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Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret
By Ondjaki. 2014
BY THE WINNER OF THE 2013 JOSÉ SARAMAGO PRIZEAN AFRICA39/UNESCO CITY OF LITERATURE 2014 TOP AFRICAN WRITER UNDER 40A GUARDIAN…
TOP FIVE AFRICAN WRITER, 2012WINNER OF THE GRINZANE PRIZE FOR BEST YOUNG WRITER, 2010By the beaches of Luanda, the Soviets are building a grand mausoleum in honour of the Comrade President. Granmas are whispering: houses, they say, will be dexploded, and everyone will have to leave. With the help of his friends Charlita and Pi (whom everyone calls 3.14), and with assistance from Dr. Rafael KnockKnock, the Comrade Gas Jockey, the amorous Gudafterov, crazy Sea Foam, and a ghost, our young hero must decide exactly how much trouble he's willing to face to keep his Granma safe in Bishop's Beach.Energetic and colourful, impish and playful, Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret is a charming coming-of-age story from the next rising star in African literature.Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics
By Joe Klein, Anonymus. 2006
A brilliant and penetrating look behind the scenes of modern American politics, Primary Colors is a funny, wise, and dramatic…
story with characters and events that resemble some familiar, real-life figures. When a former congressional aide becomes part of the staff of the governor of a small Southern state, he watches in horror, admiration, and amazement, as the governor mixes calculation and sincerity in his not-so-above-board campaign for the presidency.From the Hardcover edition.The Clouds
By Juan Saer, Hilary Dobel. 2016
Saer is one of the best writers of today in any language --Ricardo Piglia What Saer presents marvelously is…
the experience of reality and the characters attempts to write their own narratives within its excess --BookforumIn modern-day Paris Pich n Garay receives a computer disk containing a manuscript--which might be fictional or could be a memoir--by Doctor Real a nineteenth-century physician tasked with leading a group of five mental patients on a trip to a recently constructed asylum Their trip which ends in disaster and fire is a brilliant tragicomedy thanks to the various insanities of the patients among whom is a delusional man who greatly over-estimates his own importance and a nymphomaniac nun who tricks everyone--even the other patients--into sleeping with her Fascinating as a faux historical novel and written in Saer s typically gorgeous Proustian style The Clouds can be read as a metaphor for exile--a huge theme for Saer and a lot of Argentine writers--as well as an examination of madness Juan Jos Saer was the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation The author of numerous novels and short-story collections including Scars and La Grande Saer was awarded Spain s prestigious Nadal Prize in 1987 for The Event Five of his novels are available from Open Letter Books Hilary Vaughn Dobel has an MFA in poetry and translation from Columbia University She is the author of two manuscripts and in addition to Saer she has translated work by Carlos PintadoZone
By Charlotte Mandell, Brian Evenson, Mathias Énard. 2010
One of the truly original books of the decade--written as a single, hypnotic, propulsive, physically irresistible sentence--Zone tells the story…
of a French Intelligence agent on his way to the Vatican to sell a briefcase of secrets. Over the course of his train ride, he thinks back over his life and all the damage he's caused in this violent century.And They Didn't Die
By Margaret Daymond, Lauretta Ngcobo. 1990
This is the untold story of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, told by a woman who lived it. It…
is the story of the ordinary women of South Africa who, forced to scratch a living from the land, still found the strength to ask for respect and, in the process, made a revolution.In the Midst of Alarms
By Robert Barr, Douglas Lochhead. 1973
The Minimum Security Chronicles
By Stephanie Mcmillan. 2013
From the winner of the 2012 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, a character-driven tale about our threatened environment and the…
practicality of putting contemporary revolutionary strategy into action. In The Minimum Security Chronicles, the latest long-form narrative from Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award-winning cartoonist Stephanie McMillan, lifelong friends Kranti and Bananabelle are rounded up during a protest and locked in a pen by a faraway railroad track. After their escape, when trying to gain proof of their capture, Kranti discovers the future site of a nuclear power plant. After attempting to shut it down, she learns of an even more ecologically dangerous enterprise: a massive geo-engineering project scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks. And so begins the tale of a group of friends--among them an apolitical computer programmer, an aspiring musician who joins the Occupy movement, a lovestruck community gardener, a militant bunny and a guinea pig theorist--who try to halt the plans of evil corporate overlords bent on destroying the earth for profit.From the Trade Paperback edition.Abahn Sabana David
By Marguerite Duras, Kazim Ali. 2016
"Duras's language and writing shine like crystals."--The New Yorker"A spectacular success. . . . Duras is at the height of…
