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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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