fictional. Adopted by an Inuit tribe, Pirouelle drifts from one encounter to another, from one casual murder to another, until his life of liberty and spontaneity leads him to stasis at the edge of existence. After taking an active part in French Dada, Philippe Soupault (1897–1990) cofounded the Surrealist movement with André Breton and Louis Aragon, and authored with Breton The Magnetic Fields, the first official Surrealist work. After being expelled from the movement for the crime of being “too literary,” he devoted his life to writing, travel, journalism and political activity (for which he was put in prison by the collaborationist Vichy government).

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Book SynopsisNearly 100 years later, a landmark post-Symbolist poem receives its first English translationWhen published in 1928, Vulturnus represented a new direction in Léon-Paul Fargue's writing: a shift from the lyrical post-Symbolist melancholy of his early poetry to something more grandiose, dynamic and cosmic. This long prose poem weaves together philosophical dialogue, metaphysical meditation and mournful reminiscence delivered in a language that spirals into scientific terminology and Rabelaisian neologism. Jolted into a nightmare aboard a long-distance train journey, the author finds himself on a voyage that takes him from his hometown to other existences, accompanied by the fanfare of the planets and two companionsPierre Pellegrin and Joseph Ausudrewho guide him to a terrestrial paradise in quest of a moment of eternity. This first English translation finally introduces an essential yet underrecognized 20th-century voice and includes an essay on the text

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Book SynopsisA truly mind-bending novel from an author prized for his experimental fusions of nouveau roman techniques and Oulipian constraintsAn editor at a Parisian publishing house receives a manuscript by someone calling himself Desiderioa manuscript that bears an eerie resemblance to his own life and to a book he was planning to write on a Renaissance painter of the same name. He decides to use his vacation time to visit the place from which it was sentthe quaint, historical seaside town of V.and believes he has identified the author: one Jean Morelle, himself a tourist, who disappeared the very day the manuscript was mailed. The narrator decides to play amateur detective and track down Morelle, unaware that as he becomes more deeply enmeshed in the mystery, the streets of V. will bend around him like a Möbius strip to form a loop that seems to offer no escape.A portrait of obsession, Vacated Landscape is both ingeniously fractal and exuberantly byzantine. It is the first novel of Jean Lahougue's to be translated into English.Jean Lahougue (born 1945) is a French novelist. A lifelong Agatha Christie fan, he won (and refused) the Prix Médicis in 1980 for Comptine des Height, a puzzle-novel patterned on Ten Little Indians.

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Book Synopsis“Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.” --Craig Finn, The Hold Steady Thomas Ransom, born to a severely dysfunctional southern family transplanted to New York City, is left to his own devices by neglectful parents, and spends his childhood shadowing his criminally-inclined half-brother and roaming the city with hard-drinking teenage pals. He eventually finds an outlet as the flamboyant singer of a downtown rock band, and later as the young editor of the Detroit-based magazine that invented punk, only to return to New York, at the height of the 1970s bacchanal, and crash. But it isn’t music that saves him. It’s a soft-spoken painter, who turns out to be the most outrageous character of all. With echoes of Almost Famous and Just Kids, LOUDMOUTH tracks an impassioned musician and writer out among the punks, hippies, and wild geniuses of rock when music was the center of the world. Author Robert Duncan was barely out of his teens when he started writing for the influential music magazine Creem, becoming its managing editor at 22. He went on to write for Rolling Stone, Circus, Life, and dozens of other publications, interviewing hundreds of rock stars at the top of their game. In the process, Duncan became a rock Zelig: he shares tales of his time with a young, scrawny Bruce Springsteen while driving him around Detroit; he introduces The Clash‘s Mick Jones and Joe Strummer to a broken-down piano player of dubious ability, leading to a hilariously disastrous recording session with the band; he works alongside legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, witnesses his tragic spiral, and finally discovers him dead of an OD in the apartment next door. These experiences, and many others, provide the fuel for his debut novel, LOUDMOUTH, making it what Brian Jonestown Massacre's Joel Gion calls, “A sonic wail of a tale about the youthful beginnings of one of the Mount Rushmore ‘heads’ of rock ’n’ roll journalism.”Trade Review“Loudmouth follows Thomas Ransom, whose Southern family’s relocation to Manhattan results in strange, street-centric