New Books In Literature

The western travel narrative genre has a history long tied to voyeurism and conquest. A way to see the world—and its many unique people and places—through the eyes of mostly white and male travelers. In an increasingly globalized world, many writers are beginning to raise questions about the ethics of travel writing and its tropes, especially the way western travelers tend to characterize cultures that are unfamiliar to them. These new books challenge the conventional approach, instead asking readers to consider perspectives other than their own. As a young native woman and member of the Karuk tribe, Ursula Pike joined the Peace Corps because she’d always dreamed of helping others. She was ecstatic to learn she would be assigned to serve in small town Kantuta, Bolivia. While at first Pike looked forward to helping the native people of Kantuta, she quickly realized they had less need for her help—and more to teach her—than she had imagined. In this thoughtful debut, An Indian Among Los Indígenas: A Native Trav

The horror of the battlefield is fresh for Princess Askia. She’s just been forced to flee her kingdom, the northern country of Seravesh, where her cousin now rules under the protection of the Emperor of Roven. All that remains of her army is a loyal general and her last remaining legion, the Black Wolves—not enough to protect her former kingdom from men who are willing to burn entire towns to the ground in order to subjugate the population. Askia has one hope left, and it will not depend on her skill with a sword. Her father, a healer, once helped the Emperor of Vishir, the only land capable of matching Roven in strength. If Askia can reach Vishir and convince Emperor Armaan that Roven’s ruler will eventually challenge the peace and prosperity he’s created, Vishir might be drawn into the war before it’s too late to save Askia’s homeland. But how to obtain the favor of Vishir’s Emperor, Armaan? Should she take advantage of his son’s infatuation with her? Should she try to earn the friendship of his principal w

Visually arresting and utterly one-of-a-kind, Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty (Sarabande Books) is a book-length erasure of Misery by Stephen King, a reimagining of the novel's themes of constraint and possibility in elliptical, enigmatic poems. Here, "joy would crawl over broken glass, if that was the way." Here, sleep is “a circle whose diameter might be small," a circle "pitifully small," a "wrecked and empty hypothetical circle." Paired with Sloat's stunning mixed-media collage, each poem is a miniature canvas, a brief associative profile of the psyche―its foibles, obsessions, and delights. (Description by the publisher.) “When I was doing [Hotel Almighty] and even now when I work on projects, a lot of what I find I’m doing is just expressing a love of reading and of books themselves,” says Sloat in discussing her new book. “I mean, I just love paper. To take a book and be able to make it into something — that was really fun and exciting for me." Sarah J. Sloat is the author of Hotel Almighty, a collectio

Today I talked to KT Sparks about her debut novel Four Dead Horses (Regal House, 2021) On May 1, 1982, eighteen-year-old Martin Oliphant watches a horse drown off the shore of Lake Michigan—the first of four equine corpses marking the trail that will lead Martin out of the small-minded small town of Pierre, Michigan, onto the open ranges of Elko, Nevada, and into the open arms, or at least open mics, of the cowboy poets who gather there to perform. Along the way, he nurtures a dying mother, who insists the only thing wrong with her is tennis elbow; corrals a demented father, who believes he’s Father Christmas; assists the dissolute local newspaper editor; and serves stints as horse rustler and pet mortician. For thirty years, Martin searches for an escape route to the West, to poetry, and to his first love, the cowgirl Ginger, but never manages to get much farther than the city limits of his Midwestern hometown—that is, until a world- famous cow horse dies while touring through Pierre, and Martin is tapped to

The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War (Bombardier Books, 2020) is a riveting book of infantry ground combat. As a work of fiction it is superb, showing the personal drama, drives and experiences of regular Marines combined with the high ambitions and political maneuverings of the highest ranks, including the President and Secretary of Defense. This narrative is not just fictional. It is a pastiche of the lives of Marines that Bing West has followed over the course of the last twenty years, with each firefight being a compilation of his own, personal experiences. This fact makes this book of interest not just to people looking to read fiction, but also to anyone who wants to know what war is like, how it impacts the people around them and just what happens in the far reaches of Afghanistan. More than an action story, this is a story of the morality of war told by someone who knows how it feels and what it means. In this episode, Bing and I discuss his life and background; his experiences of America’

