Fiction

Private Life holds up a mirror to the moral corruption in the interstices of the Barcelona high society Sagarra was born into. Boudoirs of demimonde tramps, card games dilapidating the fortunes of milquetoast aristocrats - and how they scheme to conceal them - fading manors of selfish scions, and back rooms provided by social-climbing seamstresses are portrayed in vivid, sordid, and literary detai

The first volume of this three-part autobiographical series begins in 1938 with the expulsion of the Kovacic family from their home of Switzerland, eventually leading to their settlement in the father's home country of Slovenia. Narrated by Kovacic as a ten-year-old boy, he describes his family's journey with uncanny naiveté. Before leaving their home, he imagines his father's home country

A man lives in total solitude in an abandoned mountain village. But each night, at the same hour, a mysterious distant light appears on the far side of the valley and disturbs his isolation. What is it? Someone in another deserted village? A forgotten street lamp? An alien being? Finally the man is driven to discover its source. He finds a young boy who also lives alone, in a house in the middle o

Haderlap is an accomplished poet, and that lyricism leaves clear traces on this ravishing debut, which won the prestigious Bachmann Prize in 2011. The descriptions are sensual, and the unusual similes and metaphors occasionally change perspective unexpectedly. Angel of Oblivion deals with harrowing subjects - murder, torture, persecution and discrimination of an ethnic minority - in intricate and

After twenty years of marriage, Rami discovers that her husband has been living a double--or rather, a quintuple--life. Tony, a senior police officer in Maputo, has apparently been supporting four other families for many years. Rami remains calm in the face of her husband's duplicity and plots to make an honest man out of him. After Tony is forced to marry the four other women--as well as an addit

Dance on the Volcano tells the story of two sisters growing up during the Haitian Revolution in a culture that swings heavily between decadence and poverty, sensuality and depravity. One sister, because of her singing ability, is able to enter into the white colonial society otherwise generally off limits to people of color. Closely examining a society sagging under the white supremacy of the Fren

A daring novel that made Christine Angot one of the most controversial figures in contemporary France recounts the narrator's incestuous relationship with her father. Tess Lewis's forceful translation brings into English this audacious novel of taboo. The narrator is falling out from a torrential relationship with another woman. Delirious with love and yearning, her thoughts grow increasingly cyc

A collection of 30 traditional Syrian and Lebanese folktales infused with new life by Lebanese women, collected by Najla Khoury. While civil war raged in Lebanon, Najla Khoury traveled with a theater troupe, putting on shows in marginal areas where electricity was a luxury, in air raid shelters, Palestinian refugee camps, and isolated villages. Their plays were largely based on oral tales, and sh

"Mix together one pinch of surrealism, one pinch of 'situationalism, ' stir in a large measure of poetry, quite a bit of talent and you will get a glittering novel of intelligence and humor."-"RA(c)volution"

Eric Chevillard's third novel of 11, "Palafox "explores the ecosystem of an unclassifiable yet enchanting protean creature.

Mahmoud Darwish is one of the greatest poets of our time. In his poetry Palestine becomes the map of the human soul. — Elias Khoury The book tugs at the reader´s heart page after page, poem after poem, line after line, you cannot remain apathetic for a moment… —Haaretz   At once an intimate autobiography and a collective memory of the Palestinian people, Darwi

"A tiny fragment of life, simply told and yet touching in the extreme."-French Book News

Pierre, a lifelong Parisian waiter, watches people come and go, sizing them up with great accuracy and empathy. Pierre doesn't look outside too much; he prefers to let the world come to him. When the cafA(c) goes under, Pierre finds himself at a loss.

Laxness' first major novel, published in 1927, propelled Iceland into the modern world, but it's radical experimentation caused a stir as it told the story of a young poet who left the physical and cultural confines of Iceland's shores for the jumbled world of post-WWI Europe.

"Darwish is the premier poetic voice of the Palestinian people . . . lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant—and never anything less than free—what he would dream for all his people."  — Naomi Shihab Nye "Catherine Cobham's translations sway delicately between mystery and clarity, giving a rendition of the master's voice that should impre