A Review of Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, Translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim (Archipelago Books, 2023) “Stories,” writes Cheon Myeong-kwan near the end of his lush and sprawling Whale, “are an exploration into a life filled with injustice.” Translated from the original Korean by Chi-Young Kim and shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize, Myeong-kwan’s . . .
Read MoreThe Road Towards Home, a new novel by Corinne Demas, is just in time for beach reads and languid summer days. This novel, largely set on Cape Cod, is a breezy read with a literary bent, ideal for throwing in a beach bag. Demas is a prolific writer and while she has written . . .
Read MoreA Review of Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris. (Alice James Books, 2023) Why write love poetry in a burning world?To train myself in the midst of a burning worldto offer poems of love to a burning world. —Katie Farris, “Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World” In the . . .
Read MoreA Review of With My Shadow: A Bilingual Selection by Hilde Domin. Translated by Sarah Kafatou. (Paul Dry Books, 2023.) Mary Ruefle writes in Madness, Rack, and Honey: “You might say a poem is a living semicolon, what connects the first line to the last, the act of keeping together that whose nature is to . . .
Read MoreIt might take yearsTo win your heart.To grab a beerWould be a start.–Paul Muldoon ‘Twas in Limerick, Ireland, was bornThis rollicking, frolicsome formThat refuses the haughty(But relishes naughty)In light, triple rhythms adorned. On St. Patrick’s Day, let’s turn to AleWith a triply delicious regal-ing of tasty dark brewsI’ve selected for youFor this . . .
Read MoreA Review of Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk. Translated from Turkish by Ekin Oklap. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. Orhan Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate for literature. His work focuses on Turkish culture and history, using labyrinthine plots, an overload of detail, operatic flights of imagination, and tongue-in-cheek word play. . . .
Read MoreA Review of Ernst Jünger, On the Marble Cliffs. Translated by Tess Lewis, Introduction by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, Afterword by Maurice Blanchot. New York Review Books, 2023. An elegant, refined, somewhat aloof writer whose oeuvre spans eight decades, Ernst Jünger is a towering figure of modern German letters. In addition to his correspondence . . .
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