Writer and translator Edgar Garbelotto speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his short story “A Fourteen-Hour Lesson in Theosophy,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine.  The story imagines the final hours of author Clarice Lispector’s life. In this conversation, Garbelotto talks about the process of fictionalizing a real person, and bringing her to life in the streets of Rio. Garbelotto also discusses the experience of writing and translating in English, which is his second language, and the way that experience has changed his approach to writing original work. Portuguese is a more playful, allegorical language than English, Garbelotto says, and he’s learned to approach each language differently. Edgar Garbelotto is a writer and translator born in Brazil and based in the US for 20 years. His translation of João Gilberto Noll’s novel Lord won the 2020 Jabuti Prize as Best Brazilian Book Published Abroad and was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award in Best Gay Fiction. His translat

In My Private Lennon: Explorations From a Fan Who Never Screamed (Mad Creek Press, 2020), Sibbie O'Sullivan offers a new point of view from which to consider the Beatles’ impact on society and on the individual. In a series of linked autobiographical essays that explore the musical, cultural, and personal aspects of intense music fandom, Sibbie O’Sullivan dismantles the grand narrative of the fifteen-year-old hysterical female Beatles fan and replaces it with an introspective and often humorous tale about how the band shaped her intellectual and artistic development. My Private Lennon charts the author’s realization that the Beatles, especially John Lennon, were a crucial force in her development. A radical departure from other books written by Beatles fans, My Private Lennon invites its readers to consider subjects not usually found in works about Lennon and the band, such as the constraints of memory, the male body, grief, the female breast, race, cultural issues, and the importance of privacy in our over-m

At the end of its life, the phoenix bursts into flames and a younger bird rises from the ashes. The roc is large enough to carry an elephant in its claws. The caladrius absorbs disease, curing the ill. The rain heron, which can take the form of steam, liquid or ice, controls the climate around it. Unlike the first three mythical birds, whose legends are hundreds or thousands of years old, the rain heron is a new entry in the library of imaginary beasts, introduced in the novel bearing its name by Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott. Set in an unnamed country beset by a military coup and climate disruptions, The Rain Heron (FSG Originals, 2021) is a story of survivors searching for peace but finding violence in both nature and society. The characters are tested and exposed by the titular creature, which exacts a price from those who dare covet it. “What I was really trying to do was create a mythical creature that embodies both the beauty and the savagery of nature,” Arnott says. “I wanted something that is totally

Family stories are the texture of the human fabric. From every land, from every time, they bring the past to life for young ears. In the beginning of the twentieth century, when there were no borders in the Middle East (it was then called la grande Syrie), Elia Zughaib grew up first in Damascus, then in the mountains of Lebanon. In a rural culture, animals and humans work in tandem. Children play in the surrounding fields and streams. Traditional celebrations mark the seasons of the year. When history intervened and Lebanon became a battleground between England and France, his family left their home and applied for asylum in America. The migration began. The achievement of Helen Zughaib is to bring these memories to life through art. The book’s 25 paintings appear facing Elia’s stories. He serves as the hakawati, the traditional storyteller. The stories in Stories My Father Told Me: Memories of a Childhood in Syria and Lebanon (Cune Press, 2020) are simply told, but they are not simple. Their power is enormou

Sometimes you come across a book that pulls you in from every angle. It offers you the space to explore your own fears and hopes all while taking you on a perilous adventure into the unknown with a character you feel you’ve met in real life. That’s a good novel, to me. That’s Alison Stine’s Road Out of Winter: An Apocalyptic Thriller (Mira Books, 2020). In the novel, Wylodine is a marijuana farmer watching everyone she loves leave her small town. As climate change has devastated her world, she chooses to find her own way out of Appalachia. What she finds along the way is more than new faces to call family, more than new freedom and strength, despite the snow and hard earth, she finds a way to grow. Described as “Urgent and poignant, Road Out of Winter is a glimpse of an all-too-possible near future.” Listen in as Ali and I talk about Wylodine’s dystopia, our own pandemic-strained year, and the writerly life. And check out Appalachian singer-songwriter Liz Pahl’s song, “Wylodine,” inspired by the novel. Ellee

