Fiction in translation

Book SynopsisAnarchism, dissent, poetry, and the avant-garde mix in this playful retelling of the assassination of Bulgaria's greatest poet.

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Book SynopsisInspired by Slaughterhouse-Five, this is a love letter to the science fiction genre as a whole.

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Book SynopsisThe World Cup, La Grande Bouffe, and the post office drive this journey through Reykjavik and the narrator's mind.

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Book SynopsisA tongue-in-cheek textbook for how to live in our modern age.

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Book SynopsisHaunting, paranoid story of a gay insomniac forced to make very uncomfortable choices to stay alive during the Argentine dictatorship.

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Book SynopsisA unique Kafkaesque novel translated by the author himself

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Book SynopsisAn entirely original novel about the struggle between private and official biographies, and the fleeting nature of collective happiness.

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Book SynopsisA satirical novel that questions just how far we'll go to promote was we wish was true

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Book Synopsis"A welcome volume of stories from Russia's finest contemporary fiction writer, Mikhail Shishkin, full of his typical fusing of mysticism and modernist experimentation." --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal The first English-language collection of short stories by Russia's greatest contemporary author, Mikhail Shishkin, the only author to win all three of Russia's most prestigious literary awards. Often included in discussions of Nobel Prize contenders, Shishkin is a master prose writer in the breathtakingly beautiful style of the greatest Russian authors, known for complex, allusive novels about universal and emotional themes. Shishkin's stories read like modern versions of the eternal literature written by his greatest inspirations: Boris Pasternak, Ivan Bunin, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Shishkin's short fiction is the perfect introduction to his breathtaking oeuvre, his stories touch on the same big themes as his novels, spanning discussions of love and loss, death and eternal life, emigration and exile. Calligraphy Lesson spans Shishkin's entire writing career, including his first published story, the 1993 Debut Prize--winning "Calligraphy Lesson," and his most recent story "Nabokov's Inkblot," which was written for a dramatic adaptation performed in Zurich in 2013. Mikhail Shishkin (b. 1961 in Moscow) is one of the most prominent names in contemporary Russian literature. A former interpreter for refugees in Switzerland, Shishkin divides his time between Moscow, Switzerland, and Germany.Trade ReviewWorld Literature Today Editor's Pick: Summer Reads (2015) "Shishkin tends not to be sentimental or idealistic-- indeed, he is usually quite the opposite--and this gives the more positive or transcendent moments extra punch." -- Sibelan Forrester, The Slavic Review "Shishkin is virtuosic, his subjects move through others' stories in dizzying/awe-inspiring ways. Incredible!" -- Maaza Mengiste, author of Beneath the Lion's Gaze "Though the stories in CALLIGRAPHY LESSON are steeped in Russian history and have a distinctly Russian tone, many of the philosophical quandaries they engage extend beyond language and borders -- they are universal problems, and this translation boldly and successfully takes them on." -- Caroline North, Dallas Observer "Shishkin is fantastically, magically talented." -- Julie Hersh, Music & Literature "Compact, and at times riveting to read, this collection delivers a well-rounded portrait of Russian's most acclaimed contemporary writer." -- Lucy Renner Jones, Words Without Borders "An ideal introduction to Shishkin and his work." -- Michael Orthofer, Complete Review "Nothing I read about [Shishkin], however, quite prepared me for the desperate urgency of CALLIGRAPHY LESSON, as if its lyricism were only a last match struck against the darkness. His prose breathes life -- doesn't breathe it, gasps it, aware of the perishability of words, of worlds dying in each instant, and us dying with them, as life is beaten out of us second by second." -- Cynthia Haven, The Book Haven "Characters with great pathos navigate a distinctly post-Soviet bedlam ... The collection consists of artfully constructed, empathetic tales of people living in the midst cyclonic time." -- Jacob Kiernan, New Orleans Review "I highly recommend Calligraphy Lesson for the beautiful language, moving stories and the emotional characters." -- The Book Binder's Daughter "Complex and allusive ... juxtaposed with autobiographical -- and at times overtly politicised -- narratives ... [the final story] takes us beyond fiction and into the realm of the philosophical essay ... the collection stands at the nexus between Shishkin's novelistic output and his increasingly outspoken forays into the political arena ...In CALLIGRAPHY LESSON, he celebrates art's -- and, more specifically, language's -- capacity to elevate us to the time-annihilating plateau." -- Leo Shtutin, Open Democracy "Shishkin's life-affirming language posits transcendence." -- Robert H. McCormick Jr., World Literature Today "Shishkin's agile, inventive narration reveals his homeland anew, showing once again why he has become one of Russia's most valued storytellers--and an important new author in the West." -- Literalab "[A] skillful achievement of complex, stylistic prose to evoke poignant themes common to all people, including love, life, family, and death. [Shishkin's] particular style is impressionistic, which matches the characteristics of his dominating theme: language." -- Daniel P. Haeusser, Reading 1000 Lives

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Book SynopsisThe stories in Ukrainian film director, writer, and dissident Oleh Sentsov’s debut collection are as much acts of dissent as they are acts of creative expression. These autobiographical stories display a mix of nostalgia and philosophical insight, written in a simple yet profound style looking back on a life's path that led Sentsov to become an internationally renowned dissident artist. Sentsov's charges seemingly stem from his opposition to Russia's invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine where he lived in the Crimea. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in August 2015 on spurious terrorism charges after he was kidnapped in his house and put through a grossly unfair trial by a Russian military court, marred by allegations of torture. Many of the stories included here were read during international campaigns by PEN International, the European Film Academy, and Amnesty International, among others, to support the case for Sentsov across the world. Sentsov's final words at his trial, "Why bring up a new generation of slaves?" have become a rallying cry for his cause. He spent 145 days on hunger strike in 2018 to urge the Russian authorities to release all Ukrainians unfairly imprisoned in Russia, an act of profound courage that contributed to the European Parliament's awarding him the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Sentsov remains in a prison camp in Russia. It is the publisher's hope this book, published in collaboration with PEN Ukraine, contributes to his timely release.Trade Review"One thing that makes Life Went on Anyway especially endearing is Sentsov’s terrible sense of humor on every second page...One gets the seriousness of humor, its therapeutic and satirical roles, upon realizing that jokes have made room in the somber confines of prison walls. This is the reason why Life Went on Anyway is a must-read testimony of the indomitable human spirit that is beyond the reach of fascist regimes. The translation of this memoir into English is a deserved celebration of this unwavering human spirit against all odds." ―Shelly Bhoil, Asymptote

