By C. F. Ramuz, tr. by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan (New Directions)
I’ll admit I’m exhausted by climate fiction. The weather is already so extreme, and the warning signs so unheeded, that I don’t need fiction to guide my mind toward the possible consequences (don’t get me started on the term cli-fi). But in some twisted way I found this 1992 Swiss novel to be a breath of fresh air. Using a purely theoretical disaster—Earth’s one-way trajectory toward the sun—Ramuz casts an all-too-human drama of denial and wanton destruction. —David Varno, literary fiction reviews editorBy Jennifer Ghivan (Little, Brown)
Reframing the story of Persephone and Demeter as a tale of maternal struggle set on the California/Mexico border, Givhan mashes up folk horror, whodunit, and hero's journey into a haunting, lyrical pulp. Flush with arid atmosphere and family secrets, it's as propulsive as it is emotionally substantial. —Conner Reed, mystery and memoir reviews editorBy Amara Moira, tr. by Amanda De Lisio and Bruna Dantas Lobato (Feminist Press)
A Brazilian travesti revisits her own diaries of her former life as a sex worker in this quick, light, and utterly engrossing literary memoir. “Diary open, I’m traveling back ten years. It’s a shame I wrote so little back then; in one hour I read all the pages of a story I’d forgotten long ago.” —Dana Snitzky, history and current affairs reviews editor
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Do Not Disturb
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