THERE ONCE LIVED A WOMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL HER NEIGHBOR'S BABY: SCARY FAIRY TALES
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
Translated from the Russian by Keith Gessen and Anna Summers
Wow! Ludmilla Petrushevskaya is big news in Russia, but was little known in the English-speaking world before the publication of this collection by Penguin in 2009. I hope much more of her work is published in English, because, on the evidence of this collection, she is a stunningly good writer.
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Reviewed by Tim Jones
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DEATH AS A SIDE EFFECT
Ana Mariá Shua
Translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger
Ana María Shua's Death as a Side Effect is a perfectly pitched, darkly comic satire, set in a dystopian near-future Argentina. Politicians perform comedy routines on television, the streets are no-go areas, infested with gangs of marauding vandals, and neighbours are strangers, drowning out evidence of each others' presences with blaring music.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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MALAMBO
Lucía Charún-Illecas
Translated from the Spanish by Emmanuel Harris II
The South American historical fiction that I have read tends to focus on the battles between the European powers for control of the continent. The large populations of indigenous Americans and imported slaves have been conspicuous by their absence, although themes …
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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WHAT I DIDN'T SEE AND OTHER STORIES
Karen Joy Fowler
The interesting point about most of the stories in Karen Joy Fowler's superb new collection is what doesn't matter in them. Most feature some element of the fantastic, which typically would be their point. But here, the fantastic element or idea is always less interesting than Fowler's character or milieu.
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Reviewed by Michael Matthew
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RADIANT DAUGHTER
Patricia Grossman
Elise Blazek is the core of Irena's life. Yes, Irena has a husband, Stepan, but when not at work, he's busy tinkering on a model of Karlstein Castle, a remnant of his memories of Plzen, Czechoslovakia, his childhood home.
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Reviewed by Deborah Montuori
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TWILIGHT FOREVER RISING
Lena Meydan
Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
Lena Meydan's novel Twilight Forever Rising (originally titled Blood Brothers in Russian, perhaps changed in translation to capitalize on the Twilight phenomenon)—the first installment of a best-selling fantasy series in Russia—depicts a world in which humans unknowingly coexist with vampires who are the real forces behind politics, art, and war.
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Reviewed by F. P. Crawford
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CECILIA
Linda Ferri
Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
Inspired by the legend of Cecilia, Linda Ferri's novel is set in second century Rome under the rule of Caesar and the ancient Roman gods. In a society where men dominate, and women are meant to be silent and submissive, we meet …
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Reviewed by Akeela Gaibie-Dawood
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AM I A REDUNDANT HUMAN BEING?
Mela Hartwig
Translated from the German by Kerri Pierce
Am I a Redundant Human Being?traces the innermost thoughts of Aloisia Schmidt. Aloisia thinks of herself as mediocre in almost every regard. She is neither pretty nor ugly, clever nor stupid, and is unremarkable in …
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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INDELIBLE INK
Fiona MacGregor
Indelible Ink is like a time capsule. Topical references abound including the recent global financial crisis as it affects these Sydneysiders. Mostly, though, this is a very Australian novel.
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Reviewed by Amanda Meale
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WHAT YOU CALL WINTER
Nalini Jones
Nalini Jones' short story collection opens a door into an India you may never have encountered before. Yes, you will still encounter the saris, the curries, the streets full of rickshaws and bullocks, but this special world has another delicious flavor all its own.
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Reviewed by Kathleen Ambrogi
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CITY OF THE QUEEN
Shih Shu-Ching
Translated by Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt
Hong Kong in the cyclone season: intense humidity; wooded mountains stretching steeply upwards, encircling the harbour, shrouded in a grey soupy mist; star ferries and sampans anchored in the stormy waters. Stepping onto land …
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Reviewed by Ceri Evans
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SANCTUARY LINE
Jane Urquhart
In her seventh novel, Sanctuary Line, acclaimed Canadian writer Jane Urquhart returns to her familiar themes of transience and memory. As with her earlier works, Urquhart's prose sparkles on the page to create an atmospheric, dreamlike book that at the same time conveys a sense of verisimilitude to actual lives.
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE ESSENTIAL NAWAL EL-SAADAWI
Nawal El-Saadawi
Translated from the Arabic
Nawal el Saadawi is a feminist, novelist, poet, playwright, political activist, doctor, teacher, mother, daughter. She has a formidable intellect, is courageous, forthright and controversial. This reader brings together el Saadawi's writing from the past thirty years
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Reviewed by Charlotte Simpson
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THE FORBIDDEN WOMAN
Malika Mokeddem
Translated from the French by Karen Melissa Marcus
As readers, we crave a story whose content and execution work together seamlessly to draw us in. Yet we don't always get all we want, and the question arises: when all is said and done, what tips the balance and makes us glad we have read a book?
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Reviewed by Tad Deffler
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THE SAGA OF GÖSTA BERLING
Selma Lagerlöf
Translated from the Swedish by Paul Norlen
The Saga of Gösta Berling moves freely from lyrical celebrations of nature to harshly realistic descriptions of industry, and on into the realms of folklore and fairytale. Were the book published today, we might …
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Reviewed by Jane A. Jones
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GARDEN IN THE WIND
Gabrielle Roy
Translated from the French by Alan Brown
Garden in the Wind, a collection of four short stories by Gabrielle Roy, is what I like to call "a quiet book." I use this term to describe books where all the action is under the surface …
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Reviewed by Joyce Nickel
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THE QUEEN OF JHANSI
Mahasweta Devi
Translated by Sagaree Sengupta and Mandira Sengupta
Up until independence was won in 1947, India was known as the jewel in Britain's imperial crown. From the early 1600s when traders from the East India Company first established trading posts on the Indian mainland, British influence and control rapidly expanded …
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Reviewed by Charlotte Simpson
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LONG DAYS
Maike Wetzel
Translated from the German by Lyn Marven
Maike Wetzel has begun to garner considerable attention in her native Germany and beyond, but, at present, her published prose consists of just two short story collections, with the promise of a novel in the pipeline. Long Days is the first of Wetzel's works to be translated into English, and it has left me breathlessly waiting for more.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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HYGIENE AND THE ASSASSIN
Amélie Nothomb
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
Although Amélie Nothomb has been a prolific and acclaimed author for nearly twenty years now, it is only comparatively recently that English translations of her books have started to appear. Now, at last, Hygiene and the Assassin, her 1992 debut novel, is available to English speakers for the first time. I had never read Nothomb before and, given her reputation as a difficult, challenging and even dangerous writer, I started reading with some trepidation.
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Reviewed by Andy Barnes
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REVENGE
Taslima Nasrin
Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. But is it revenge if the act stays forever secret? Can the avenger ever find satisfaction knowing she must spend the rest of her life married to her wrongdoer? For Jhumur, the highly educated, once independent woman of Taslima Nasrin's Revenge, silent vengeance is the only option.
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Reviewed by Caitlin Fehir
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