In Vigdis Hjorth’s novel "Is Mother Dead", a woman takes drastic action to figure out where her relationship with her family went wrong. After thirty years, Johanna is finally back in Oslo, the city where she grew up. In all that time,... Read More

"The Backstreets" is an absurdist, stream-of-consciousness novel by now disappeared Uyghur writer Perhat Tursun. It is an ominous meditation on isolation, oppression, and dehumanization. One night, an anonymous Uyghur government office... Read More

In Amanda Svensson’s novel "A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding", a shocking secret forces three siblings to reevaluate their places in their family and the world. Sebastian, Matilda, and Clara are triplets, but they have never been... Read More

Members of a Tahitian family cannot escape one another in Titaua Peu’s novel "Pina". Nine-year-old Pina’s life, already darkened by abuse and poverty, becomes even harsher when an accident turns her drunken father Auguste into a... Read More

In David Ehrlich’s contemporary novel "Café Shira", a literary coffee house located in the heart of Jerusalem becomes a temple for the patrons who frequent it. There are many people who regularly spend their time in Café Shira. They... Read More

In Steve Sem-Sandberg’s historical novel "W.", a soldier is sentenced to death for murder during the Napoleonic Wars. Always at the wrong place at the wrong time, Johann Christian Woyzeck struggles to find his place in life. Orphaned... Read More

Hermann Burger’s "Brenner" is an autobiographical novel about childhood traumas and the pleasures of smoking a cigar. Hermann Arbogast Brenner is the heir to a Swiss tobacco empire who is approaching his own end. Wrapping up his... Read More

In Dung Kai-cheung’s collection of short stories "A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On", material objects become like talismans that affect the flow of life. These ninety-nine stories were first published in 1999, soon after... Read More