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Book Synopsis"If baseball is really a metaphor for life, then Kill the Ampaya -- Dick Cluster's wonderful collection of Latin American baseball stories -- is an astonishing record of its beauty and coarseness, redemption and tragedy. You don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate these stories, each one hinged on baseball directly or indirectly, and delight in this reading."-Achy Obejas, author of The Tower of Antilles and Other Stories "These are stories we have lived...Some are funny, some cruel or violent, but in the end they are part of our culture that makes us act the way we do. They make me think of the millions of stories that got lost behind us." -Omar Vizquel, from Venezuela, one of baseball's all-time best fielding shortstops who played for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays. "Baseball is in the soul of millions in Puerto Rico and the other countries that play the game with a Latino flair. These stories are portraits of its place in our lives." -Benjie Molina, former Texas Rangers catcher and first base coach. A rich variety of baseball fiction exists south of the Florida Straits and the Rio Grande, but almost none available in English. This collection translates for the first time stories ranging from the highly literary to the vernacular. These inventive and entertaining stories reveal the place of baseball in Latin America. Mixing fan and fandom, baseball and politics, rural and urban life, sexism and poverty, Kill the Ampaya! reveals how baseball shapes the social fabric of everyday Latin American life. The collection includes well known writers such as Leonardo Padura from Cuba (The Man Who Loved Dogs), Sergio Ramirez from Nicaragua (Divine Punishment, A Thousand Deaths Plus One). Others are well known writers in their home countries such as Arturo Arango and Eduardo del Llano in Cuba, Alexis Gomez Rosa and Jose Bobadilla in the Dominican Republic, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro in Puerto Rico, Vicente Lenero in Mexico as well as emerging literary figures such as Salvador Flejan and Rodrigo Blanco Calderon in Venezuela, Sandra Tavarez and Daniel Reyes German in the D.R., Carmen Hernandez Pena in Cuba.Trade Review"A revelation! Baseball fans know how much passion and skill Latin American players bring to the game. Now, thanks to Kill the Ampaya!, we learn that the same flair is on display in Latin American baseball literature. To quote one of the many great lines in these fascinating stories --'This jonron is for you'."--Peter Abrahams, The New York Times bestselling author of twenty-five books including Down the Rabbit Hole, Behind the Curtain, Reality Check, A Perfect Crime, Pressure Drop, and The Fan. "These are stories we have lived ... Some are funny, some cruel or violent, but in the end they are part of our culture that makes us act the way we do. They make me think of the millions of stories that got lost behind us."--Omar Vizquel, from Venezuela, one of baseball's all-time best fielding shortstops who played for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, and the San Francisco Giants. "Baseball is in the soul of millions in Puerto Rico and the other countries that play the game with a Latino flair. 1hese stories are portraits of its place in our lives."--Benjie Molina, from Puerto Rico, former catcher for the Los Angeles Angels, Toronto Blue Jays and the San Francisco Giants. "It's time we recognized that Latin America is the soul of baseball, and 'Kill the Ampaya' takes us straight to the heart of that soul."-- Scott Ostler, sportswriter, San Francisco ChronicleTable of ContentsIntroduction ...4 Eduardo del Llano, Swimming Upstream ...29 Sandra Tavarez, Sacrifice ...39 Sergio Ramirez, Apparition in the Brick Factory ...42 Carmen Hernandez Pena, End of the Game ...55 Rodrigo Blanco Calderon, The Last Voyage of Arcaya the Shark ...63 Arturo Arango, The Stadium ...79 Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Braces ...90 Alexis Gomez Rosa, The Real Thing ...96 Leonardo Padura, The Wall ...105 Nan Chevalier, Winners and Losers ...117 Jose Bobadilla, The Strange Game of the Men in Blue ...128 Rafael Acevedo, Clock Reaches the Emperor's Citadel ...146 Salvador Flejan, Big Leagues ...151 Daniel Reyes German, How Tomboy Maria Learned She Could Fly ...164 Andres Eloy Blanco, The Glory of Mamporal ...176 Cezanne Cardona, An Infamous Home Run ...186 Marcial Gala, The Pitcher ...197 Vicente Lenero, Aut At Third ...202 Further Reading ...209 Acknowledgments ...211

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Book SynopsisA mysterious character from the city arrives at a peaceful country village, attracting the interest of Josu, a young adolescent. José Luis, the newly arrived vicar, is the ideal mentor for any rebellious boy with a curious heart. More comfortable sneaking around and spying on people from the rooftops than playing with others in the mud, Josu delves into the memories of the newly arrived vicar’s troubled past. Julio José Ordovás’s skillfully woven and fearless narrative tells of an unlikely friendship between two rebellious characters at different times in their lives. His debut novel promises an unrestrained, uncensored narration, leaving nothing untold. Taken from the adult Josu’s perspective, this nostalgic narration demonstrates the author’s striking ability to present a spectrum of human emotions with distinct ironic undertones.

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Book SynopsisA world-spanning intellectual thriller by a contemporary Argentinian master.

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Book SynopsisThe story of a Holocaust survivor who spent her life trying to disappear, based on true events.

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Book SynopsisA haunting depiction of a sinister boarding school in a world veering toward chaos.

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Book Synopsisa collection of stories focussing on life as a woman and as an immigrant.

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Book SynopsisLove, sex, and corporate slavery in a futuristic world from the two-time winner of the Dashiell Hammett Prize.

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Book SynopsisIn the insular Portuguese fishing community of Provincetown, Josie Carvalho's life has been shaped by the annual influx of summer tourists and his great aunt's fervent, if idiosyncratic, Catholicism. The counterweight to these forces has always been Josie's relationship with his grandfather John Joseph, a drunk, clam-poaching old man who is nevertheless a sly and masterful storyteller.After a stranger starts dating Josie's mother and upsets the family's equilibrium, John Joseph heals the rift with the colorful and adventurous stories of their ancestor, Francisco Carvalho, a Portuguese explorer who just may have beaten Columbus to the New World. With the guidance of these obscure but inspired tales, Josie begins to find new ways of understanding his family and the outside world. This new edition of Leaving Pico makes Frank X. Gaspar's award-winning coming-of-age novel accessible to a new generation of readers.

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Book SynopsisThis bestseller and winner of every major literary award in Taiwan is an elegiac novel about love and loss, broken dreams and desolate hearts—and music: "A delightful read."—Ha Jin A widower grieving for his young wife. A piano tuner concealing a lifetime of secrets. An out-of-tune Steinway piano. A journey of self-discovery across time and continents, from a dark apartment in Taipei’s red-light district to snow-clad New York. At the heart of the story is the nameless narrator, the piano tuner. In his forties, he is balding and ugly, a loser by any standard. But he was once a musical prodigy. What betrayal and what heartbreak made him walk away from greatness? Long hailed in Taiwan as a “writer’s writer,” Chiang-Sheng Kuo delivers a stunningly powerful, compact novel in The Piano Tuner. It’s a book of sounds: both of music and of the heart, from Rachmaninoff to Schubert, from Glenn Gould to Sviatoslav Richter, from untapped potential to unrequited love. With a cadence and precision that bring to mind Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes, and Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country, this short novel may be a portrait of the artist as a “failure,” but it also describes a pursuit of the ultimate beauty in music and in love. Trade Review"An elegant novel, told with restraint and acute perceptions. A delightful read."—Ha Jin"So much is packed into this compact and surprising novel: a complex story of genius, madness, and thwarted desire and, beyond that, a deep exploration of the tension between craft and the pursuit of fame. The Piano Tuner is about more than music—it’s about the choices one makes in becoming an artist."—Shawna Yang Ryan, author of Green Island"The Piano Tuner is as meticulous in its excavation of loneliness as it is in its exploration of music. I was completely pulled into the narrative as it peeled back layer after layer, exposing the interiority and secrets of the beguiling piano tuner. This book is a quiet masterpiece."—Dur e Aziz Amna, author of American Fever“A rare masterpiece . . . Kuo has told a spellbinding story about love, obsession, loss, and the inscrutable power of music.”—David Der-wei Wang, Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University"Kuo writes with sharp erudition--about music, history, instruments, geography--creating a multivocal repertoire spotlighting displaced love and unfulfilled opportunity. . . . Lyrically translated by the revered duo Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin."—Shelf Awarenesss "Chiang-Sheng Kuo’s novel The Piano Tuner explores the accord and dissonance between sounds and souls through language. . . . The mood of love transcends the language barrier like music, for the emotional atmosphere of the book is infused with hybrid aesthetics that invoke this sentiment."—Asymptote“The Piano Tuner captures subtle and almost inexpressible emotions, calling on the reader to resonate, to hear both the rhythm of the piano and the voice of the heart.”─Jiao Yuanpu , author of Amusement in Black and White and Hearing Chopin“Implicit but tense, this text is like superb fingering interpreting a lonely and poignant love song. . . . It is a transcendence of novel-writing skills.”—OPENBOOK Best Book Prize citation (Taiwan)“[In The Piano Tuner], through the filtering and precipitation of time, love crystallizes yet is restrained. With it comes an equal portion of loneliness, accumulating vastly and released slowly, which is refreshing.”─Zhu Tian-wen, winner of the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature

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Book SynopsisEverything can be exhibited: trinkets from the Second French Empire, a collection of photographs, a boudoir from beyond the grave, a heroine famous for her beauty, her extravagance and her pitiful end. Everything can be exposed: a woman for another woman... , the fear of one's own body, a way of entering a scene, the thrill of seduction, abandonment, the reassurance of objects, a ruin. Over the course of four decades, the Countess Virginia Oldoini returned to the same Paris studio to be photographed, posing in different tableaux to mark the moments of her life, real and imagined. A fascination with 'La Castiglione' led Nathalie Leger to weave together this imaginative proto-biography. Mysterious yet over-exposed, adored and despised for her beauty in equal measure, Castiglione was a flamboyant aristocrat, mistress of Napoleon III and a rumoured spy. Examining the myths around icons past and present, Leger meditates on the half-truths of portrait photography, reframing her own family history in the process.Trade Review‘In Leger’s hands, desolation can reveal a woman in all her multiplicity—in her ugliness and abasement and determined self-destruction, seemingly ground down to the nubs of her sorrow, but ultimately emerging with a strange richness, full of haunted persistence, droll knowingness, untamed desires, and hardscrabble resilience.’ —Leslie Jamison, Bookforum; ‘These Leger books are lush, obsessive, and self-reflective (…) Nathalie Leger's transcendent triptych of books about fallen-off-the-path female artists (...) deftly observes how we are all often absorbed into the wave of our own familial and inherited traumas, and how we might resist them.’ — Nathan Scott McNamara, Los Angeles Review of Books; ‘[F]or Leger the archive and literature are mutually informing. The neutral intellectualism of the former and the subjective affectivity of the latter exist in a dyadic relationship. This tension is a source of the great power of Leger’s extraordinary short books.’ David McCooey, Sydney Review of Books; ‘Highbrow but highly readable; delving deep yet luminous (…) Through artistic evocation, stream of consciousness, historical detail and personal memory, the author guides us into a world where images become masks of the real.’ —ELLE (France); ‘A subtle novel that explores femininity and its magic spells. Bewitching.’ — Vogue Paris; ‘A tour de force.’ — Natasha Lehrer; ‘Nathalie Leger’s superbly original Exposition is a biographical novel meditating on the nature of biography itself.’ —Charlie Stone, The Arts Desk; ‘Leger’s vigorous work consistently satisfies, with ideas crystallizing with the clarity of a photograph.’ —Publishers Weekly; ‘I’ve just re-read Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger, translated by Cecile Menon and Natasha Lehrer, as well as the two forthcoming books that form a trilogy with that one: The White Dress, also translated by Lehrer, and Exposition, translated by Amanda Demarco. All three defy categorisation—history, essay, memoir, fiction. I admire the wholeness and agility of these works very much.’ —Catherine Lacey; ‘This trilogy feels more than a feminist recovery of narrative: it is a method through which the lives of women artists are reimagined and remade through the writer herself, a mode of hospitality in which lives coalesce and transform one another.’ —Katie Da Cunha Lewin, The White Review; ‘The word triptych, not trilogy. Because the books are not a straight line. The books scoff at straight lines, reveal how any line can look straight if you’re zoomed too far in. The books are not discrete episodes, they are all one thing, they are all one project.’ —Kyle Williams, Full Stop; ‘With ferocity and pathos, Leger enters into a standing-with relationship with these other women only to realize she’s been in touch with herself the entire time. This feels to me like the natural movement of the most revelatory art criticism—to move close to the work, to ride along then pierce the work’s textured surface into its mysterious netherworld then looping back out (through innards) towards these words you hear out there in the private distance only to find them coming from your own mouth. With all of these women—Countess of Castiglione, Barbara Loden and Wanda (and Alma H Malone), and Pippa Bacca—Leger comes to know them as women who lived rich lives, artists’ lives, intensely felt.’ —Jay Ponteri, Essay Daily; ‘The suffocating interpolations of being a woman have concealed the words of so many: Pippa Bacca, whose seemingly naive project is now bound to her rape and murder; American actor and director Barbara Loden, whose project of semi-autobiographical film Wanda details the listlessness of life for the 1970s American housewife; The Countess of Castiglione, whose hope had been to exhibit her photos at the upcoming 1900 International Exposition; and Leger’s own mother, whose words ‘too have been hidden away.’ The triptych not only unearths the lost narratives of noted women; but more significantly the writers’ reckoning with her own mother—’I never helped her, I never stood up for her’—suggests that the triptych’s aim is to give voice to one woman: her mother.’ —Clancey D’Isa, Chicago Review of Books; ‘Now that all three books exist in English thanks to Dorothy Project and exceptional translations by Natasha Lehrer and Amanda DeMarco, it feels as if the stakes have been tripled. Though each book is a case study of a particular woman’s life, the neat boundaries of these subjects aren’t meant to hold. ‘On the winding path of femininity,’ Leger writes, ‘the loose stone you stumble over is another woman.’ These slippages are part of the danger and excitement of Leger’s work—look long enough at another woman, and you may find yourself looking in a mirror.’ —Laura Marris, On the Seawall

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Book SynopsisA chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, an elderly white woman, and Cub, a British-Jamaican boy, and drives her crumbling world into heightened delusion. The two struggle to keep their footing as white supremacy, desperation and class conflict collide on the streets of London. Through exquisite juxtaposition, Ananda Devi exposes the tensions of an increasingly nationalistic and polarised metropolis. At once realistic and fantastical, The Living Days encapsulates Devi's daring, unflinching talent and paints an unforgettable portrait of London at it's most bewitching, and most dangerous.Trade ReviewUK reviews: 'The Mauritian author explores how legacies of colonialism and empire persist amid acts of cruelty and violence in London ... A meditation on urban inequality, in which the politics of race and class loom large.' (Guardian).'This is a novel of great beauty as well as discomfiting disclosure. Ananda Devi's writing challenges us to reconfigure our own beliefs about right and wrong and to look beyond our own comfortable lives to consider the reality of others. ' (New Internationalist). ''Mary Grimes, the central character of The Living Days exists, like the novel itself, in a liminal space between the possible and the mythic; between material being and ghostly half-life... This is not a novel which offers any reassurance. We never enter a settled space of familiarity. Even within the internal logic of the novel, the nature of what we are reading becomes unstable... Living Days is never a predictable novel, indeed it is never less than perplexing and unsettling.' (The Irish Times). `Beautifully written, visceral and ecstatic. Unafraid, as Angels might be, to bear witness to the force of entropy pulling us all towards death.' (Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young). `A demanding and important book by a true artist and a great writer'.' (Lara Pawson, author of This Is the Place To Be).`; US reviews: 'Devi is alert to the ways in which social forces, such as racism and ageism, are reshaping London's already complex post-colonial landscape, and her fluid, poetic language memorably conjures a union of two outcasts.' (The New Yorker). The finest Mauritian novelist at work today, Ananda Devi has long been the francophone saint of the outcast, the oppressed, and the derelict. This fluid translation of one of her darkest works gives the reader a glimpse at her profound talent and her unique ability to synthesize political rage with poetic lyricism.' (Adam Hocker, Albertine). 'Brutal and entirely believable, a gorgeous and haunting depiction of London and the real lives and memories of those unseen within it.' (Publishers Weekly). 'A gorgeously written, profoundly upsetting fairy tale of race, class, power, and desire.' (Kirkus Reviews, starred review); French reviews: 'A fierce portrait of our times. . . Sensual and provocative writing, woven of dreams and nightmares, which slowly closes around the reader and holds them in its grasp.' (Le Monde des Livres). 'Old age always bears a private violence. Ananda Devi describes its inevitable symptoms whilst ever letting us glimpse an illusion of spring.' (L'Humanite).