childhood. As a teenager Ransom—an almost-exact avatar of his creator Duncan—discovers rock and punk, and becomes a very young editor of a music magazine. (Duncan became managing editor of Creem at age 22.) … Examines an era that saved him from the torpor of his parents’ dysfunction and gave him an appreciation for different paths.” —Lit Hub “Holy hell, the 1970s...If you’re too young to have experienced that decade but find yourself curious about its bombed-out cities, the rise of punk rock and the national “malaise,” you could do much worse than to start with Robert Duncan’s debut novel, Loudmouth.... If the book reads like hyperrealism (and we do mean hyper), that’s because it hews pretty close to the truths of the era, from the freewheeling boorishness to the stop-sign face-plants of so many drug casualties.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A fictionalized version of [Duncan's] own tumultuous life story that both pulls on the heart strings and provides a belly full of laughs.” —Rocklife “A sonic wail of a tale about the youthful beginnings of one of the Mount Rushmore ‘heads’ of rock ‘n‘ roll journalism. I loved it.” —Joel Gion, musician, Brian Jonestown Massacre “LOUDMOUTH is, as advertised, a loud and brash trip that takes you through the hellish halls of childhood and adolescence before delivering you to the sweet salvation of rock and roll music and all that rides alongside it. The story is majorly compelling--funny, tender, and very very honest. Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.” —Craig Finn, singer/songwriter, The Hold Steady “Wow. What a great time for me. I could listen to Robert Duncan’s stories all day.” —Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Option podcast, ex-Saturday Night Live “Very engaging, fantastic stories and perspectives.” —Ron Keel, rock musician “This picaresque, coming-of-age novel, about a boy who looks for answers in rock ‘n’ roll, but finds them in the love of an extraordinary woman, is sad, serious, funny and, in the end, ridiculously moving.” —Sylvie Simmons, New York Times bestselling author of Face It: Debbie Harry; Too Weird For Ziggy; and Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes “Duncan’s prose is amazing, the story entertaining and addictive. If you’re a fan of stories with the Almost Famous vibe, be sure to check this one out!” —All Dragons Read “A fantastic novel! This book explores the true essence and excitement of '70s rock and 'roll with some outlandish yet lovable characters. A truly memorable work of art! —Bob Nalbandian, Director, Inside Metal Documentaries “Great stories—you will be hooked.” —Charles Shute, The Chuck Shute Podcast “Intelligence and grace . . . entertainingly larger-than-life.” —Publishers Weekly “In prose that’s beautiful, when it’s not hilarious, this noisy, nostalgic novel tells how an excitable boy from a darkly conservative family survived childhood and then rock ’n’ roll. It’s a wild ride with some amazing characters—including a few you might recognize—and I’m in awe.” —Jaan Uhelszki, former Creem editor; writer, producer of Creem: America‘s Only Rock ‘n‘ Roll Magazine

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Book Synopsis"If someone in the future asks in frustration, 'What has Korean literature been up to?' we can quietly hand them Vaseline Buddha." -- Pak Mingyu A tragicomic odyssey told through free association scrubs the depths of the human psyche to achieve a higher level of consciousness equal to Zen meditation. The story opens when our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore a variety of geographical and mental locations--real, unreal, surreal--to explore the very nature of reality. Jung Young Moon, 2005 alum of Iowa's International Writing Program, is one of South Korea's most award-winning, eccentric, and handsome authors, often compared to Kafka and Beckett.Trade Review"Reading "Vaseline Buddha" feels like watching a magician who explains his trick as he performs it and yet still mesmerizes you with his sleight of hand. You simultaneously enter the dream and wake from it...This resistance underpinning the entire exercise makes Jung an heir to Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz, who understood that writing is the documentation of a dance the writer does between form and chaos." -- Tyler Malone, Los Angeles Time "The novel raises questions about story, and how stories are created. It muses on where thoughts come from, how they act on us, and how to live a life that doesn't take itself too seriously, while still earnestly engaging with the world. Jung's work is as a hybrid of fiction, journal, and philosophical aphorisms. It begins in a place where meaning is of little concern, and ends by asking the reader to build up her own meaning while enjoying Jung's fragments for the small, precious pleasures they provide." -- John W. W. Zeiser, Los Angeles Review of Books "We wade into these... streams of consciousness and are swept away in a current of fluid thought, as sensation and ideation merge into a movement of molecules, a tide in perpetual flux." -- Tyler Malone, Literary