In Hiromi Ito’s novel "The Thorn Puller", a woman cares for her aging relatives across two continents while trying to maintain a life of her own. In Japan, Ito’s parents rely on her to provide them care as their health fails.... Read More

Playing with proportions both in its illustrations and in its language (“A goodnight kiss on the forehead never stops kissing”), this picture book uses intricate line drawings in a stark red, black, and white palette to illustrate... Read More

Zig-zagging back and forth across time, Li Zi Shu’s "The Age of Goodbyes" is a kaleidoscopic family drama presented through multiple perspectives. The novel’s central focus is a book also titled "The Age of Goodbyes"; it follows the... Read More

Broken dreams and family bonds are at the center of Gert Loschütz’s novel "A Fine Couple". After World War II, Georg and Herta ended up in East Germany. Herta had been looking for a way to escape the confines of her hometown; she... Read More

The residents of an abandoned apartment complex eke out an outskirts living in Cho Nam-Joo’s dystopian novel "Saha". Thirty years ago, Saha Estates was a bustling apartment community. Then a corporation bought out the nearby town and... Read More

Childhood friends reunite, setting off an exploration into the depths of personhood in João Gilberto Noll’s explicit novel "Hugs and Cuddles". A man boards a submarine with a friend whom he calls “the engineer.” On it, German men... Read More

An elder care worker struggles with her daughter’s choices in Kim Hye-jin’s moving novel "Concerning My Daughter". A mother raises her child, instills good values, and models appropriate behavior: for the novel’s unnamed narrator,... Read More

"Phalaina" is an enchanting dark fairy tale focused on an ethereal, red-eyed girl who may not be human. Manon is a little girl when she appears, alone in the woods, in late nineteenth-century England. Although she is free and happy, she... Read More