Check back as we add more features and reviews in the next months!
To see the table of contents of our Summer 2023 print issue, click here.
Interviews
The Past Flickers in the Present: An Interview with Youval Shimoni
Israeli novelist Youval Shimoni discusses “the baggage of Jewish history,” weaving plots into long books, the power of religious narratives, his brush with filmmaking, the possibility of hope, and his award-winning new book, The Salt Line.
Interviewed by Marcus Pactor
Mutual Unconsciousness: An Interview with Hiromi Itō and Jeffrey Angles
Acclaimed Japanese author Hiromi Itō and her translator Jeffrey Angles discuss genre blurring, humor in translation, home as “the other place,” plants as characters, and Itō’s latest book, The Thorn Puller.
Interviewed by Karen Noll
Features
Carnal Knowledge: Colette’s Chéri and The End of Chéri
Two recent translations of Colette’s Chéri novels offer readers the opportunity to engage them anew.
By Kevin Brown
The Return of Cyrus
Three recent books offer a wealth of information about the Persian empire and its founder, Cyrus the Great.
By Rasoul Sorkhabi
Poetry Reviews
Valley of the Many-Colored Grasses
Newly restored to print, Ronald Johnson’s third book of poetry shows the poet consolidating the strengths of his earlier work while foreshadowing his epic poem ARK.
Reviewed by Ross Hair
Quarantine Highway
Millicent Borges Accardi’s new book, written in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, shows how poetry matters during a time of crisis.
Reviewed by Hilary Sideris
Old Love Skin
Old Love Skin, an anthology edited by the Zimbabwean poet Nyashadzashe Chikumbu, sets up a discussion between modern problems and the puzzles of old Africa.
Reviewed by Mbizo Chirasha
Two Poets of the American Now
Franny Choi (The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On) and Courtney Faye Taylor (Concentrate) are two compelling poets who succeed in capturing the pulse of our fraught political moment.
Reviewed by Walter Holland
Nonfiction Reviews
American Midnight
Adam Hochschild’s account of America’s long-ago “midnight” has much to tell us about the politics we have inherited in our own day.
Reviewed by Robert Zaller
A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again
Joanna Biggs’s deeply felt connection to each of the writers she considers in this book revitalizes established literary lore, reframing each woman’s trajectory through personally resonant lenses of resurgence and rebirth.
Reviewed by Ellie Eberlee
Fiction Reviews
The Illuminated Burrow
The Illuminated Burrow: A Sanatorium Journal, written by Romanian poet and novelist Max Blecher and translated by Gabi Reigh, is a meditation on the nature of significant moments, written as the author approached his death in 1938 at the age of twenty-eight.
Reviewed by Rick Henry
The People Who Report More Stress
Alejandro Varela’s story collection is a motherlode of social criticism, made all the more poignant by its interwoven analysis of lust.
Reviewed by Eric Olson
Young Adult Literature Reviews
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
Rex Ogle’s new memoir in verse, which explores how he persevered through abuse and poverty, is fast-paced, compelling, and appropriate for young readers.
Reviewed by George Longenecker