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Book Review: Beautiful & Pointless by David Orr (USA)
By Gwendolyn Dawson Despite its subtitle, Beautiful & Pointless is not really a “guide” to modern poetry. I would call it more of a meditation. Orr, the poetry critic for the New York Times Book...
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Book Review: The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto (Japan)
By Gwendolyn Dawson The Lake, the latest novel by well-known Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto, is an enigmatic love story told from the first-person perspective of Chihiro, a muralist and “going on...
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Book Review: Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke (China)
By Gwendolyn Dawson In Yan Lianke’s novel, Dream of Ding Village, a remote, agricultural village in China suffers from an AIDS epidemic. Ten years ago, the inhabitants of Ding Village sold their blood...
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Book Review: Stone Upon Stone by Mysliwski Wieslaw (Poland)
By Gwendolyn Dawson Stone Upon Stone is the first-person narration of the fictional life of Szymek Pietruszka, a Polish farmer living during and after World War II. At various points in Szymek’s life,...
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Review of Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan...
By Gwendolyn Dawson “The person you love is 72.8 percent water and there’s been no rain for weeks.” So begins Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?, the impressive debut novel by...
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Review: A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
By Gwendolyn Dawson Yvvette Edwards’s debut novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats, is an elegantly structured story of guilt and redemption. Fourteen years after her mother’s murder, Jinx still blames...
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Sparkling Debut Novel from Norwegian Author Kjersti Skomsvold
By Gwendolyn Dawson Norwegian author Kjersti Skomsvold’s debut, The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am, is a sparkling jewel of a novel. At around 140 smallish pages, The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am...
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Ingrid Winterbach’s Novel Leaves You Aching for the Dramatic Denouement
By Gwendolyn Dawson Open Letter Press recently published an English translation of The Book of Happenstance by well-known South African author Ingrid Winterbach. As the novel opens, Helena Verbloem has...
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Sjón’s ‘From the Mouth of the Whale’ is a Fascinating, Unsettling Experience
By Gwendolyn Dawson (Read our profile with Sjón from this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, “On Myths and Crackpot Theories.”) Icelandic author Sjón’s latest novel, From the Mouth of the Whale (translated by...
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Juan José Saer’s ‘Scars’ is a Beautiful, Dark Lesson in Humility
By Gwendolyn Dawson Luis Fiore just shot his wife in the face after a day of hunting with his family. This fictitious brutality serves as the plot hub for Scars, a 1969 novel by Argentine writer Juan...
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