In Li Kotomi’s empathetic novel "Solo Dance", a young woman struggles to find her place in a world that is hostile to her sexual identity. Norie’s early years in Taiwan were difficult. Known then as Yingmei, she felt early on that... Read More

Cobbling together the story of a place from local lore, fairy tale remnants, and natural memories, Irene Solà’s novel "When I Sing, Mountains Dance" is intoxicating. Homesteads dot a mountain high in the Pyrenees, climbing up to a... Read More

Eerie and unsettling, Masatsugu Ono’s novel "At the Edge of the Woods" is a disturbing family story and a surreal tale of a world torn apart by disaster. An unnamed father and son live in their isolated house near the woods. The mother... Read More

Evocative and erotic, Corinne Hoex’s "Gentlemen Callers" seduces its audience with dreamy vignettes. The unnamed narrator shares her dreams via thirty-three short stories, each preceded by a suggestive epigraph. She dreams of seduction... Read More

The haunting short stories of Mikołaj Grynberg’s collection concern Jewish life and identity in Poland. The book’s thirty-one short stories alternate between being told from Jewish and non-Jewish perspectives, illustrating the... Read More

Women’s stories often must be rescued from the margins of history, as a writer on a difficult research expedition is reminded in Karolina Ramqvist’s introspective novel "The Bear Woman". A writer with two children is already somewhat... Read More

Set in a futuristic, dystopian world reshaped by climate change, Yoko Tawada’s "Scattered All Over the Earth" celebrates cross-cultural, crosslinguistic friendships. An unnamed country, presumably Japan, has disappeared. Knut, a Danish... Read More

Workers living regimented lives begin to question the truth of their existence in Grégoire Courtois’s excellent science fiction novel "The Agents". In the far future, work is the only thing worth living for. People spend their entire... Read More