Philip Boehm, who has translated over thirty books from German and Polish into English, has translated a recently discovered German manuscript Darkness at Noon (Scribner, 2019) by the late Arthur Koestler. Originally published in 1940, Koestler’s book eventually became an international bestseller. He told in fictional form the realistic story of a former Soviet Communist Party leader who became a victim of Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. The story is loosely modeled on Nikolai Bukharin’s show trial in 1938. Koestler’s book was originally translated into English by his girlfriend and the original was thought to have been lost during World War II. However, in 2015, a graduate student in Switzerland discovered a copy of the original German manuscript and this was the work Boehm translated into English for this recent edition. During this interview we discuss the plot, its relevance to real Soviet purges, and the translation process. Ian J. Drake is Associate Professor of Jurisprudence, Montclair State University.

There have been more than a few contenders for the title of “World Conqueror,” but eight hundred years after the fact, Genghis Khan’s claim to the title remains unmatched. Over the course of four decades, he and his heirs built a realm that stretched from the Korean Peninsula to the plains of Hungary and from northern Siberia to India. And unlike the later conquests of Hitler and Bonaparte, the charismatic authority of Genghis Khan endured long after the initial union fractured into warring khanates. Tackling even the establishment period of such a massive undertaking within the covers of a single historical novel poses a challenge for any author. In The Sky Worshipers (History through Fiction, 2021), F.M. Deemyad approaches the problem by focusing on three foreign princesses, captured in different places (northern China, Central Asia, and Poland) by Genghis, his son Ogodei, and his grandson Hulagu. These three women, each for her own reasons, together create a secret eyewitness account of the Mongol rise and

In Warhol's Mother's Pantry: Art America and the Mom in Pop (Mad Creek Press, 2020), M.I. Devine introduces readers to a collection of 21st-century multi-genre essays inspired by Andy Warhol's mother, Julia, that provide a literary and cultural history of new pop humanism. "Here are Leonard Cohen’s last songs and Molly Bloom’s last words; Vampire Weekend’s Rostam and Philip Larkin too; Stevie Smith, John Donne, and Kendrick Lamar; sonnets and selfies; early cinema and post–9/11 film, pop hooks, and pop art." Devine's series of essays examines his histories and relationships with pop culture and art.  Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

As the push for a Universal Healthcare system in the United States becomes more and more popular among the American people, we’re beginning to have more public conversations about access to and affordability of medical care. While many of us may not consider our health insurance until we need it, for those with chronic conditions, the American medical system can be a nightmare of insurance claims bureaucracy and that prevents patients from getting the care they need at a cost they can afford. Worse, the rising prices of drugs and treatments developed in this for-profit system mean that some patients receive more medical care than they want or need, sometimes at the expense of their quality of life. When a young Katherine E. Standefer was suddenly diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome—the same congenital heart condition as her younger sister—she was faced with what felt like an impossible choice: implant a cardiac defibrillator and be forever tied to the American Medical System, or take a chance with death. In her s

In Sari Rosenblatt’s collection, Father Guards the Sheep, (University of Iowa Press, 2020), by turns tender and hilarious, we see fathers who are bullies and nervous watchdogs, haunted by their own pasts and fear of the future they may never see. And who do their daughters become? A substitute teacher who encounters mouthy students who believe she’s not real. Another lands a job on her city’s arson squad, researching derelict properties their owners might want to burn. A beleaguered mother, humiliated by the PTA’s queen bee, finds solace in an ancient piece of caramel candy. “I keep sucking,” she says, “until some flavor, no longer caramel, comes out.” In the end, this is what all these finely wrought characters want: to wring sweetness from what’s been passed down to them. Rosenblatt’s comic sensibility, so present in these stories, entertains and consoles, while seeming to say to her readers: you might as well laugh. Sari Rosenblatt earned an MFA (1984) from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has won awards for

