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 …
Literature
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 …
Born into a wealthy Osaka family in 1899, Yasunari Kawabata lived through a tragic childhood, becoming orphaned at the age of four after which he was raised by his grandparents who themselves both passed away by the time he reached his fifteenth year. Yasunari Kawabata endured the sorrow of his early years and went on …
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. …
Here is a very rare kind of book that has such a weight of cultural importance that, even if it were bad (which it absolutely is not) it would still be worth buying and reading. Fortunately, beyond just being important, it’s also spectacular. Broken Stars is valuable in the scope of Chinese genre fiction. Literature …
It’s as daunting as it is exciting to see a longlist announced and realise that you now have thirteen books you need to quickly buy and read, or risk the dreaded FOMO setting in. Instead, you can read below our five favourites – our picks for the Man Booker International 2019 shortlist (which will be …
Known as Valerie: A Novel in the US, The Faculty of Dreams is an honest-via-the-absurd tale of the woman famous for shooting Andy Warhol tells us her life story, illuminating the sad road walked by a human being who was so much more – and so much less – than a would-be killer. A Play …
The most extraordinary thing about Lanny is just how ordinary it is, even as it presents us with the story of a folk creature made of moss and dirt coming to life and hunting down a young child. In his debut novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter immediately and quite incredibly cemented …
A bookstore with a name this glorious couldn’t live anywhere but Bath. One of the oldest and most architecturally beautiful little cities in all of the UK, Bath is a favourite place to visit amongst literary types. The city has a Jane Austen museum (with a gift shop), the historic Roman baths which gave the …
Translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles Here is a Japanese novel about social outcasts and the struggling and underappreciated working class, written by a social outcast, and translated by a proud socialist. Tokyo Ueno Station provides a harsh and honest look at the ways in which twentieth-century Japan has treated its people. Yu Miri …