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“Are we on the cusp of a new age of African literature? If so, the key to new novels from African writers seems to be the fresh use of historical fiction to articulate a new future.” Lizzy Attree writes in praise of the “courageous, probing works” of Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Namwali Serpell, Ayesha Harruna Attah, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, and other African authors who “reclaim ownership of a stolen history and lay the foundation for a future they’ll write for themselves.”
“It is the Sabbath, and among the crowd, a tall, elegant, slightly stooping figure, noted for his ‘Aryan’ good looks and fair hair, joins the men’s line, awaiting selection. For those sent to the right, what lies in store is the dehumanizing process of registration, tattooing, disinfecting, and, ultimately, hard labor in the typhus-ridden camp. For those sent to the left: oblivion. … Thus ended the life of one of the most unique figures in 20th-century Russian literature.” Bryan Karetnyk, the translator who reintroduced the English-speaking world to the work of Gaito Gazdanov, rescues another forgotten master, Yuri Felsen.
“It’s definitely a document of a past self. But so is every book. I don’t really think much about the solidity of past selves, though — recently I heard Laurie Anderson say that when she looks in the mirror, she thinks: “Not bad. But not me.” I feel the same way about these poems, I guess.” Clare Shearer asks Maggie Nelson about her collection of poems Something Bright, Then Holes, which was first published in 2007 and is now reissued by Soft Skull Press.
On BLARB, Nathan Scott McNamara discusses the “horrifying joy” of Roque Larraquy’s novel Comemadre, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary.
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Erica Johnson looks at Caryl Phillips’s A View of the Empire at Sunset, a novel based on the life of author Jean Rhys.
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Alex Wermer-Colan is mesmerized and haunted by French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie’s first novel, Now the Night Begins, translated into English by Jeffrey Zuckerman.
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Amy Brady speaks to author and Army veteran Roy Scranton about war and climate change.
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Yi-Ling Liu charts the rise of Chinese-American rapper Bohan Phoenix.
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LARB Channels and affiliates are a community of independent magazines supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books.
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