Casey Walker speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his short story “Vigilância,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine. In this conversation, Walker talks about writing World War II-era Lisbon through the eyes of a police informer who trades in secrets. Walker also discusses the complex nature of complicity in his novel Last Days in Shanghai, and the historical and personal background behind his current project Mexicali, a new novel set in the Mexican-American borderlands. Casey Walker is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and has a PhD in English Literature from Princeton University. He is the author of the novel Last Days in Shanghai. His writing has appeared in The Believer, Boston Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. He is currently finishing a new novel, Mexicali, exploring the history of the Mexican-American borderlands where he was born and raised. Read “Vigilância” by Casey Walker at thecommononline.org/vigilancia. Learn more about Casey Walker and his work at caseymwa

When Elisabeth Parker and her husband leave Massachusetts and arrive in California to join her father, she quickly learns that her father is not who she thought he was. It’s 1849, and she also realizes that her new husband is also not who she thought. She’s forced to confront her preconceived notions of family, love, and opportunity, and finds comfort in corresponding with her childhood friend back home, writer Louisa May Alcott. She also spends time with a mysterious and handsome native Californian. Armed with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance, she sets out to determine her role in building the West, even as she comes to terms with the sacrifices she must make to achieve independence and happiness. A gripping and illuminating window into life in the Old West, Prospects of a Woman (She Writes Press, 2020) is the story of one woman’s passionate quest to carve out a place for herself in the liberal and bewildering society that emerged during the California gold rush frenzy. Born and raised on the American Riv

After Australia (Affirm Press with the Sweatshop Literacy Movement 2021). No, Australia has not ended - it's a book edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Climate catastrophe, police brutality, white genocide, totalitarian rule and the erasure of black history provide the backdrop for stories of love, courage and hope. An anthology, twelve of Australia’s most daring Indigenous writers and writers of colour provide a glimpse of Australia as we head toward the year 2050. Unique voices and a great editor - whose input is apparent, but he's humbly kept in the background to let the writers shine, and we all benefit.  Featuring Ambelin Kwaymullina, Claire G. Coleman, Omar Sakr, Future D. Fidel, Karen Wyld, Khalid Warsame, Kaya Ortiz, Roanna Gonsalves, Sarah Ross, Zoya Patel, Michelle Law and Hannah Donnelly. Edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Original concept by Lena Nahlous. Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and editor of the critically acclaimed anthology, After Australia (A

Compiled around 1235, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, or Ogura's 100 Poems by 100 Poets, is one of the most important collections of poetry in Japan. Though the poets include emperors and empresses, courtiers and high priests, ladies-in-waiting and soldier-calligraphers, the collection is far more than a fascinating historical document. As the translators, James Hadley and Nell Regan, note in A Gap in the Clouds: A New Translation of Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (Dedalus Press, 2020), "these beautiful poems have endured because their themes are universal and readily understood by contemporary readers". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

An old farmer, trying to build a plane in his village. A young man that gambles everything on the roaring stock market. A community transformed by a magical fruit that evokes vivid memories. A Chinese woman unable to understand her American partner. People stuck in a train station, waiting for a train that never comes. These stories, among others, make up Land of Big Numbers (Mariner Books: 2021), the debut story collection by Te-Ping Chen. Chen’s fiction spans a wide array of styles and narratives, from vignettes that feel like they could have been plucked from the newspapers, through surreal allegories for Chinese society, to character examinations of cross-cultural relationships. In this interview, Te-Ping and I talk about the different stories in “Land of Big Numbers”, and her choice of styles, narratives and themes. We talk about how these stories are based on her time in China, as well as the differences between writing for fiction and writing for journalism. Te-Ping Chen is a fiction writer and journal