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Book SynopsisOn 8 March 2008 the Italian performance artist Pippa Bacca set out to hitchhike from Milan to Jerusalem in a wedding dress, documented with a video camera. On 31 March her body was found in woods on the outskirts of Istanbul. In telling the young woman's story, which overwhelms her and inexorably draws her in, Leger recounts the different stages of her research and the writing of the book. She strikes upon something fundamental within Bacca's performance: the desire to remedy the unfathomable nature of violence and war. Ultimately, she must face up to the failure of the young woman's endeavour. As she surveys the terrain of performance art and continues her examination of portrayals of the female condition, as in her earlier books, Leger explores the existential mystery and harsh truths expressed in Bacca's work, and that of other performance artists. The White Dress closes what is now regarded as a trilogy that begins with Exposition and is followed by Suite for Barbara Loden.Trade Review'These Leger books are lush, obsessive, and self-reflective (...) Nathalie Leger's transcendent triptych of books about fallen-off-the-path female artists (...) deftly observes how we are all often absorbed into the wave of our own familial and inherited traumas, and how we might resist them.' -Nathan Scott McNamara, Los Angeles Review of Books; '[F]or Leger the archive and literature are mutually informing. The neutral intellectualism of the former and the subjective affectivity of the latter exist in a dyadic relationship. This tension is a source of the great power of Leger's extraordinary short books.' -David McCooey, Sydney Review of Books; 'Nathalie Leger is a melancholy sentinel. From book to book she writes with a hunter's instinct, questioning the motives of women who, through their oeuvre, transform their lives into a mystery.' -ELLE (France); 'The White Dress inspects the imaginary frontier between art and life.' -Liberation; 'More than just an exploration of a violent news story, The White Dress performs a subtle set of variations on the theme of remnants, of the ghosts that live within us.' -Le Monde des livres; 'The triptych doesn't just tell a story about mothers and daughters, about female pain and female beauty, about performance and shame, but-further down-a story about how art is made: how involuntary, how compulsive, and how merciless the relationship between artist and subject can be.' -Leslie Jamison, Bookforum; 'This trilogy feels more than a feminist recovery of narrative: it is a method through which the lives of women artists are reimagined and remade through the writer herself, a mode of hospitality in which lives coalesce and transform one another.' -Katie Da Cunha Lewin, The White Review; 'I've just re-read Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger, translated by Cecile Menon and Natasha Lehrer, as well as the two forthcoming books that form a trilogy with that one: The White Dress, also translated by Lehrer, and Exposition, translated by Amanda Demarco. All three defy categorisation-history, essay, memoir, fiction. I admire the wholeness and agility of these works very much.' -Catherine Lacey; 'The White Dress shows Leger doing something new. Her melodious intertwining of another's story with her own recalls her other works, but this is an altogether darker, altogether more unashamedly melancholic exploration of narrative (...) Leger's message seems to be that to immerse oneself in other people's stories, whether out of pity or simple escapism, is only to find a projection of one's own life.' -Charlie Stone, The Arts Desk; 'Leger ponders Bacca's fate in the context of other female performance artists such as Marina Abramovic and Carolee Schneemann; she considers the hostile, brutal responses to their work, which highlight the threat of violence that shadows women's lives, especially when they attempt to take ownership of how they appear to others, to men. (...) For Leger, the important thing is that Bacca proceeded with her project, even if she did so hesitantly. In her books, Leger has documented her own difficulty in proceeding, as she comes up against various obstacles in her attempts to find her way into the stories of the women who interest her.' - Rachel Andrews, The Stinging Fly; 'Now that all three books exist in English thanks to Dorothy Project and exceptional translations by Natasha Lehrer and Amanda DeMarco, it feels as if the stakes have been tripled. Though each book is a case study of a particular woman's life, the neat boundaries of these subjects aren't meant to hold. 'On the winding path of femininity,' Leger writes, 'the loose stone you stumble over is another woman.' These slippages are part of the danger and excitement of Leger's work-look long enough at another woman, and you may find yourself looking in a mirror.' -Laura Marris, On the Seawall; 'The word triptych, not trilogy. Because the books are not a straight line. The books scoff at straight lines, reveal how any line can look straight if you're zoomed too far in. The books are not discrete episodes, they are all one thing, they are all one project.' -Kyle Williams, Full Stop; 'With ferocity and pathos, Leger enters into a standing-with relationship with these other women only to realize she's been in touch with herself the entire time. This feels to me like the natural movement of the most revelatory art criticism-to move close to the work, to ride along then pierce the work's textured surface into its mysterious netherworld then looping back out (through innards) towards these words you hear out there in the private distance only to find them coming from your own mouth. With all of these women-Countess of Castiglione, Barbara Loden and Wanda (and Alma H Malone), and Pippa Bacca-Leger comes to know them as women who lived rich lives, artists' lives, intensely felt.' -Jay Ponteri, Essay Daily; 'The suffocating interpolations of being a woman have concealed the words of so many: Pippa Bacca, whose seemingly naive project is now bound to her rape and murder; American actor and director Barbara Loden, whose project of semi-autobiographical film Wanda details the listlessness of life for the 1970s American housewife; The Countess of Castiglione, whose hope had been to exhibit her photos at the upcoming 1900 International Exposition; and Leger's own mother, whose words 'too have been hidden away.' The triptych not only unearths the lost narratives of noted women; but more significantly the writers' reckoning with her own mother-'I never helped her, I never stood up for her'-suggests that the triptych's aim is to give voice to one woman: her mother.' -Clancey D'Isa, Chicago Review of Books; 'Readers should not miss this smart, skillful reckoning with acts of selflessness, betrayal, and grief.' -Publishers Weekly (starred review); 'Leger weaves together the story of Bacca's journey, astute discussions of Marina Abramovic and Svetlana Alexievich, and an account of the injustice Leger's mother endured during her divorce. Leger grapples with her inability to understand the motivations of others, and with the ambiguity of giving voice to the silenced.' -New Yorker

