Drawing on records of the witch trials and folk tales of the northern isles, Salt and Skin is full of tenderness, magic, and yearning. It’s a meditation on the absence of women’s voices and stories in history, and the unexpected ways that sites of long-ago trauma continue to haunt the living. […]
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A re-imagined Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield story, set in the Appalachian Mountains, this large book (over 600 pages) explores the life of a boy born in a poverty-stricken area to a single mother and looks at the opioid crisis in southern America. But, also, the beauty of the backwoods and […]
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Two boys go hunting in a forest, shooting down bats and cooking them over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that decimates their village and quickly spreads beyond. In a series of moving snapshots, Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the […]
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Translated by Bruce Humes, this novel, first published in 2005, is being re-released by Penguin Random House, re-categorized in the genre of eco-fiction. In The Last Quarter of the Moon, prize-winning novelist Chi Zijian, creates a dazzling epic about an extraordinary woman bearing witness not just to the stories of […]
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Everyone knows of the horses of Iceland, wild, and small, and free, but few have heard their story. All the Horses of Iceland tells the tale of a Norse trader, his travels through Central Asia, and the ghostly magic that followed him home to the land of fire, stone, and […]
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Originally published in Malayalam, in June 2021, Valli is Sheela Tomy’s debut novel. It’s being translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil. According to Financial Express, it’s about the hill district of Kerala nestled in the Western Ghats, which faces an environmental catastrophe. HarperCollins states: Spanning the time between the 1970s […]
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Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as “the land of sushi.” Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): “homemade language. no country to […]
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Little Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine’s Grey Zone, the no-man’s-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda that has been dragging on for years, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, […]
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Click here to return to the series About the Book This month we head to Beijing, China, as we talk with Cynthia Zhang about her newest novel, After the Dragons (Stelliform Press, 2021). Dragons were fire and terror to the Western world, but in the East they brought life-giving rain…Now, […]
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Back to the Indie Corner series This month’s Indie Corner explores Barbara Newman’s The Dreamcatcher Codes. Barbara Newman always wanted to be a cowgirl. Growing up in New York didn’t stop her. She took that can-do spirit and became an award-winning global creative director, leaving an indelible mark on brand culture. […]
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Click here to return to the series This article contains a few spoilers. To follow along, it’s helpful for the reader to be familiar with author George RR Martin’s series and the screen adaption Game of Thrones—this article is based off the novels, particularly Book 1. Update: I first published […]
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Darcie Little Badger introduced herself to the world with Elatsoe. In A Snake Falls to Earth, she draws on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure to weave another unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. It is not to be missed. I get how there’s a lot of uncertainty about the […]
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An environmental fairytale that speaks eloquently to the most pressing issues of our times. -Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Road Ben Okri’s Every Leaf a Hallelujah is beautiful and wise—a true fable for our time. And Diana Ejaita’s illustrations are spectacular. -Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth […]
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From Rupa, the publisher: A story of greed, love and sacrifice narrated in the backdrop of a crippling human tragedy. Acclaimed author Atulya Misra tells a gripping and powerful story that traverses numerous cultures and geographies. The story follows the life of Neha, who, at first, is driven by blind […]
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After a beloved family member is drowned in a devastating flood, Bede and Elin Sherwell want nothing more than to be left in peace to pursue their off-grid life. But when the very real prospect of fracking hits their village, they are drawn in to the front line of the […]
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