Hub "A remarkable work for its eccentric modes of thought and how it looks beyond the basic novel form and asks important secondary questions of where fiction is left to go." -- Jason DeYoung, Review31 (a "Best Novels of 2016" selection) "By continuing to reject the instinct for the order of things, the novel seeks to shed darkness on glimpses of the void. In those intense moments of deconstruction, the nothing that the language cannot express can be felt briefly in a moment of silent understanding amid cascade of words." -- Jack Saebyok Jung, Quarterly Conversation "The book echoes the hectic nature of life itself, how chaotic and challenging it can be at times... certainly not a conventional novel, but it is one that challenges and enriches any reader who takes the time to follow Jung Young Moon as he contemplates the world around him." -- Louisa Lee, Inspire Me Korea "Jung Young Moon's work is remarkable for its eccentric modes of thought and how it tests the limits of the novel and our notions of what fiction can do. It looks beyond the basic form and asks important secondary questions of where fiction is left to go. It also reveals crisply the cryptic nature of everyday life, which if examined with deep seriousness, will inevitably lead to deep absurdity--and that makes its futility somewhat pleasing." -- Jason De Young, Numero Cinq Magazine "The book plays directly to the central questions of the act of writing: Should writing be driven by order or chaos? Should it structure the universe or reflect its seeming randomness? Is the imposition of form a virtue of a vice? On that front, it feels akin to writers like Gombrowicz and Beckett." -- Tyler Malone, contributing editor for Lit Hub and founding editor of The Scofield (Literary Hub's 21 Books to Read in July 2016) "Surreal landscapes, automatic writing, and Kafka comparisons? Our interest is piqued by this book, yes indeed." -- Vol. 1 Brooklyn (July 2016 Books Preview) "A strange and wonderful novel. First and foremost, it is a page-turner, but in a way entirely different from what the phrase 'page-turner' usually evokes...page after page, you'll find yourself smiling, if not laughing out loud, at the comic absurdity that occupies the narrator's mind and writing." -- Kalau Almony, Reading in Translation "The circularity of his writing, and his repeated efforts to create a story, are, we begin to realise, themselves a form of therapy--an attempt to work through unexpressed suffering.?" -- Tony Malone, Asymptote "Jung... offers an audacious discourse on creativity, presenting readers with a labyrinth of ideas, images, suggestions, and observations all waiting and available to individual interpretation." -- Library Journal "I have no...idea what this book is going to be like but I know it has piqued my curiosity. Jung Young Moon has been compared to Kafka and Beckett and I'm into that. Jason DeYoung described the book as "meditative, challenging, narratively haywire and comic", and I'm into that, too. Modern Korean literature? Sure, into that, too. And I kind of want to know what a Vaseline Buddha is, so I'm gonna pick it up ASAP." -- Susie Rodarme, BookRiot, "8 Small Press Books to Read in July" Included inWords Without Borders'"July 2016 Watchlist" "One of South Korea's more eccentric contemporary writers, Jung could almost be described as a cross between Beckett and Brautigan -- his earlier writing was often extremely dark, but recently the balance has tipped towards lightness, of touch as much as of mood. It's all part of an aesthetic which prizes vagueness, randomness, digression rather than progression." -- Deborah Smith, Verso Books (Recommended as part of Verso's Five-Book Plan) "A quite nicely wending stream, of consciousness and more..." -- Michael Orthofer, The Complete Review "If you want something vastly different to anything else currently out there, I strongly recommend Vaseline Buddha ... Vaseline Buddha may be a weird novel, but it leaves you thinking in ways you might not have considered before." -- The Sleepless Editor "One achieves a kind of serenity when we delve into this book. I find that eccentrics like Jung are needed in literature." -- Achim Stanislawski "Truly meaningful literature. What makes this novel so fascinating is its permanent liminality and ambiguity: it is exactly the completely obvious which remains ultimately cryptic; it is exactly the linguistic hyper-precision which leads to confusion; it is exactly the "boring" stuff which becomes thrilling at another level; and it is exactly the humorous, ironic attitude of the author-narrator which proves his deep seriousness." -- Jan Dirks