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Book SynopsisLucía and Pablo are Colombian immigrants who’ve built their lives together in the US yet maintain conflicting attitudes towards their homeland and the extent to which it defines their identity. After undergoing fertility treatment, Pablo finds himself excluded from raising their twins, and the new family situation seems to question the very nature of their relationship and of who they believed they were. In search of respite and time to reflect, Lucía takes the kids to her parents’ apartment in Miami. Meanwhile, Pablo learns he is suffering from a syndrome known as ‘Holiday Heart’. But is this just a break, or is it really the final days of their marriage?Trade ReviewBiblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana Prize (Finalist)"García Robayo writes with caustic insight, brittle humour and a fair whack of cynicism (...) Holiday Heart is brilliant." —The Guardian"Understated, lyrical, and delivers its insights by means of acute observation. (5 stars)" —The Arts Desk"Cunningly well achieved." —Irish Times"Holiday Heart is a poignant and searing story of love ending." —Gutter Magazine"Coombe’s translation brilliantly captures the bite in García Robayo’s humour." —iNews"One of Colombia’s greatest living writers." —The Monthly Booking"Brilliantly dramatises the disjunction between an idealized picture of life like sitting on a sunny beach and the reality of that life like getting sand caught in your teeth." —Lonesome ReaderBest Fiction Books of 2017 —New York Times (Español)"Darkly funny throughout, this examination of two lives will stay with you long after you read the final words and lay the book down." —Lunate"Every sentence in the book seems to be written with a scalpel infused with acid. " —Morning Star"Acute, provocative, concise and raw." —Translating Women"An incredibly insightful portrayal of a disintegrating marriage...provides a sharp-eyed view of estrangement and personal identity." —Book Riot"Frightening, alluring, and inescapable." —Books and Bao**********Praise for Margarita García RobayoCasa de las Américas Prize (Winner)Society of Authors Valle-Inclán Prize (Shortlist)"García Robayo’s prose bristles with restrained energy and a wry humour which captures the disaffection of her characters." —The Times Literary Supplement"[Fish Soup] is a gorgeous, blackly humorous look into the lives of Colombians struggling to find their place in society, both at home and abroad." —Publishers Weekly, starred review"A remarkable genre-bending effort." —The Guardian"The tackiness of the Caribbean coast and its discontents are marvellously rendered." —The Times Literary Supplement"If you’re a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh or Melissa Broder, then this is for you." —The Guardian"An evocative collection that conveys the potency of desire in even the most ordinary lives." —Kirkus"García Robayo is building one of the most solid and interesting oeuvres in Latin American literature."" —Juan Cárdenas , author of ORNAMENTAL"Her stories combine the atmosphere of Desperate Housewives, Hemingway’s iceberg theory and a memorable, bittersweet ending."" —Jorge Carrión , author of BOOKSHOPS"Margarita shows sharp insight into contemporary life. Her voice speaks with surreptitious irony and sophisticated psychological perception. She is the creator of an exceptional poetics of displacement."" —Juan Villoro , author of THE WITNESS"There are very few writers who can challenge expectations the way Margarita García Robayo does. Margarita is simply one of the best of the new generation that respects, yet no longer identifies with, the Latin American Boom."" —Mariana Enríquez , author of THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE"This is a text written from within the belly of the beast. (…) One of the most essential books of the year." —Asymptote"García Robayo’s prose is concise and startling, her voice versatile and capable of packing a serious punch." —LA Review of Books"One of the most potent figures of contemporary Latin American literature." —ABC Cultural"Full of everyday details that reveal the most vulnerable aspects of feminine subjectivity." —La Nación**********

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Book SynopsisA lyrical celebration of storytelling, of childhood, and of the transformative power of music.Tracing a circular course that echoes Bach’s Goldberg Variations , Luis Sagasti’s second book to appear in English takes the guise of a musical scheherazade, recounting story after story, vibrating to celestial harmonies. From the music born of the sun to the music sent into space on the Voyager mission, from Rothko to rock music, from the composers of the concentration camps to a weeping room for Argentinian conscripts in the Falklands, A Musical Offering traverses the shifting sands of fiction and history.Trade ReviewSociety of Authors Valle-Inclán Prize (Winner)Republic of Consciousness Prize (Shortlist)"Fluidity, charm, emotion and disarming brushes of grace." —The Wall Street Journal"A bewitching suite of stories about music, heard and unheard." —The Arts Desk"A beautiful, fragmentary rendition which never strikes a false note." —Irish Times"A Musical Offering is less an attempt to write about music than to actually write music - using words as a new kind of notation."" —Will Ashon , author of CHAMBER MUSIC and STRANGE LABYRINTH"The literary equivalent of a symphony." —Books and Bao"Sagasti handles his elements masterfully, subtly and dexterously weaves new threads into his tapestry." —BookBlast"A work of immense complexity, great balance and extraordinary beauty." —The Monthly Booking"Sagasti manages to create a world rich in illuminations and philosophical reflections." —Morning Star"Sagasti’s careful contrapuntal construction weaves together an eclectic range of vignettes which transcend their parts, leaving an indelible emotional impact that defies rationalisation." —Gutter Magazine"I have gained knowledge I didn’t know I needed." —Joyzine"A veritable fugue of insights and literary forms, subtlety and humour." —Asymptote**********Praise for Luis SagastiSociety of Authors TA First Translation Prize (Shortlist)"A subtle marvel...a nimble writer who merits wider readership in English." —Kirkus"A genre-defying collection of associative musings on art, music, philosophy, and literature." —Publishers Weekly"Innovative, playful, and beautifully executed."" —Carlos Fonseca , author of COLONEL LAGRIMAS"Simply genius."" —Enrique Vila-Matas , author of DUBLINESQUE"A work of wonderful analogies and disparate historical footnotes." —Morning Star"Like Borges before him, Sagasti has produced a rare thing: a work of fiction as learned as it is fun." —Gary M. Perry, Foyles Charing Cross"Sagasti produces here a magnificent constellation of stories, and in doing so pays tribute to art." —Fnac"One hundred pages of pure intelligence, to be enjoyed listening to Sun Ra." —L’Arbre Vengeur**********

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Book SynopsisThis novel focuses on a group of characters who are all in different ways endeavouring to take control of their fate. Their desire to lead a genuine existence forces them to confront difficult decisions, and to break out of comfortable routines.Karl and Marina have been together for ten years and have a young son, Simón. Karl is a German-born oboist at Argentina’s national orchestra, and Marina is a meteorologist. On a field trip, she meets fellow researcher Zárate, and what might have been just a fling starts to erode the foundations of her marriage. Then there is Amer, a dynamic and successful taxidermist. At a group therapy session for smokers, Amer falls for the younger Clara. While the relationship between Karl and Marina disintegrates, the love story between Amer and Clara is just beginning – or is it already at an end? One of Argentina’s leading contemporary writers, Jorge Consiglio portrays the inner worlds of these characters through the minute details of their everyday lives, laying bare their strivings and their frustrations with a wry gaze, and seeking in this close-up texture a deeper truth.Trade Review"A moving testament to the beauty and banality of human relationships." —Publishers Weekly"A masterpiece that refuses to stay still."** —Culture Trip**"Fate could be likened to a pointillist painting by Seurat, with each dab of colour and each descriptive passage contributing to what is finally a beautifully structured and brilliantly shimmering whole."** —New York Magazine (The Strategist UK)"In the realm of fiction, an author has total authority over their characters, and they can inject interactions with meaning and pattern-play in a way therapists warn us not to in our day to day lives. It takes a particular level of craftsmanship to do this at the level of the sentence, with the effortlessness that Consiglio seamlessly achieves, and to sweep a reader so tenderly into the progress." —White Review**"A muted and unhurried novel that insists on the validity of the imperfect present."** —Kirkus**"The beauty of this novel...is that it provides no answers, but many questions. It can be reflected upon, re-read, and reconsidered."** —BookBlast**"The language of Fate has teeth and claws."** —Books and Bao**"Fate is a rich tapestry of language, a sharp depiction of the vagaries of fate and a thoughtful meditation on the human condition."** —The Monthly Booking**"Consiglio’s writing aches with poetry through its attention and complexity."** —The Skinny**"Packed full of sensuality and written in fresh, candid prose."** —The Quietus**** Praise for Jorge Consiglio**"Employing a language that is sharp, concise and visceral, it proves his talent as a natural storyteller and as a social chronicler and poet of some refinement."** —Morning Star**"There is a timeless quality to Consiglio’s prose...a storyteller of rare ingenuity."** —Splice**"His stories are told with dispassionate realism while being varnished with a surrealist gloss, creating his own in-between style...Occasional poetic turns reminiscent of Pablo Neruda erupt within the narrative."** —Culture Trip**"[Consiglio] carves out a singular space by focusing on characters who do not quite have a place of their own."** —Full Stop**

