This new book by New Directions places side-by-side two separate and very different little novels by acclaimed (but still relatively obscure) Argentine surrealist author César Aira. This packaging decision was artistic as much as logistical, I think: there are, as the blurb points out, definite thematic continuities between The Little Buddhist Monk and The Proof, including corporate influence on culture, misogyny in various forms, and the interplay between the two.
Read MoreThoughts on IRON MOON, an anthology of Chinese migrant worker poetry
Iron Moon should be required reading for anyone interested in poetry written from beyond safe or elite literary spaces, from places “closed off because the owners of these mines and factories have every incentive to conceal the conditions their workers deal with day and night,” as Goodman writes in her afterword.
Read MoreReview: TEMPORARY PEOPLE by Deepak Unnikrishnan
This book shines a blinding, unapologetic spotlight on the UAE’s foreign national workforce, illuminating the realities and unrealities of an existence in flux.
Read MoreReview: Can Xue's FRONTIER
To crack open Can Xue’s Frontier is to enter a world governed by dream logic.
Read MoreReview: Dimitris Lyacos's Z213:EXIT, a world gone mad
"Two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two arms, two legs. The symmetry of the machine that pursues you.”
Read More'He was not made of skin': An interview with Caitlin Scarano
"I just aimed for ambiguity and viscerality, which made room for darkness, as it often does."
Read More'Schools aren't quite as innocent as they appear': An interview with Claire Hopple
"Kids can be harsh to each other."
Read MoreREVIEW: Alejandro Zambra’s MULTIPLE CHOICE, translated by Megan McDowell
This book is, as its cover suggests, unclassifiable, but it invites you to try: Underneath the title, standardized-test-style bubbles prompt you to choose "A) Fiction," "B) Nonfiction," "C) Poetry," "D) All of the above," or "E) None of the above."
Read More“Gillette, as in the razor blades”: An interview with Frank Diamond
" 'The Recent Future' alludes to a prophetess or goddess figure that the remnant comes to worship. I wanted a town that sounded very manly as juxtaposition. Gillette, as in the razor blades."
Read More“The new heart will rise”: An interview with John Reinhart
"Every time we step out of our own heads and shake hands with another person, every time we climb down our marbled ladders and lift worms out of the street, every time we paint a new picture we transform a little corner of some accepted reality."
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