her powers."--Edmund WhiteAvailable for the first time in English, Abahn Sabana David is a late-career masterpiece from one of France's greatest writers.Late one evening, David and Sabana--members of a communist group--arrive at a country house where they meet Abahn, the man they've been sent to guard and eventually kill for his perceived transgressions. A fourth man arrives (also named Abahn), and throughout the night these four characters discuss existential ideas of understanding, capitalism, violence, revolution, and dogs, while a gun lurks in the background the entire time.Suspenseful and thought-provoking, Duras's novel calls to mind the plays of Samuel Beckett in the way it explores human existence and suffering in the confusing contemporary world.Marguerite Duras wrote dozens of plays, film scripts, and novels, including The Ravishing of Lol Stein, The Sea Wall, and Hiroshima, Mon Amour. She's most well-known for The Lover, which received the Goncourt Prize in 1984 and was made into a film in 1992. This is her third book to be published by Open Letter. Kazim Ali is a poet, essayist, and novelist, and has published a translation of Water's Footfall by Sohrab Sepehri in addition to co-translating Duras's L'Amour. He teaches at Oberlin College and the University of Southern Maine.Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven
By J. T. Mahany, Antoine Volodine. 2015
"The interconnected works of Volodine--think Faulkner, but after an apocalypse--constitute the most exciting project in contemporary French literature."--Maria ClementiThat is…
what we had called post-exoticism. It was a construction connected to revolutionary shamanism and literature. . . . It was an interior construction, a withdrawal, a secret welcoming land, but also something offensive that participated in the plot of certain unarmed individuals against the capitalist world and its countless ignominies. This fight was now confined solely to Bassmann's lips.Like with Antoine Volodine's other works (Minor Angels, We Monks & Soldiers), Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven takes place in a corrupted future where a small group of radical writers--those who practice "post-exoticism"--have been jailed by those in power and are slowly dying off. But before Lutz Bassmann, the last post-exoticist writer, passes away, a couple journalists will try and pry out all the secrets of this powerful literary movement.With its explanations of several key "post-exoticist" terms that appear in Volodine's other books, Lesson Eleven provides a crucial entryway into one of the most ambitious literary projects of recent times: a project exploring the revolutionary power of literature.Antoine Volodine is the author of dozens of books under a few different pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger. These novels--several of which are available in English--articulate a post-exoticist universe filled with secrets, revolutionary writers, and spiders.J. T. Mahany is a graduate of the University of Rochester's MA in Literary Translation Studies program and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas.Apples from the Desert
By Grace Paley, Savyon Liebrecht. 1992
Savyon Liebrecht's intense, lyrical, and emotionally complex stories have made her a best-selling writer in her native Israel. Her short…
fiction explores the everyday tragedies that emanate from strained relationships between Arabs and Jews, women and men, older and younger generations in present-day Israel. According to the Washington Post Book World, her "engrossing and skillful tales take you through the lives of real people, to the heart of their emotional and moral being." Liebrecht reveals the impact of larger social and political conflicts within the private world of the home with a precision and a subtle ferocity reminiscent of the work of Nadine Gordimer. "These finely wrought stories of private lives shed light on a terrifying political conflict", notes the New York Times Book Review. "[Liebrecht] takes you places you've never been before." The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Woman's SeriesWriters and Rebels: The Literature of Insurgency in the Caucasus
By Rebecca Gould. 2016
Spanning the period between the end of the Russo-Caucasian War and the death of the first female Chechen suicide bomber,…
this groundbreaking book is the first to compare Georgian, Chechen, and Daghestani depictions of anticolonial insurgency. Rebecca Gould draws from previously untapped archival sources as well as from prose, poetry, and oral narratives to assess the impact of Tsarist and Soviet rule in the Islamic Caucasus. Examining literary representations of social banditry to tell the story of Russian colonialism from the vantage point of its subjects, among numerous other themes, Gould argues that the literatures of anticolonial insurgency constitute a veritable resistance--or "transgressive sanctity"--to colonialism.Writers and Rebels: The Literature of Insurgency in the Caucasus
By Rebecca Ruth Gould. 2016
Spanning the period between the end of the Russo-Caucasian War and the death of the first female Chechen suicide bomber,…
this groundbreaking book is the first to compare Georgian, Chechen, and Daghestani depictions of anticolonial insurgency. Rebecca Gould draws from previously untapped archival sources as well as from prose, poetry, and oral narratives to assess the impact of Tsarist and Soviet rule in the Islamic Caucasus. Examining literary representations of social banditry to tell the story of Russian colonialism from the vantage point of its subjects, among numerous other themes, Gould argues that the literatures of anticolonial insurgency constitute a veritable resistance--or "transgressive sanctity"--to colonialism.Octavia's Brood
By Walidah Imarisha, Adrienne Maree Brown. 2016
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision,…
and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres-sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism-but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.The Contemporary Soviet City
By Henry W. Morton, Robert C. Stuart. 1984