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Book SynopsisThe memories we return to most frequently are the most inaccurate, the least faithful to reality...This is the tragic realisation made by the narrator of Ramifications as he tries to make sense of the defining event of his childhood: the disappearance of his mother to join the Zapatista uprising that shook Mexico in 1994. Left behind with an emotionally distant father who is singularly unqualified to raise him, and an older sister who only wants to get on with being a teenager, he takes refuge in strange rituals that isolate him from his peers: favouring the left-hand side of his body, trying to tear leaves into perfect halves, obsessively shaping origami figures. Now, two decades older and withdrawn from the world, he folds and unfolds these memories, searching the creases for the truth of what happened to his mother, unaware that he is on the verge of a discovery that will destroy everything he believed he knew about his family.Award-winning Mexican author Daniel Saldaña París masterfully evokes a child’s attempts to interpret events beyond his understanding. Less a Bildungs-roman than a tale of arrested development, this story of a boy growing up in the aptly-named Educación neighbourhood of Mexico City is a rich and moving portrait of a life thwarted by machismo and secrecy.Trade ReviewDublin Literary Award (Longlist)"[S]trange and elegant. . . . París brilliantly explores memory, masculinity, and familial drama in equal measure. The result is an affecting account of arrested development." —Publishers Weekly"A Dostoyevskian tale set in the Mexico City of today." —Kirkus"Ramifications grapples with the earnest naivety of one experiencing trauma far too young." —New Statesman"Saldaña París excels at imbuing his earnest protagonist's effort to write himself free from his memories with levity, which MacSweeney — a highly gifted translator who seems to specialize in voice-driven and tonally complex books — conveys beautifully." —NPR.org"Saldaña París brilliantly folds this story into itself, deftly dissolving time and reality, while constructing an intricate, intimate origami of heartbreak, dark humor, familial fractures and profound dispossession."" —Tanaïs , author of BRIGHT LINES"Saldaña París is the Mexican Philip Roth."" —Ottessa Moshfegh , author of EILEEN"Ramifications is a masterful and devastating fairy tale about the particular loneliness of a child lost in the woods of machismo and social revolts."" —Alejandro Zambra , author of BONSÁI and WAYS OF GOING HOME"A deft examination on the nature of truth." —The Skinny"Paced like a detective thriller, this slim novel contains hard-boiled meditations on masculinity, personal responsibility and the plasticity of memory." —Seattle Times"In Daniel Saldaña París’s resonant novel Ramifications, an eventful summer has ripple effects that last decades. . . . a rich, smart, and satisfying rendering of abandonment and loss, whose effects reverberate through time." —Foreword Reviews"[A] sinister little book suffused with a biting humor and morbid curiosity. " —Uriel Perez, BookPeople"A captivating novel by one of the most important figures in contemporary Mexican literature." —Morning Star"the reader is drawn into an almost memoir-like story, interjecting snippets of real-time Mexican history with the dreamlike quality of being stuck within a house." —Sounds & Colours"When the revelation arrives, it comes as a punch in the guts, one the reader feels as much as the narrator does." —Tony's Reading List************Praise for Daniel Saldaña ParísEccles Centre and Hay Festival Writers Award Winner"Brief, brilliantly written, and kissed by a sense of the absurd. . . . Like a much lazier, Mexico City version of Dostoevsky's Underground Man ." —NPR Fresh Air"Great fun are the jabs at academia, Mexico City and the dusty town where the action, or inaction, moves after Rodrigo meets Marcelo, a Spanish cretin with a Ph.D. in aesthetics. These flameless flaneurs humph and hump, personifying urban malaise." —New York Times Sunday Book Review"Full of odd twists and surprises. Among the high points are Saldana Paris' exasperated but affectionate paeans to 'the immense, beautiful city' that is Mexico's capital. Though a study of slothfulness and its discontents, a welcome book on which the author has clearly expended energy." —Kirkus"The novel takes some bizarre turns as Marcelo leads Rodrigo into experiments involving drugs, tequila, hypnosis and more, all in the name of transformation. If the young man's notion of radical change is to take part in his life rather than observe it from afar, he's off to a good start."—New York Times"Saldana Paris's first novel to be translated Stateside is a leisurely story of slacking off that's nicely conveyed in a sharp, cynical tone. . . . Read this messy, shaggy picaresque for its ample page-by-page pleasures, which include devilishly clever syntax, a charming tendency to digress, and satisfying flashes of Rodrigo and Marcelo getting their act together." —Publishers Weekly"For all Saldana Paris' sharp wit, Among Strange Victims is about waking up to the world's brighter possibilities." —NPR

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Book Synopsis‘I had seen so many men celebrated and then disgraced, and so many men disgraced and then rehabilitated, that for a long time I kept the hope of someday being held worthy of the history of our country. The wheel had turned, and would turn. Undoubtedly, I would not be there to witness it. I recited to myself the words that men condemned to die defiantly utter on the scaffold: “In twenty years, I shall be a handsome young man again, one of the brave…”’ In this enigmatic novella, one hears of the life of a litterateur before, during, and after the Great Revolution. The Peking Opera Reform was awarded Prix Décembre in 2013. This work is translated from the French, La réforme de l’opéra de Pékin (Payot & Rivages, Paris, 2013).

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Book SynopsisWhen a meteor crashes into greaser Rockabilly’s backyard, a ripple of strange events ensues. The tattoo of a pin-up girl on his back comes to life and begins to exert her murderous control over the suburb in which he lives. His precocious teenage neighbor Suicide Girl begins spontaneously lactating, and her pet lizard goes missing. A disturbed neighbor begins to pace the block to quiet his unseemly thoughts. Meanwhile, the neighborhood dog, Bones, suddenly able to think human thoughts, begins to hatch a plan. With economic language and well-crafted timing, Rockabilly leads us on a hair-raising journey, artfully deconstructing archetypes of suburban America. Taking us past garish lights of strip malls and empty strips of desert, this dystopian novel presents a unique take on trash aesthetics, the philosophy of tattoo art, and American pop culture.

