Stare Dam, a small loch located on the southern edge of Birnam Wood in Central Perth and Kinross, Scotland / Photo by ShinyPhotoScotland / Flickr
José Manuel Cardona’s collection Birnam W…
Book Reviews
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May 21, 2019 -
April 18, 2019Carne de mi carne: Antología de cuento (Plural Editores, 2018; Flesh of my flesh: Short-story anthology), is a collection of short stories inspired by the philosophical underpinnings of Mary… -
March 12, 2019Sylvia Plath standing beside her bicycle, Marblehead, Massachusetts, July 24, 1951. Plath, who was eighteen at the time, and her Smith College roommate, Marcia Brown (later Marcia B. Stern), serv… -
February 12, 2019Photo by Slava Bowman on Unsplash Through a wealth of examples across disciplines, from novels, and from personal experience, Svend Erik Larsen’s Literature and the Experie… -
January 31, 2019Photo by Martin Lewison / Flickr When Convenience Store Woman came out in 2016, Murata Sayaka (b. 1979) won the Akutagawa Prize, usually the imprimatur of potential for a new writer.… -
January 15, 2019Loretta Collins Klobah / Courtesy of Peepal Tree Loretta Collins Klobah’s Ricantations (Peepal Tree, 2018) is her second collection of poetry. The book has been selected as a Poetry… -
January 10, 2019Enrapture Captivating Media / Unsplash What becomes a legend most? Great talent, suffering, and mystery . . . three ingredients that French poet Arthur Rimbaud possessed in spades.… -
January 7, 2019Michael Bazzett / Courtesy of Milkweed Editions and the Star Tribune Long overdue, Michael Bazzett’s verse translation of The Popol Vuh (Milkweed Editions, 2018) does for the Mayan c… -
December 18, 2018Photo by Eran Finkle / Flickr Jeff Talarigo’s third book, In the Cemetery of the Orange Trees (Etruscan Press, 2018), offers a compelling assessment of the collective psychological s… -
November 20, 2018Photo by jplenio / Pixabay“Acknowledging my illness,” writes Melyssa A. Harmon in Flecks of Red (Nautical Life Press, 2018), “allows me to take emotional ownership of all that comes with it w… -
September 18, 2018Background photo by tsauquet / PixabayGenre is the most significant category in which books trade on the literary marketplace. Nonfiction or fiction. Memoir or novel. Literary fiction or romance, horr… -
September 11, 2018Photo: Jarle VinesNorway is a country that shows up on the stage of Weltliteratur quite regularly. Henrik Ibsen had to live for more than two decades abroad to find the Archimedean point nece… -
August 23, 2018Orientalism is over. The era of our culture, history, and image being constructed, codified, and represented by Western scholars is gone. Today we tell our own stories and are given voice by our own w… -
July 24, 2018Aside from romance, horror is perhaps the least globally diverse genre of popular fiction by measure of the authors writing in or translated to English. While film seems to have no trouble making horr… -
July 9, 2018Photo of Tracy K. Smith by Rachel Eliza GriffithsReading Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018), US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s fourth book, is an experience unlike any I’ve had bef… -
June 6, 2018America has long been at the crossroads of accepting diversity and empire-building. American interactions with diverse peoples have often been less than ideal. During confusing, often unjust, dealings… -
May 16, 2018Photo: Zakaria WakramTheologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language. – Meister EckhartWe live in unexemplary times, maddened by fear, murderou… -
March 28, 2018Photo of Lea Goldberg and drawing by Goldberg from She’erit HaChayim (1971) / Courtesy of the Gnazim Institute, Hebrew Writers’ AssociationLea Goldberg (1911–1970), one of the most impor… -
February 20, 2018Major Jackson / Photo courtesy of the author. Kehinde Wiley’s Morpheus (2008) appears on the cover of Roll DeepMajor Jackson’s latest book of poetry, Roll Deep (Norton,… -
January 31, 2018Leïla Slimani / Photo courtesy of FrenchCulture.orgI have barely read any critical pieces on Leïla Slimani’s novel Chanson douce (Gallimard, 2016), winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt in… -
January 18, 2018Naomi Klein / Photo by Kourosh Keshiri“It is easier,” Mark Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, “to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalis… -
January 17, 2018“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and our aim is to reach the unattainable, the unknown through the “viewless wings of Poesy.” “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” thinks the R… -
January 10, 2018Misuzu Kaneko (1903–1930) is a poet who holds a special place in the hearts of many Japanese as a voice of compassion in a difficult time for the country. The recently published Are You an Echo? T… -
December 20, 2017Jonas Zdanys is a master lyricist. The bilingual poet (English and Lithuanian) displays his versatile ability with a variety of poetic styles in several recent collections. In Red Stones (201… -
October 9, 2017Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), a poetry finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards, contends with the U.S. federal terminologies in relationship to Indigenous people and reins…