Category Archives: review

Review: On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle

translated by Barbara Haveland original publication (in Danish): 2020 first English edition: 2024, New Directions 160 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature, On the Calculation of Volume I is a book in which so much, and so little,

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Review: The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

translated by Lola Rogers original publication (in Finnish): 2013 first English edition: 2016, Black Cat 304 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library (warning: spoilers in the last two paragraphs) Over a decade ago, Johanna Sinisalo’s name was everywhere in the Anglophone sf world. The so-called “Queen of Finnish

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Review: Egypt + 100

full title: Egypt + 100: Stories from a Century after Tahrir (Futures Past) edited by Ahmed Naji various translators Comma Press, 2024 176 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library Contents: “The Wilderness Facilities” by Mansoura Ez-Eldin, tr Paul Starkey “Drowning” by Heba Khamis, tr. Maisa Almanasreh “Everything is

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Review: Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy

translated by George Szirtes original publication (in Hungarian): 1970 this edition (in English): Telegram, 2010 236 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library Ferenc Karinthy’s Metropole will make you a nervous wreck—that is, if the thought of being trapped in a strange city and unable to communicate with anyone

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Review: The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk

translated by Christopher Moseley original publication (in Estonian): 2007 this edition (in English): Black Cat, 2015 442 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library First, I’d like to dwell on the fact that this is the first novel translated from the Estonian that I’ve ever read. For those of

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Review: The Singularity by Dino Buzzati

translated by Anne Milano Appel original publication (in Italian): 1960 first English edition: 1962, Secker & Warburg (titled Larger Than Life) this edition: 2024, NYRB Classics 136 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library *spoilers* Not until a third of the way through this short, dark, mysterious novel do

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Review: Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

translated by the author original publication (from the Gikuyu): 2004 this edition: Pantheon, 2006 grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore or library “Sprawling” is the best way to describe Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow, a multi-layered, complex, and hilariously absurd magical realist book about the deeply corrupt

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