Generations of women wrestle with an inherited legacy of trauma in Celeste Mohammed’s sprawling novel-in-stories "Ever Since We Small". Split into two sections, “Then” and “Now,” the novel does a masterful job of capturing the... Read More
In Cho Haejin’s intricate, touching novel "Simple Heart", a transnational adoptee returns to Korea. Nana, an actor and playwright, grew up in South Korea. Abandoned by her mother at a train station, she lived with the conductor and at... Read More
An elder shares her story in Chi Zijian’s reflective novel "The Last Quarter of the Moon". An unnamed Evenki woman laments the loss represented by her home’s emptiness. Her family voted to leave their mountains; modernization... Read More
Generations whose stories are informed by the Holocaust converge at a sanitarium by the sea in Morris Collins’s surrealistic, affecting novel "The Tavern at the End of History". Brought together by chance, fate, or inevitability,... Read More
A first-time grandmother reckons with the ways she retreated from herself in Hollay Ghadery’s melancholy but hopeful novel The Unraveling of Ou. Minoo’s strict, conservative mother ingrained in her the belief that she was shameful,... Read More
In Emanuela Anechoum’s nuanced novel "Tangerinn", a Londoner returns to her Calabrian hometown after her father’s death, seeking closure and emotional clarity. Mina grew up in a “provincial mafia-run” town near the sea. Her... Read More
In Andrew Krivak’s transfixing novel "Mule Boy", the survivor of a tragic coalmine accident is haunted by painful memories and repressed trauma. In 1929, thirteen-year-old Ondro has considerable experience working in the local mines.... Read More
A first-time homeowner is haunted by visions and nightmarish property woes in Kim Fu’s riveting novel "The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts". For decades, Eleanor’s domineering and efficient mother, Lele, cleaned her daughter’s apartment,... Read More