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Book Synopsis“If anyone might be profitably compared to Clarice Lispector, it might well be Maria Gabriela Llansol. This is because of the fundamentally mystical impulse that animates them both, their conception of writing as a sacred act, a prayer: their idea that it was through writing that a person can reach 'the core of being.'” — Benjamin Moser, author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector"Llansol's text . . . creates spaces where conjecture and counterfactual accounts operate freely—granting a glimpse of an alternative reality." —Claire Williams, The GuardianGeography of Rebels presents the English debut of three linked novellas from influential Portuguese writer Maria Gabriela Llansol. With echoes of Clarice Lispector, Llansol's novellas evoke her vision of writing as life, conjuring historical figures and weaving together history, poetry, and philosophy in a transcendent journey through one of Portugal's greatest creative minds.Maria Gabriela Llansol (1931-2008) is one of the preeminent Portuguese writers of the 20th century, twice awarded the prize for best novel from the Portuguese Writers' Association.Trade Review“Imagine Clarice Lispector speaking with specters. Imagine Emily Dickinson seeking and finding a community. Imagine Hilda Hilst rebelling further into the madding crowd. Imagine Virginia Woolf as a Lisbon-born medium channeling displaced waves of consciousness. Imagine Fernando Pessoa as a woman building edenic spaces outside of our time-space continuum. If you can imagine some amalgamation of these descriptors, you may come close to conjuring up the writings of Maria Gabriela Llansol, but you can never quite know their protean beauty until you have entered these textual landscapes for yourself, and discovered the alternate realities they open up, where time feels simultaneously historical and ahistorical, and space simultaneously geographical and ageographical. We are fortunate that Audrey Young has translated Llansol’s Geography of Rebels Trilogy into English for the first time. Now we no longer have an excuse to overlook Llansol’s idiosyncratic genius.” — Tyler Malone, Literary Hub "This is an astonishing, otherworldly and utterly original book, and it reveals Llansol as one of the most fascinating Portuguese writers of the twentieth century." — Annie McDermott, Times Literary Supplement “I am intrigued and mesmerized by Llansol’s prose, her mysterious and beautiful sentences that push the novel beyond its usual constraints, and, at times, approach prose poetry. Like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, Llansol’s method is a radical one and, for those readers who like to be challenged, worth checking out.” — Gary Michael Perry, Foyles Charing Cross Staff Pick (London, UK) "Reading Geography of Rebels is an unforgettable experience. Llansol’s hallucinatory prose is genuinely transfixing." — Joshua Tait, The Carolina Quarterly "Her idiosyncratic, highly creative texts reached beyond conventional "figurative" writing. . . . In particular, her narrators function almost as a medium, or channel, for a series of fluctuating identities and voices or visitors (figures) who inhabit her consciousness and engage in discussion among themselves. Llansol's text also creates spaces where conjecture and counterfactual accounts operate freely - granting a glimpse of an alternative reality. She created iconoclastic, anti-nationalist texts that deflated mythical figures and representations of the past. She stressed Europe's evolution through the growth of free will, free thought and flourishing artistic and scientific developments." — Claire Williams, The Guardian "A commotion of a novel. With abrupt sentences and a narrative that darts, swerves, and veers, it is a perplexing read, but in a way that innervates, rather than discourages.” — Benjamin, Librarie Drawn & Quarterly (Montreal, QC) "Intense and sublime." — José Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission “Abstract, speculative thought, difficult in its way, but Maria Gabriela Llansol makes it sing.” — Anthony Brown, Times Flow Stemmed “Her figures are subjected to deformations and subject to a series of precise sensations. It is the precision of thought that gives her story clarity and makes it a container for speculative questions about the nature of writing and close reading. I found reading The Book of Communities an intensely felt experience, nervous as much as cerebral. It is a lived experience of Merleau-Ponty’s essay on language not residing purely in the brain, but being something we do with our bodies, words are “a certain use made of my phonatory equipment, a certain modulation of my body as a being in the world.” In that sense, like poetry, it is a book that benefits by being read aloud, playing with the elisions and sound structures. Its translator, Audrey Young, from what I can tell from comparing its original online, has done an outstanding job of retaining its rich tone and rhythm.”—Times Flow Stemmed “Imagine if Don Mclean’s song American Pie was written about Christian mysticism instead of rock-n-roll. Llansol immerses her readers in a shared hallucinatory vision, seemingly fueled by religious hysteria and open to multiple interpretations. . . . There is magic in how Llansol puts words together—and more of the poet in her than the prose writer. . . . Llansol is a writer’s writer, unrestrained and reckless in her use of language. And wholly uninterested in catering to the general reading public. Which brings us to what many would say is the major challenge in Llansol’s work. The trilogy has more in common with a medieval Book of Hours than modern fiction. . . There is a phosphorescent brilliance here. And for those who can stay the course, rewards to be had.” —Tara Cheesman-Olmsted, The Quarterly Conversation

