“When my father died, he had already been gone a long time,” says the narrator of Gwenaëlle Aubry’s latest novel. Translated from the French by Trista Selous, this slim volume explores the life and personality of the narrator’s... Read More

“The real problem is that we live in a society where the male is both the opponent and, at the same time, the referee.” So observes Safia, a smart and funny young Egyptian woman living in Rome with her devout Muslim husband. He... Read More

Ernst Vogler seems to have found a dream job creating a master list of the world’s artwork based on taste, significance, and desire. Except the year is 1938, and Ernst is working for Hitler’s Sonderprojekt, collecting—or looting,... Read More

Svetislav Basara’s "The Cyclist Conspiracy" is a fascinating novel. Beginning with a first-person narrative by Charles the Hideous, ending with a design for an inverted Tower of Babel, and filled with mind-bending philosophical,... Read More

“You have to know where you’re from to know where you’re at and where you’re going,” says Wade Salem, the narrator’s erstwhile father figure in Dylan Hicks’ novel "Boarded Windows". But these essentials are precisely what... Read More

Bohane may be a made-up place, or it may be based on an actual crossroads “out the tip-end o’” Ireland, but it’s already on the literary map of fine writing. With "City of Bohane", Kevin Barry makes landscape as much a presence... Read More

In her first novel, Amelia Gray charts a man’s unraveling following the mysterious death of his wife. But such a simple description leaves out all the fantastic turns Gray has in store for her readers. One day David’s wife, Franny,... Read More

To call Glenn P. Wolfe’s novel Mneme’s Place “Joycean” is an understatement. There is no doubt the author was inspired by James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan’s Wake. Wolfe employs many... Read More