Translated from the French by Euan Cameron ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ is a metaphor. It’s about humanity; it’s not really about books. This is important because we do judge books by their cover art, and their titles, and their fonts. The Office of Gardens and Ponds has the most beautiful cover I’ve …
Willow Heath
Through Ponti, we learn that one universal truth about love – paternal, romantic, platonic – is that it doesn’t ebb and flow. It falters, judders, gets lost and thrown out. It gets exposed and embarrassed, like a child. It is bled dry and shrivelled like fruit. We also learn that people can be a bit …
Translated from the Korean by Janet Hong More often than not, when a musician finishes an album, their first job is to figure out what order the tracks should be played in. There’s a craft to getting the flow of the album right; do you start with a bang, or a slow crawl? Is there …
The ethos and approach to publishing of Red Circle Authors Limited is everything that we at Books and Bao cherish. As someone who howls from the mountaintops about the importance of Anglophones reading more translated literature from across the globe, it is thrilling to see a small publishing house release a selection of Japanese stories …
China is a wonderful place to live and work for so many reasons: its extensive cuisine, deep and alluring history, fascinating language, thriving economy, unparalleled natural beauty – the list goes on and on. It’s also a difficult place to live, politically speaking, but that shouldn’t necessarily stop you from moving there. Is living and …
Here is one of those rare books that has a lot to unpack – metaphor, motifs, motivations – but proves to be, nonetheless, completely accessible. More than that, it is compelling, carried by a desperate forward momentum that pleads with the reader to keep pushing on. It has all the page-turning fervour of a thriller …
Here is the latest in Comma Press’ fantastic vision of gathering short stories from cities all around the globe, translating them, and binding them together in beautiful collections, dubbed A City in Short Fiction. Following the massive success of such collections as The Book of Tokyo, The Book of Gaza, and The Book of Istanbul, …
All eyes are trained on Indonesia right now. Its tourism is flourishing more than ever; foreigners from the West are flooding there to work and live cheaply and healthily (for better or worse), and its art scene is finally being celebrated the world over. Some of the biggest names in poetry, prose, and essays all …
There are two disparate aspects to The Goose Fritz: its story and its execution. In its story – one which lays on thick a generous helping of thoughtful themes concerning family history, unfinished cycles, and political upheaval – The Gooze Fritz is an undeniable victory. Its execution, however, is awkward, poorly paced, shallow, rambling, and …
It can be a tall order to expect, or even demand, of someone respect for the past. For example, telling a modern-day British woman that she must vote, must understand parliamentary procedure, must make her voice heard, because her foremothers fought and died for the right to vote a century ago is a rough task. …