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Book Synopsis"Muslim" A Novel is a genre-bending, poetic reflection on what it means to be Muslim from one of France’s leading writers. In this novel, the second in a trilogy, Rahmani’s narrator contemplates the loss of her native language and her imprisonment and exile for being Muslim, woven together in an exploration of the political and personal relationship of language within the fraught history of Islam. Drawing inspiration from the oral histories of her native Berber language, the Koran, and French children’s tales, Rahmani combines fiction and lyric essay in to tell an important story, both powerful and visionary, of identity, persecution, and violence.Trade ReviewWinner of the Albertine Prize 2020 One of Words Without Borders’ most anticipated books of 2019 Part of the New York Times Globetrotting feature on upcoming 2019 Translations Included in Translated Lit’s Most Anticipated Books of February 2019 Librairie Drawn & Quarterly’s New & Notable books Included in Electric Literature's "20 Small Press Books You Might Have Missed" Finalist for Big Other's Book Award for Translation “A love letter to us: the outcasts, the hyphenated “others,” those who have lost tongues and gained dialects. Zahia Rahmani speaks to the religious fairy tales of my girlhood, the Muslim lore we listened to while learning the Arabic alphabet. “Muslim” challenges the borders of genre, much like Rahmani pushes up against the boundaries of multiple, overlapping identities, investigating imposed definitions and complicating what it means to be colonized, woman, Muslim.” - Dr. Seema Yasmin “‘I was born into a minor language and escaped from a distant nowhere that didn’t want me,’ Zahia Rahmani writes in this chronicle of the numerous forms isolation can take—and the numerous ways that identity can be both claimed and projected onto someone. This novel is brief in length, but Rahmani’s approach to it allows for a constant mutability of its form and a series of limitless stylistic renewals.” - Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders "This is the ethical and political terrain at stake for Rahmani, whose literary fiction is an instrument for truths that as yet have nowhere else to be heard. That the very nature of our political regimes requires intervention by way of fiction suggests that literature has an indispensable role to play in the ongoing work of justice."- Jill Jarvis, Public Books "Absolutely essential reading." —Lyric Hunter, Brazos Bookstore “The role of myth and archetypes, identitarian persecution, faith, movement through borderlands, naming, and the limitations and potential of particular languages all figure into this autobiographical novel.”—Aaron Robertson, Lit Hub

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Book SynopsisA modern retelling of the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley classic that addresses issues of belonging and assimilation An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a near-future world that both needs and resents him. As the United States president spouts anti-reanimation rhetoric and giant pharmaceutical companies rake in profits, the man falls in love with lawyer Faustina Godínez. His world expands as he meets her network of family and friends, setting him on a course to discover his first-life history, which the reanimation process erased. With elements of science fiction, horror, political satire and romance, Chicano Frankenstein confronts our nation’s bigotries and the question of what it truly means to be human.

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Book SynopsisIn a fusion of fact and fiction, nineteenth-century women institutionalized as hysterics reveal what history ignored“City of Incurable Women is a brilliant exploration of the type of female bodily and psychic pain once commonly diagnosed as hysteria—and the curiously hysterical response to it commonly exhibited by medical men. It is a novel of powerful originality, riveting historical interest, and haunting lyrical beauty.” —Sigrid Nunez, author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through“Where are the hysterics, those magnificent women of former times?” wrote Jacques Lacan. Long history’s ghosts, marginalized and dispossessed due to their gender and class, they are reimagined by Maud Casey as complex, flesh-and-blood people with stories to tell. These linked, evocative prose portraits, accompanied by period photographs and medical documents both authentic and invented, poignantly restore the humanity to the nineteenth-century female psychiatric patients confined in Paris’s Salpêtrière hospital and reduced to specimens for study by the celebrated neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his male colleagues.Trade ReviewPraise for City of Incurable WomenAmerican Library in Paris Book Award