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Book Synopsis"A delicious read." Aachener Zeitung Take a dilapidated castle in the Scottish Highlands; add a peacock gone rogue, a group of bankers on a teambuilding trip, an overwhelmed psychologist, a housekeeper with a broken arm, and an ingenious cook; get Lord and Lady McIntosh to try and keep it all together; and top it off with all sorts of animals – soon no one will know exactly what’s going on. Selling 500,000 copies, Isabel Bogdan’s book is a big hitter in Germany – and now it’s coming home to roost. "A peacock whodunnit meets Monarch of the Glen. Light-hearted and fun, to be enjoyed by the fire, with a whisky, of course. In Annie Rutherford’s translation, it’s hard to imagine it was originally written in German." Kari Dickson, translator of Karin Fossum "A charming, slightly madcap novel." Much Ado BooksTrade Review"he Peacock is witty, entertaining and pitch perfect from first sentence to last,with the comic timing of the final sentence particularly inspired. A week later,I’m still chuckling." Lizzy's Literary Life

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Book SynopsisTold with great affection for his characters, Selim Özdoğan’s trilogy traces out the life of Gül, a Turkish girl who grows up in rural 1950s Anatolia and then moves to Germany as a migrant worker. Book one details her initially idyllic childhood, ruptured by her mother’s early death. Ever close to her loving father, Gül grows into a warm-hearted, hard-working young woman. The Blacksmith’s Daughter is a novel full of carefree summers and hard winters, old wives’ tales and young people’s ambitions – the melancholy beauty and pain of an ordinary life. ‘Reading it was like falling in love. If everyone read this book, the world would be a better place – more considerate, more liveable, more tolerant.’ 
Fatih Akın, director of The Edge of Heaven; ‘The book’s muted poetry all the way to its quiet ending warms the soul like later summer wind gently stroking through hair.’ Sächsische Zeitung; ‘The novel enchants its readers with the sincerity and love with which it assesses the weight of the simple things in life.’ Fachdienst Germanistik; ‘A mature, light, wise book.’ Kreuzer magazineTrade ReviewIt has epic simplicity. Özdoğan’s language is plain, but it carries with it the author’s sympathy with his characters, including the contradictory ones.’ Süddeutsche Zeitung

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Book SynopsisEach of us has something that feels essential to who we are. For Hans Frambach, it's the crimes of the Nazi era, which have hurt him for as long as he can remember. That's why he became an archivist at the Bureau of Past Management; now, though, he's wondering if he should make a change. For his best friend, Graziela, that past was also her focal point - until she met a man who desired her. From then on, sexual pleasure became the key to her life; a concept she's now beginning to doubt. Hans and Graziela thought the Nazi crimes were the inheritance that neither could bear, but can we really blame Nazism for everything? Iris Hanika shows how the crimes of the Nazi era hold the Germans in their clutches to this day. Can a country manage its past, or ought we to remain helpless in the face of the horrific crimes of the Holocaust? "A brave account of one man's struggle to come to terms with his nation's past, which draws an artful distinction between memory and memorial.' Michael Arditti; "A bold and absorbing novel (...) translated sensitively by Abigail Wender." Irish Times; "It's impossible to live with this guilt. Making that so emphatically clear by means of fiction, after sixty-five years of intense debate, is this novel's great achievement." Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungTrade Review"A novel that opens up a window. A masterpiece." Denis Scheck, ARD druckfrisch

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Book Synopsis"You'll live out your lives in a foreign country," Gul is warned. But the whole world is foreign when you're far from your loved ones. The train ride to Germany ushers in the days of long-awaited letters, night-time telephone calls and blissful summers back home. The years of hard work will flow like water before her house in Turkey is built and she can return. Until then, there will be fireworks, young love, and the cassette tapes of the summer played on repeat. In these years, Gul will learn all kinds of longing: for her two daughters, for her father the blacksmith, for scents and colours and fruit. Yet imperceptibly, Factory Lane in this cold, incomprehensible country becomes a different kind of home. A novel about how home is found in many places and yet still eludes us. "A modern-day fairy tale." NDR "An absolutely recommended novel that quietly stimulates the reader's thoughts and portrays the hard work behind seeing a new country as home." migazin "A unique novel about the losses, sacrifices and determination of generations of migrant women; as important as it is moving." Preti TanejaTrade Review"Quietly captivating." The Monthly Booking

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Book SynopsisLove in late capitalism: Ivana Sajko takes us into a war between kitchen and bedroom. He, an unemployed Dante scholar, is trying to change the world and write a novel. She, a passable actress, has given up her safe job at the theatre to care for their child. He is delirious, she is on edge. With the rent overdue and violence looming on all sides, the two of them circle one another in a dizzying dance towards the abyss. "Wow, what an incredible novel. The language! Thank you for publishing this book." Katja Schneider, stories! bookshop, Hamburg "Words and images to take your breath away." taz; "The experiences so original, the observations so sharp, the thoughts so clever." Frankfurter Rundschau; "A sound that tells of political and economic vacuums felt by people in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia to this day." MDR Kultur; "The interpersonal magic now lost, or at least forgotten, but above all: poisoned by the big bad world 'out there'. Ivana Sajko celebrates this sad state of affairs with power and intensity. Definitely worth reading." NDR Kultur; "Breathless, barely punctuated. Her heroes: a nameless couple in a Mediterranean nowhere, devoted to each other in hate. A tough, great novel." Neue PresseTrade Review"A brilliant novel: intense and poetic, exhilarating and devastating." Priya Basil

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Book SynopsisAmal shocks the whole neighbourhood by beating up her classmate Younes. Her father defends her behaviour and encourages her to assert herself. From then on everyone avoids Amal - and then her father leaves. Searching in vain for an explanation, Amal finds refuge with Younes and his mother Shahira, both outsiders like her. Years later, when the situation comes to a head and the conflict with Raffiq's gang escalates, Amal flees to Kurdistan to look for her father. Raffiq's friend Younes is the reluctant centre of attention in their neighbourhood - thanks to his free-spirited mother Shahira, who breaks all the rules. Raffiq thinks about Shahira all the time, at once fascinated and repulsed by her. Unable to bear the situation any longer, Younes plans to leave. When Raffiq's girlfriend Amal also wants to move away, Raffiq's world begins to break apart. In her kaleidoscopic novel, Karosh Taha expands our ideas of class, race and gender as she loops two stories around an invisible lynchpin: a woman who defies all expectations, a blank canvas for projections from all those around her. Deftly translated by Grashina Gabelmann, the book can be explored from either end, creating two very different narratives. "This is the tight, urgent style of an author who genuinely has something to say." Stefanie Roenneke, Neues DeutschlandTrade Review"There are two sides to every story, but this simple truth is rarely as meaningfully explored in literature as in Karosh Taha's second novel In the Belly of the Queen. Karosh Taha succeeds in making you forget the construction in the narration, so richly and dazzlingly do her sentences shine." Britta Heidemann, Westdeutsche Allgemeine

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Book Synopsis"There are three ways to face life: put up with it, fight or flee." After eight years in Turkey, Gul leaves her native Anatolia and returns to Germany. Reunited with her husband Fuat, she observes life there from the margins. As age gives her ever deeper insight, she sees society change rapidly, and yet her ability to connect to the people around her remains constant. Gul's life is shaped by the melancholy of separation, but with her warm-hearted and accepting outlook she has learned to endure homesickness and longing. Full of emotions and poetry but told without sentimentality, Selim OEzdogan's account of Gul's journey is a tender and moving novel about home, cultural identity and a life between two worlds. "Selim Oezdogan's latest novel is an affectionate testament to a whole generation of women who are often overlooked. Gul has many names and many faces." Steffen Radlmaier, Nurnberger Nachrichten "A luminous conclusion to a trilogy that has no equal in any language. Through the story of one woman who insists, against the odds, on meeting the world with an open heart, it brings grace and dignity to the many unsung millions whose lives have followed the same zigzagging paths between Turkey and Germany over three generations." Maureen Freely, author of Sailing Through Byzantium and translator of Orhan PamukTrade Review"Anchored in the circumstances of this century and yet timeless, this is the story of exiles and homecomings, of silences and distances and loneliness but with a hopefulness at its heart. Above all it is a story about women and age: an old woman's careful, thoughtful, analytic eye reflecting on motherhood, friendship, marriage, survival. It is about pepper paste and aubergines and goat meat and cooking and feeding people and finding the right ingredients in a foreign place. It is about all the small daily worries of a woman which can be read as all the great difficulties of finding ourselves a place in the world that feels like home. This book is full of wisdom." Jane Campbell, author of Cat Brushing

