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Latest Review: "Mama Leone" by Miljenko Jergović

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Josh Billings on Miljenko Jergović’s Mama Leone, translated from the Croatian by David Williams and published by Archipelago Books. Josh Billings has reviewed for The Literary Review in the past, and is also a writer and a translator from Russian. His two ...

BTBA 2013: "The Obscene Madame D" [The Books that DIDN'T Make It]

Next Tuesday, March 5th, at 10 am(ish), we will be unveiling this year’s BTBA Fiction Longlist. This year’s judges—click here for the complete list—did a spectacular job selecting the 25 best works of fiction in translation published last year. In contrast to years past, this time I recommended that ...

The New Gerbrand Bakker Novel [Weekend Reading]

I hate to admit it, but a few years ago, when Archipelago first sent me a copy of Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin, I assumed that it was a book that I was probably never going to read. I mean, it’s a book about a farmer. A quiet book about a farmer. An introspective aging farmer taking care of his invalid father. ...

Blindly

A few pages into Claudio Magris’s Blindly, the reader begins to ask the same question posed by the book’s jacket: “Who is the mysterious narrator of Blindly?” Who indeed. At times the narrator is Tore, an inmate in a mental health facility. Other times, the narration is handled by Jorgen Jorgenson, king of Iceland, ...

Latest Review: "Blindly" by Claudio Magris

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Claudio Magris’s Blindly, which is translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel and published by Yale University Press as part of their Margellos World Republic of Letters Series. Yale’s World Republic of Letters Series deserves a ...

Things to Attend . . .

For all of you lucky people living in the great city of New York, here are two fantastic upcoming events that you should try and attend. First off, next Thursday, February 21st at 7pm at McNally Jackson, Stephen Snyder and Allison Markin Powell (both of whom make me swoon) will be talking about Japanese literature in ...

Open Letter Newslestter [2.13.13]

The new Open Letter Newsletter was mailed out yesterday, and is now online (in a pretty, slick format). Included is information about 18% Gray, next Monday’s Tirza launch party at 192 Books & The Half King, and a bit about the 2013 Preview Podcast. If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter (and really, ...