ShortlistJoyce Carol Oates Prize Longlist“An amazing book.” —Héctor Tobar, Alta Journal“[City of Incurable Women] is poetic rather than polemic, elegantly written and filled with resonant imagery. . . . Affirmative and inspiring, a powerful demonstration of Maud Casey’s artistry.” —Boston Globe“Casey’s dedication reads ‘for my fellow incurables’ and this short, enchantingly strange book feels animated by compassion.” —Star Tribune“Sensual, terrifying, humorous, and absurd, [City of Incurable Women] portrays many incurable things—namely, the human spirit.” —BOMB Magazine“Investigational and piercing. . . . [Casey] dismantles the facade of cold, medical logic and its dehumanization of women while also creating beautiful poetry.” —San Francisco Book Review“Casey’s subtle braiding of suffering and strength is the beating heart of this extraordinary work of imagination. . . . These ‘incurable women’ create complex selves always in motion—full of pain but also power, pleasure, and above all mystery.” —On the Seawall“An evocative blend of fiction and nonfiction spirited with emotional power and historic significance. . . . Casey has written a triumphant homage to the women of Paris’s Salpêtrière asylum, and her fellow incurables everywhere.” —Longest Chapter“Enlightening. . . . [City of Incurable Women] defies convention and revels in searing, gorgeous language.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“With acute empathy . . . Casey masterfully magnifies the stories of ‘incurable’ women in Paris’s 19th-century Salpêtrière hospital.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review)“Lyrical. . . . Through thorough research and a cutting pen, Casey elevates these women back to their deserved place in history, bringing to life those who were reduced to mere photographs.” —Booklist“An innovative novel. . . . Soaringly lyrical” —Kirkus Reviews“In exquisite prose, Maud Casey has built a city inside a book, a city that is a hospital, a museum, a dance, a body in ecstasy just outside the frame. On every page of this achingly beautiful book, Casey brings a wise and feral attention to the so-called incurables of the ‘era of soul science’—Augustine, Louise, Marie, Geneviève, and a chorus of nameless others singing their private beginnings and public ends.” —Danielle Dutton, author of SPRAWL and Margaret the First“City of Incurable Women is a brilliant exploration of the type of female bodily and psychic pain once commonly diagnosed as hysteria—and the curiously hysterical response to it commonly exhibited by medical men. It is a novel of powerful originality, riveting historical interest, and haunting lyrical beauty.” —Sigrid Nunez, author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through“I would follow Maud Casey anywhere. In City of Incurable Women, she has given us her best work yet. This is a song for the forgotten, full of voices that will stay with you and guide you—an astonishing portrayal of rage and hope. What a glorious work of art and what a true gift to us.” —Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to EarthSelect Praise for Maud Casey“Casey is a consummate stylist. . . . This is a writer who pays deep, sensual attention to the world.” ―Geraldine Brooks, New York Times Book Review“Brilliant.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies and Florida“Wildly original.” —Joan Silber, author of Ideas of Heaven and Improvement“[A] compassionate, joyful, lyrical voice.” —George Saunders, author of Lincoln In the Bardo and Fox 8“Listen. It’s a command that Maud Casey’s quick to utter. . . . With good reason: If you’re listening closely enough, you might just hear her pull off a feat as graceful as it is clever. Out of the clanging of church bells, the ticking of watches, the snatches of overheard phrases . . . out of this hectic mess of sounds, she manages to create a delicate harmony.” —NPR“Casey evokes—with no shortage of verve and gusto—the romance of 19th-century Europe, when madness plagued more than asylums . . . bringing each internee, each insanity alive with such tenderness.” —Washington Post

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Book SynopsisHailed in Europe, Guido Buzzelli has been called "the Michaelangelo of monsters," "the Goya of comics," and "the patron saint of all Italian cartoonists."A pioneer active from the 1950s-1980s, today virtually unknown in English, Buzzelli horrifies, fascinates, and provokes with his unique blend of surrealism and dynamism. Displaying a range of influences from Westerns and science fiction to Rennaisance art and futurism, Buzzelli''s stories are a delightful, quasi-postmodern mishmash of high and low, showing an intricate hand and stylish narrative skill.The first of three volumes collecting Guido Buzzelli''s stories in English for the first time, includes The Labyrinth and Zil Zelub, two of the earliest Italian avant-garde graphic novels ever published. These fantastic and grotesque stories are the perfect introduction to Buzzelli''s work.Nominated for a 2024 Ignatz award for Best Collected Edition.Translated by Jamie Richards. Introduction by Domingos Isabelinho.