This anthology of short stories reflects the writers' shared core experience of Korea's trajectory from an inward-looking feudal state, through…
Japanese colony and battle-ground for the Korean War, to a modernizing society. Three stories have been added to the original edition.The Contemporary Soviet City
By Henry Morton, Robert Stuart. 1984
This anthology of short stories reflects the writers' shared core experience of Korea's trajectory from an inward-looking feudal state, through…
Japanese colony and battle-ground for the Korean War, to a modernizing society. Three stories have been added to the original edition.The Baldwins
By David Homel, Fred A. Reed, Serge Lamothe. 2004
In the post-apocalyptic future, 50 years after the last government of turbo-liberals and its president-for-life have been elected, a group…
of researchers convenes a Congress to address the curious cultural phenomenon of the Baldwins, whose stories have been gathered and archived by the chroniclers. This novel of fragments represents contemporary prose at its most daring and experimental.The Baldwins
By David Homel, Fred Reed, Serge Lamothe. 2004
In the post-apocalyptic future, 50 years after the last government of turbo-liberals and its president-for-life have been elected, a group…
of researchers convenes a Congress to address the curious cultural phenomenon of the Baldwins, whose stories have been gathered and archived by the chroniclers. This novel of fragments represents contemporary prose at its most daring and experimental.Party Headquarters
By Angela Rodel, Georgi Tenev. 2006
Winner of the Vick Foundation Novel of the Year Award in 2007, Party Headquarters takes place in the eighties and…
nineties, during Bulgaria's transition from communist rule to democracy.The book--which is a love story, a parody, and a thriller about a political hoax--opens with the main character visiting his father-in-law, an old communist party boss who is dying, and being tasked with delivering a suitcase filled with one-and-a-half million euros.It's one of Bulgaria's most popular myths: As the communist party fell apart, high ranking officials squirreled away bags and suitcases containing a significant portion of the country's wealth, and that these bags are still circulating through Europe, waiting to be delivered to various conspirators.But this is just the beginning of the corruption and inequality that plagued Bulgaria during this time. While immersing himself in pornography and prostitution, the hero of Party Headquarters reflects back on his life and the emblematic events that took place around that time--the anticommunist protests, the arson attack on the Communist Party Headquarters in Sofia, and, most tragically and crucially, the Chernobyl disaster, during which the families of party officials were sheltered away and fed special, safe food, while the regular citizens suffered.Beautiful and tragic, Party Headquarters is an engrossing testament to the struggles that haunted Bulgaria after the fall of the Soviet Union, many of which continue to resonate today.Before penning the Vick Prize-winning novel Party Headquarters, Georgi Tenev had already published four books, founded the Triumviratus Art Group, hosted The Library television program about books, and written plays that have been performed in Germany, France, and Russia. He is also a screenwriter for film and TV.Angela Rodel earned an MA in linguistics from UCLA and received a Fulbright Fellowship to study and learn Bulgarian.Asesinato en el Parque Sinaloa
By lmer Mendoza. 2017
Una nueva entrega de la saga del Zurdo Mendieta y un relato trepidante en el que la violencia, el narcotráfico,…
la corrupción y el amor se entretejen en un retrato perfecto del presente de nuestro país. Edgar «el Zurdo» Mendienta ha decidido retirarse de las fuerzas policiales. Desencantado y hastiado por la violencia, parece sucumbir ante el consumo autodestructivo de whisky, cuando Abel Sánchez, viejo amigo y mentor, hace que vuelva como detective por un favor al que El Zurdo no puede negarse: hallar al asesino de su hijo, el abogado Pedro Sánchez Morán, quien fue encontrado muerto en el Parque Sinaloa. La policía de Los Mochis cerró el caso sin investigación alguna, pues dan por hecho que Pedro fue asesinado por su novia, la también abogada Larissa Carlón, cuya muerte reciente fue asumida como suicidio. Elementos de la Marina patrullan Los Mochis; el Perro Laveaga, cabecilla del cártel delPacífico, se ha fugado de la prisión de máxima seguridad de Barranca Plana y todo parece indicar que está escondido en alguna parte de la ciudad. El poderoso narcotraficante está actuando con imprudente descuido; confía demasiado en el Grano Biz, su lugarteniente en la zona, y, además, su obsesión por una mujer lo tiene trastornado. El deseo más grande del Perro es reencontrarse con Daniela K, locutora de gran audiencia, quien ha prometido hacer una radionovela sobre la vida del capo. Asesinato en el Parque Sinaloa es un laberinto de intrigas y complicidades, de senderos que convergen en la pasión y el crimen. Élmer Mendoza nos entrega una obra maestra del género, una novela vertiginosa que nos recuerda que la pregunta fundamental de la literatura policiaca es la misma del amor: ¿quién diablos es el culpable?City of Jasmine
By Olga Grjasnowa. 2019
Syria - a country at war Amal, Hammoudi and Youssef are young and ambitious, the face of modern Syria. But…
when civil war tears through their homeland, they are left with a horrifying choice: risk death by staying in the country they love, or flee in search of a new life elsewhere? From one of Germany's most talented literary voices comes this intricately woven story of brutality, loss, and how hope can shine through when darkness feels overwhelming.