Illustration by Hayrullah Yorgancı / United Nations Covid-19 Response
DURING A CRISIS, books provide solace and hope, offering comfort in the literary world. Even as we were held apa…
In Every Issue
We asked several writers and our readers to tell us about a book that’s too heavy for beach reading, but they’re taking it anyway—if they’re able to get to a beach. Whether you (or they) are able…
Photo: Nick Fewings / Unsplash ONE MORNING, WHILE READING his newspaper, the narrator of Sadaa al-Daas’s “Zoo Syndrome” looks up to find his wife changed into a prancing doe. His ne…
Photo: Porto, Portugal by Daniel Seßler GRIPPING THE STEEP BANKS of the Douro like a pile of haphazardly shoveled rocks, the city of Porto feels only one pebble’s slip away from tumb…
Mukōjima-Hyakkaen Garden. Photo: Tyler McElroy NEAR THE HEART of old Tokyo, surrounded by the largest metro area in the world, the Mukōjima-Hyakkaen Garden provides a respite from the bustle of the c…
Nonfiction graphic narratives offer readers a powerful window into the lived experiences of the artists and writers who create them. In the hands of the right creator, the synergy of visual and verbal…
Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by many of Poland’s leading contemporary novelists, including Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk, Jacek Dehnel, Mariusz Szczygieł, and Artur Domosławski. S…
Photo: Around the World in 80 Books ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT pleasures is sharing a favorite book with a community of bright, engaging friends, wine in hand and the fireplace crackling. I…
Photo: Yuris Alhumaydy / Unsplash ELIZABETH JOY SERRANO-QUIJANO’S stories are set in Matanao, Davao del Sur, a town in southeastern Philippines. She is part Blaan, an indigenous grou…
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN drawn to narratives of cities, both as a reader and as a writer. In the early stages of my writing life, I loved reading depictions of Paris by writers such as Stein,…
Photo: Leipzig by Herr Bohn / Unsplash IN ANY CITY, the best way to get a feel for the city is to walk around, wandering the cityscape. Leipzig, Germany, is no exception. Leipzig’s d…
Photo: Tyler McElroy TORONTO IS ONE of the largest and most diverse cities in North America, a vibrant urban center whose culture constantly fluctuates alongside the many unique peop…
Shimon AdafAviva-No Trans. Yael Segalovitz Alice James Booksthus I shall not let slip between my hands / a sister into time. – Shimon Adaf I must confess: Shimon Adaf’s Aviv…
In this new feature, Veronica Esposito interviews emerging translators who are changing the way we read world literature and beginning to reshape the translation field. While opening bookstores, lea…
Photo: Malte Wingen / Unsplash YOU FIND YOURSELF looking for a new book to read. You pick up a novel with a captivating cover, nice. After the first few chapters the protagonist seem…
ALTHOUGH I'VE SPENT most of my life in large cities, I’ve long been attracted to mystery novels set in more remote areas. Something about the isolated atmospheres of small towns—somet…
Photo: Hayley Mechelle / Flickr WHEN THE NARRATOR of Bibiana Camacho’s “The Other Woman” compares the face reflected in her mirror with the face on her work ID, she muses, “Yes, we l…
Photo: Museum aan de Stroom. Fred Romero / Flickr THE FIRST CITY most people think about when they hear of Belgium is Brussels. This I sincerely regret—not that I want to badmouth my…
Photo: Ella Parsons Nestled in a tiny courtyard shared by the Berkeley Press Bookstore and the adjacent classical music store, Cafe Ohlone is a thriving cultural center for the Ohlone tribe. In spite…
Paolo CognettiThe Wild Boy Trans. Erica Segre & Simon Carnell Washington Square Press / AtriaFEELING A BIT overburdened by the demands of civilized life but lacking t…
IN 2004 I was thinking about the way that the very American style of hard-boiled or “noir” detective story has spread around the world, even to languages and literatures that had not…
We’re often told, by impassioned librarians and insistent bibliophiles, to never judge a book by its cover. While it’s true that the most stylishly packaged novel can reveal poorly written language la…
BORDERS, OFTEN CONFUSED for boundaries, are first imagined by groups who insist power over geographies that surpass such insistence. So limits are invented into rivers and fo…
Photo: Samuel Zeller / UnsplashIN HIS WORK on color symbolism in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Florian Bast describes one of the typical reactions to trauma in the novel as “a rep…
Photo: Claudia Schillinger / Flickr THE COMMUNITY OF MADRID has been home to many peoples. From Celts and Romans to Visigoths and Moors, each group has left an impression on the culture that remains.…