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Book SynopsisFrom debut Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Mapepa comes the saga of the four Taha sisters, and the indomitable matriarch who carried her daughters—and her community—through times of drought and violence in their Harare neighborhood. From the red soil of her garden in Southgate 1, a crowded suburb of Harare, Nyeredzi watches the world. She knows not to venture beyond the grasses that fence them off from the bush, where the city’s violent criminals and young lovers claim the night. But on this red soil, she is sovereign. It is here where she learns how to kill snakes, how to fight off a man, and how to take what she is due. It is here where Nyeredzi and her three older sisters are raised, and where they will each find a different destiny.Decades prior, a young woman abandons a position of great power to seek justice in the second Chimurenga War, only to return to find her world in shambles. So Zuva Mutongi sets off to build a world of her own, raising four daughters—Nyeredzi, Hannah, Abigail, and Ruth—and defending them from the evils beyond their small Harare home. But when a letter from her long-estranged brother calls her back to a past life, Zuva must reconcile with her duty and heal the broken community she left behind.Tsitsi Mapepa’s vibrant debut is the history of a new Zimbabwe, with resilient women and men who raised a nation from its ashes. It is the chronicle of an L-shaped house, long awaited and much beloved, and the guests, welcome and unwelcome, who cross its threshold. It is the coming-of-age of four sisters, who will discover the secrets of womanhood on the volatile streets of Harare. But above all, it is a love song to one woman—a soldier, healer, chief, and mother—whose fierce devotion to her people is a testament to the bonds of blood that bind us all.Trade Review"Creating a world that feels both incredibly real and legendary, Mapepa beautifully explores the formation of Zimbabwe as an independent state in a way reminiscent of Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu. A truly insightful debut from an exciting new Zimbabwean author with a talent for writing the human experience." – Booklist"In telling stories of the bonds between mothers and daughters, from the playful to the profound, Mapepa delivers a novel with profound emotional resonance." – Electric Literature, "The 15 Must-Read Small Press Books of Fall""Like her literary Zimbabwean compatriots NoViolet Bulawayo and Tsitsi Dangarembga, both authors of Booker Prize shortlisted titles, Mapepa gifts savvy international readers with illuminated windows into their mutual native country. Beyond the novel's culturally and historically specific details, Mapepa's characters inspire empathy as strong mothers, daughters, sisters, and women in a borderless, (still) male-dominated world." – Shelf Awareness, "The Best Books This Week, December 4, 2023""Mapepa’s Ndima Ndima is a deeply-woven and emotional coming-of-age tale about owning your power and strength as a young woman, in the midst of utter surrounding chaos." – Books of Brilliance, "7 New Indie Titles to Read This Fall and Winter""With its push and pull between tradition and modernity, male and female, peace and unrest, this collection would be an excellent choice for book groups or a world literature class. […] So many schools read the classic Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe; this novel with its focus on female protagonists could be an excellent pairing with that novel." – Youth Services Book Review, Starred Review"In her striking debut, Tsitsi Mapepa presents suburban Harare, Zimbabwe, and its residents in fresh and radiant prose. [...] At once searing and elegant, Mapepa takes on violence and peace, strength and compassion, pain and beauty in one unforgettable book. " – Ms. Magazine"[Mapepa] uses a writing style that is spare and to the point. [...] The stories, told chronologically, hang together well, with a novelistic arc characteristic of the best novels-in-stories. [...] It is a testament to Mapepa’s writing that, as she intended, readers feel pulled into the women’s woes, a constant reminder that, according to [main character] Zuva, 'We are all related through humanity.'" – Washington Independent Review of Books, "Our 51 Favorite Books of 2023""Mapepa’s prose flows smoothly, like listening to stories from an old friend. The description is vivid yet terse, painting a picture while handing most of the image to the reader’s imagination. With its matriarch and four girls living together, some might draw comparisons with Alcott’s Little Women, but Ndima Ndima is its own creature, distinct and resilient." – BlogCritics"While this poignant novel is grown from a literary heritage, it is also utterly original, like the new way of being its characters must inhabit. Ndima Ndima is many things: a deep portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship; a synthesis of past and present; an aching yet hopeful story. Ndima Ndima explores what is precious – a place to be, a future, loved ones, community, resilience. [B]eautifully, urgently, page-turningly uplifting." – Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books A heartfelt coming of age tale from a talented new Zimbabwean writer brimming with striking and evocative descriptions of Zimbabwean life, and a moving exploration of a mother and daughter relationship. The mother-daughter duo of the indomitable former fighter Zuva, anointed chief of her people, and her daughter Nyeredzi who is curious to learn more about her culture and her role in it, is brought beautifully