The Ten Loves of Nishino (or The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino in the UK) is a novel that is, much like Kawakami’s other works, at once frolicking fun and darkly mournful. The out-of-order biography of an enigmatic frustration of a man tortured and strange, told through the intimate first-person perspectives of ten of his …
Arab literature is rising in popularity – not yet soaring, but with Celestial Bodies having just won the Man Booker International Prize 2019, we’re going to be seeing an upwards trajectory that gets steeper and steeper in the months and years to come. As an introduction to Arab literature and anyone looking to explore its …
We are often told the right ways to love and be loved: what our expectations of love should be and how we ourselves should behave in love. We can predict a good marriage, and should expect one, too. We know what a friend should rightly be called on to do in the name of trust …
I admittedly went into reading Thirteen Months of Sunrise with high expectations; I haven’t been this excited for a collection since the Iraq +100 (also, coincidently, by Comma Press) and I’ll start this off by saying that it absolutely did not disappoint. This collection of short stories by the author, journalist, and activist Rania Mamoun …
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 a big finish or a fade-out? Messing …
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. …
“I’ll give you some advice if you’re sad, because the story ends here. Invite home a ragged girl panhandler who needs somewhere to sleep and something to eat … Stop in the subway and talk to the psychotic hookers … Ask where she comes from, what she needs, what you can help with, what she …
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 was born in Japan to Korean parents, …
August is Women in Translation Month, a time to celebrate as loudly and proudly as you can the incredible women writers from around the world who have been translated into English for us to enjoy. Across Asia, women writers are changing the literary landscape by pointing a finger at the patriarchy, by writing clever and …
The feeling of restlessness comes hand-in-hand with the sorrow of parting ways with a place or a person. In All My Goodbyes, Mariana Dimópulos distils these feelings and all their ravaging effects on us into 130 gripping pages. In a single afternoon, readers will pass through a handful of different countries and cities, meet and …
