In Shokoofeh Azar’s intricate fabulistic novel "The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen", an Iranian girl comes of age in a time of war. When a gowkaran tree—likened to the Tree of Life, though no one seems certain about its... Read More

Helen Wolff’s exquisite autobiographical novella "Background for Love" captures a brief yet idyllic Côte d’Azur respite from the impending fascism of 1930s Germany. A nameless German woman travels with her forty-year-old lover from... Read More

First published in 1962, Edith Bruck’s masterful short story collection "This Darkness Will Never End" bears witness to the atrocities of World War II and the lives of those affected by the Holocaust. Hungarian-born Bruck was liberated... Read More

Quino’s wonderful comics collection "Mafalda" centers on a six-year-old girl, her family, and her friends. "Mafalda" ran in Argentina from 1964 to 1973 and was beloved. In addition to its heroine, it features Manolito, a shopkeeper’s... Read More

Lyrical and alarming, Elisa Levi’s fabulistic novella That’s All I Know unveils a small town’s ominous goings-on. Little Lea lives with her disabled sister and her mother in a minuscule town on the edge of a forest. The residents... Read More

An ambitious reconstruction of a hidden personal life, "Gabriële" is Anne and Claire Berest’s biographical novel about their formidable great-grandmother. At twenty-seven, Gabriële Buffet had carved out an unusual life—studying... Read More

Revenge, murder, and gender-based hypocrisy in communist China drive the unsentimental narrative of Fang Fang’s short novel "The Running Flame". Yingzhi lives in a small village in the Chinese countryside. Desiring more than what her... Read More

Eavesdrop on the quiet chaos of a Viennese apartment building through Dominik Barta’s provocative novel Overheard, wherein the lives of its tenants converge to reveal tender truths. Kurt, a gay German and English teacher, settles into... Read More