to life against the backdrop of a country in turmoil." – Irene Sabatini, author of An Act of Defiance"A compulsive read full of humanity, beautifully narrated and with a touch of magical realism, Ndima Ndima serves it all on one devastatingly gorgeous platter: hope, fear, love, tragedy, and triumph. Leaping forward and flashing back through time with masterful agility, alternatively narrated by the courageous Zuva and her young daughter Nyeredzi, Ndima Ndima is a gripping, emotional gem of a journey through Zimbabwean culture and history. Once it has gently pulled you in, it holds you rapt till you are released, exhausted and grateful, at the perfect ending. An astounding debut!" – Buki Papillon, author of An Ordinary Wonder"Tsitsi Mapepa’s debut novel Ndima Ndima transports readers to Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare, in this beautiful, vivid, immersive story of Zuva, a warrior, mother, and wife raising her four daughters in a country thirsty for water, safety and peace. Set against the backdrop of the Chimurenga War, this is a story of courage, loss, resilience, and love. At its center is the mother-daughter relationship between Zuva and her youngest, Nyeredzi, a girl who inherits her mother’s spiritual gift and indomitable spirit. Part coming-of-age tale and part meditation on the tremendous strength of women, Ndima Ndima is a book that does what I love best about historical fiction. It illuminates a fascinating time and place in history that is new to me while exploring universal themes that feel close to home." – Adele Myers, author of The Tobacco Wives"Beautifully written, with talent and heart, Ndima Ndima is an immersive, moving read about the different strengths and lives of women. Nyeredzi is a relatable and easy-to-love character, but Zuva steals the show. My heart extends to this strong and fierce woman who, despite everything, wanted peace." – Shameez Patel Papathanasiou, author of The Last Feather and The Eternal Shadow"Ndima Ndima is part of a new generation of works by Zimbabwean women. I was drawn in by Nyeredzi, who reminded me of Dangarembga’s Tambu & NoViolet’s Destiny but with her own flare. The story is both magical and grounded, tender and yet gripping - the story of fighting for independence, family complications, mythology and the ongoing struggle for Zimbabwe. I couldn’t put it down! – Dr. Chipo Dendere, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College

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Book SynopsisIn 1963, an eclectic group of characters embark on President Kennedy’s ambitious walking challenge. As the Cuban Missile Crisis eases, President Kennedy is casting around for a demonstration of American prowess when one of his Cabinet unearths an old mandate that US Marines be fit enough to walk fifty miles in twenty hours. Perfect! Kennedy decides to throw down the gauntlet to “today’s Marines,” but before he knows it, he’s sparked a wild fad. The entire country has answered the call, it seems, and for a few crazed winter weeks, masses of Americans will embark on their own arduous Big Walks—the “JFK 50-Milers.” Yet in tiny Humtown—an isolated mill town in the Pacific Northwest—not everyone who shows up for a hastily organized Big Walk is motivated by patriotism. Not Helen Hubka, an inveterate gossip; not the suicidal Caroline, who months earlier lost her beloved husband during the Storm of the Century. Not ex-soldier/fisherman Jaspar Goode, nor the unknown man in their midst, a collared priest who seems to shift identities at will. Certainly not Avis, a battered teenager running from her terrifying brother . . . with a stolen town treasure. And when the walkers stumble upon the abandoned car of a missing young mother, they rekindle a mystery that soon reverberates among them, exposing hidden truths, talents, and alliances. Splendidly imagined, with prose that sings on the page, On the Way to the End of the World is an adventure story riven with secrets, a national fairy tale twisted into a whodunit.Trade Review"[A] masterful microcosm of loneliness, loss, and courage. . . Harun’s spellbinding storytelling perfectly evokes both the menace and magic of human connection." * Booklist, starred review *“Harun's novel reverberates with nostalgia, psychological insight, and the sacredness of community.” * Kirkus Reviews *“On the Way to the End of the World is a marvel, a novel as breathtakingly suspenseful as it is beautifully written. Adrianne Harun manages to balance nostalgia, grief, and a growing sense of unease as she tracks her indelible characters on a historic fifty-mile walk that will end a certain kind of American innocence. This is one of the best books I’ve read in years.” * Jess Walter, author of "Beautiful Ruins" *“Every once in a while, a novel emerges with such rare insights it rewires our perception of history. In brilliant and pitch-perfect prose, Adrianne Harun transports us to the Kennedy era and introduces us to characters so immediate and dear we feel we’re no longer reading but rather eavesdropping on intimate conversations, secrets, and shattering revelations. Powerful and riveting, On the Way to the End of the World grips the edge of one changing world and catches us where we live today.” * Debra Magpie Earling, author of "Perma Red" and "The Lost Journals of Sacajawea" *"Both epic and intimate, this exceptional novel takes us on a remarkable journey, as vivid and alluring as it is unforgettable." * Rikki Ducornet, author of "Trafik" and "The Plotinus" *

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Book Synopsis

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