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Book Synopsis"What Waley did create is literary art of extraordinary beauty that brings to life in English the world Murasaki Shikibu imagined. The beauty of his art has not dimmed, but like the original text itself retains the power to move and enlighten."—Dennis Washburn, from his foreword Centuries before Shakespeare, Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji was already acknowledged as a classic of Japanese literature. Over the past century, this book has gained worldwide acceptance as not only the world's first novel but as one of the greatest works of literature of all time.The hero of the tale, Prince Genji, is a shining example of the Heian-era ideal man—accomplished in poetry, dance, music, painting, and, not least of all to the novel's many plots, romance. The Tale of Genji and the characters and world it depicts have influenced Japanese culture to its very core. This celebrated translation by Arthur Waley gives Western readers a very genuine feel for the tone of this beloved classic.This edition contains the complete Waley translation of all six books of The Tale of Genji and also contains a new foreword by Dennis Washburn with key insights into both the book and the importance of this translation for modern readers.Trade Review"While Tyler's version, which attempts to capture the social and political nuance of Murasaki's language, is the best choice for scholars, Waley's remains the most attractive and accessible for the general reader." --Library Journal"The Tale of Genji, as translated by Arthur Waley, is written with an almost miraculous naturalness, and what interests us is not the exoticism--the horrible word--but rather the human passions of the novel. Such interest is just: Murasaki's work is what one would quite precisely call a psychological novel. I dare to recommend this book to those who read me." --Jorge Luis Borges, The Total Library

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Book SynopsisSitor Situmorang, one of the most celebrated Indonesian literary voices of the twentieth century, claimed that all his work dealt with a single theme—“love and wanderlust,” which are “two aspects of one and the same experience.” His remarkable short stories are celebrations of modern life, dealing with subjects such as seeking, belonging, identity, masculinity, and sensual interaction with the world at large. The characters are both introspective and physical, the settings sparse but evocative, the circumstances ordinary yet unexpected. The publication of this volume of fourteen stories is the culmination of a request Sitor once made of Harry Aveling to render his stories in English. The translation of his complete short stories now shares the exceptional creative prose of Sitor Situmorang with audiences around the world.

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Book SynopsisGeorgios Vizyenos (1849-1896) is one of Greece's best-loved writers. His stories, written in 1883-4, are set in his native Thrace, a corner of Europe where Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey meet. Each title poses an enigma: Where did Yorgis' grandfather travel on his only journey? What was Yorgis' mother's sin? Who was responsible for his brother's murder? At the end of each story the narrator possesses some knowledge that forces him - and his readers - to revise their earlier assumptions, which were based on incomplete knowledge. Because Vizyenos wants us to experience the difficult transition from ignorance to knowledge, he leaves us in suspense until the very end. Vizyenos' stories evoke a time when individual Greeks and Turks could share each other's joys and pains despite the hostile relations between their governments.Table of ContentsIntroduction; The one and only journey of his life; My mother's sin; Who was my brothers murderer?; Chronological outline.

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Book SynopsisJaroslav Hasek is a Czech writer most famous for his wickedly funny, widely read yet incomplete novel "The Good Soldier Svejk", a series of absurdist vignettes about a recalcitrant soldier in World War I. Hasek - in spite of a life of bufoonery and debauchery - was remarkably prolific. He wrote hundreds of short stories that all display both his extraordinary gift for satire and his profound distrust of authority. Here, in a new English translation, is a series of short stories based on Hasek's experiences as a Red Commissar in the Russian Civil War and his return to Czechoslovakia. First published in the "Prague Tribune", these nine stories are considered to be some of his best, and they provide delightful entertainment as well as important background and insight into "The Good Soldier Svejk". This collection, by a writer some refer to as a Bolshevik Mark Twain, is much more than a tool for understanding Hasek's better-known novel; it is a significant work in its own right. "Behind the Lines" focuses on the Russian town of Bugulma and takes aim, with mordant wit, at the absurdities of a revolution. A hidden gem remarkable for its modern, ribald sense of humor, "Behind the Lines" is an enjoyable, fast-paced collection of great literary and historical value.

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Book SynopsisA favorite work of Czech humor, We Were a Handful depicts the adventures of five boys from a small Czech town through the diary of Petr Bajza, the grocer's son. Written by Karel Polacek at the height of World War II before his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944, this book draws on the happier years of Polacek's own childhood as inspiration. As we look upon the world through Petr's eyes, we, too, marvel at the incomprehensible world of grownups; join in fights between gangs of neighborhood kids; and laugh at the charming language of boys, a major source of the book's humor. This translation at last offers English-language readers the opportunity to share in Petr's (and Polacek's) childhood and reminds us that joy and laughter are possible even in the darkest times.

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Book SynopsisNovelist Bohumil Hrabal was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and he spent decades working at a variety of laboring jobs before turning to writing in his late forties. From that point, he quickly made his mark on the Czech literary scene; by the time of his death he was ranked with Jaroslav Hasek, Karel Capek, and Milan Kundera as among the nation's greatest twentieth-century writers. Hrabal's fiction blends tragedy with humor and explores the anguish of intellectuals and ordinary people alike from a slightly surreal perspective. His work ranges from novels and poems to film scripts and essays. Rambling On is a collection of stories set in Hrabal's Kersko. Several of the stories were written before the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague but had to be reworked when they were rejected by Communist censorship during the 1970s. This edition features the original, uncensored versions of those stories.

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Book SynopsisJaroslav Hasek is a Czech writer most famous for his wickedly funny, widely read, yet incomplete novel The Good Soldier Schweik, a series of absurdist vignettes about a recalcitrant WWI soldier. Hasek in spite of a life of buffoonery and debauchery was remarkably prolific. He wrote hundreds of short stories that all display both his extraordinary gift for satire and his profound distrust of authority. Behind the Lines presents a series of nine short stories first published in the Prague Tribune and considered to be some of Hasek's best. Based on his experiences as a Red Commissar in the Russian Civil War and his return to Czechoslovakia, Behind the Lines focuses on the Russian town of Bugulma, taking aim, with mordant wit, at the absurdities of a revolution. Providing important background and insight into The Good Soldier Schweik, this collection by a writer some call the Bolshevik Mark Twain is nevertheless much more than a tool for understanding his better-known novel; it is a significant work in its own right. A hidden gem remarkable for its modern, ribald sense of humor, Behind the Lines is an enjoyable, fast-paced anthology of great literary and historical value.

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Book SynopsisOn its initial publication in Czech in 1942, Saturnin was a best seller, its gentle satire offering an unexpected if temporary reprieve from the grim reality of the German occupation. In the years since, the novel has been hailed as a classic of Czech literature, and this translation makes it available to English-language readers for the first time which is entirely appropriate, for author Zdenek Jirotka clearly modeled his light comedy on the English masters Jerome K. Jerome and P. G. Wodehouse. The novel's main character, Saturnin, a "gentleman's gentleman" who obviously owes a debt to Wodehouse's beloved Jeeves, wages a constant battle to protect his master from romantic disaster and intrusive relatives, such as Aunt Catherine, the "Prancing Dictionary of Slavic Proverbs." Saturnin will warm the heart of any fan of literary comedy.

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