World Books

Book Review: “Happy Are the Happy” — You Can’t Get There from Here

March 17, 2015
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Yasmina Reza’s dollhouse of a novel is a miniaturist’s miracle.

Book Review: Using Words as Weapons — Alain Mabanckou’s Tribute to James Baldwin

March 11, 2015
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Like James Baldwin, Alain Mabanckou is striving to see beyond comforting or righteous notions and grasp a world full of movement, migration, diversity, and unexpected mixtures.

Book Review: “Blood Brothers” — Down-and-Out in Germany’s Zero Hour

March 10, 2015
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Anyone interested in understanding Europe in the 20th century, or in the fascinating metropolis that is Berlin, or in a riveting depiction of down-and-out youth who refuse to surrender to the system–will want to pick up Blood Brothers.

Poetry Review: “It’s Like That If You’re Alive” — The Poetry of Tone Škrjanec

March 6, 2015
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Looking deeply into things and, by no means least of all, into other human beings implies meditating on brevity, on ephemerality—and this is what Tone Škrjanec does in this book.

Book Review: At the Opaque Heart of Life — The Short Stories of Sait Faik

February 27, 2015
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Sometimes called the “Turkish Balzac” and, more often, the “Turkish Chekhov,” Sait Faik actually had a literary vision all his own.

Poetry Review: “Breathturn into Timestead” — A Magnificent Guide to the Enigmatic Poetry of Paul Celan

February 25, 2015
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Once you have wrestled with Paul Celan’s poetry, you may find yourself with a changed and sharpened sensibility to image and language.

Book Review: “A Brief Stop on the Road From Auschwitz” — Destined to Become a Classic

February 23, 2015
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Göran Rosenberg has written a calm yet passionate account of events after Auschwitz, a memoir marked by great intelligence and equally great emotional intensity.

Fuse Book Commentary: Found in Translation — Out in the ‘Burbs

February 21, 2015
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Every writer fantasizes about passionate readers. These were as passionate as they come.

Poetry Review: Epiphanic Wholenesses — The Poems of Tsvetanka Elenkova

January 30, 2015
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Tsvetanka Elenkova is one of the key figures in contemporary Bulgarian poetry.

Book Review: Benito Pérez Galdós’s “Tristana” — Liberation, Though Off-Kilter

January 27, 2015
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Tristana is Ibsen’s Doll’s House played as a gaunt farce, a vision of feminism as icy egotism rather than individual liberation.

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