Did Marguerite Duras, who had worked in the French résistance during the war, feel guilty about not having been sufficiently concerned about the Shoah?
Open-Letter
Book Review: Antoine Volodine’s “Bardo or Not Bardo” — Seriously Spoofing the Afterlife
One reads this strangely engaging book, like Volodine’s others, with a sort of knitted-brow amusement.
Fuse Book Review: The Novels of Mathias Énard — Probing the Intersection of Politics and Conscience
Although Street of Thieves is less accomplished than Zone, it once again displays how Mathias Énard is seeking new ways to talk political issues in precise, often gripping prose.
Book Review: Can the iPad Save the Short Story?
Two inviting collections of short short stories in translation — Catalan writer Quim Monzó sees fiction as an exhilarating if ingenious prison, Israeli writer Alex Epstein pens dreamy micro-yarns that free the imagination.
World Books Review: Criminal Neglect
A novel about sexual obsession, inspired by “Lolita,” stretches the limits of credulity. Rupert: A Confession By Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison, Open Letter, $12.95, 131 pages Reviewed by Tommy Wallach I consider myself something of an expert in the seldom studied theme of impotence in film and literature. Most […]
World Books Review: Come, See, Conquer, Rinse, Repeat
This ambitious Norwegian novel works overtime to turn conventional notions of cause and effect topsy-turvy. The Conqueror By Jan Kjærstad Translated from the Norwegian by Barbara Haveland. Open Letter, 481 pages, $17.95 Reviewed by Tommy Wallach Riddle me this: if a man finds out his wife has been cheating on him for years, then kills […]
Dubravka Ugresic Writes a Book That Dares to Bicker
By Bill Marx Novelist and critic Dubravka Ugresic On this week’s World Books podcast I talk to novelist and cultural critic Dubravka Ugresic about her latest volume of trenchant essays and commentaries, “Nobody’s Home” (Translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursac). My conversation with Ugresic circles around her contention that, despite European enthusiasm for culture, […]
Book Commentary: The Three Percent Solution
By Bill Marx Fiction in translation deserves all the notice it can get, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to patronize writers and readers by duplicating the happy talk that is turning people off of blurb-ridden book reviews in the mainstream media. My friend Chad Post, formerly at Dalkey Archive Press, has begun a […]