OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014
DORTHE NORS ELVIRA DONES CARMEN BOULLOSA
1
SEPTEMBER 2010
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staff
Margaret Brown fo u n d e r a n d p u b l i sh e r Anna Nair edito r i n ch i e f Christina Davidson c re a t i ve d i re c tor Ben Minton circ u l a t i on ma n a g e r Patricia McClain c o py e d i to r Marc Schuster c o n t r i b u t i n g e d i tor Kelly Bergh yo u n g a d u l t / ch i l d re n ’s rev i ewe r
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Jane Miller ac c o u n t i n g ma n a g e r
For a dve r tising inqu ir ie s: c al l 2 14.704.4182 or e- mail m a rga ret@ s he l fm e di agrou p.c om For editor ial inqu ir ie s: e- mail m a rga ret@ s he l fm e di agrou p.c om or write to Shelf U nbou nd, P O B ox 852321 R ich ard s on, TX 75085
Photograph: From Colours of Rajasthan by Massimo Rumi
what to read next in independent publishing
october/november
contents
DEPARTMENTS
6
karate chop interview with Dorthe Nors
12
sworn virgin interview with Elvira Dones
18
texas, the great theft interview with Carmen Boullosa
24
best translated fiction the 2014 longlist
42 58
world books: excerpts colours of rajasthan photos by Massimo Rumi
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a note from the publisher
52
roses are read book club
54
indie spotlight
70
poetry
74
on our shelf
76
small press reviews
78
last words
79 contributors On the cover: Reading in Burma, photo by and copyright Rudi Roels.
What we eat is killing us. The Perfect Food
The electrifying new novel from John Crawley A young man in Hebron, Nebraska mysteriously dies. Then another. And still another. Soon hundreds and then thousands are dying. And doctors do not know what is causing the epidemic, until one young research scientist becomes a whistle blower. His discovery threatens the entire food industry, the White House and even the halls of Congress.
The Perfect Food is about the ability of a very few individuals to buy their way to justice–to power and to opt out of accountability. It is what happens when we allow our government to be run by the rich and powerful with little to no voice for the common person.
w w w.johncrawleybooks.com Available at Amazon, iBooks, BarnesandNoble, and Lulu
a word from the
publisher
A
TRANSLATIONS
s we were wrapping up this annual “read global” issue devoted to books in translation, I received and read and was enlightened by a review copy of The Man Between: Michael Henry Heim & A Life in Translation, edited by Esther Allen, Sean Cotter, and Russell Scott Valentino, from Open Letter Books. Heim, who died in 2012, was a noted translator of two-dozen works from eight different languages, including books by Milan Kundera. I’m sharing here three quotes from The Man Between, which cast a spotlight on the role of the translator—a fitting introduction to this issue of Shelf Unbound.
“Anyone who has tried to translate a full literary work, not just a few pages, knows that translation is interpretation. You must interpret in order for the translation to come out well. I could give thousands of examples. Yes, certainly, translation is interpretation, and you can see this best if you compare two translations of the same text. You can tell right away that there are two minds at work on the same problem, each from a different point of view. Two people never translate the same sentence the same way.” —Michael Heim “Translation is the emerging market of our century. The last job that only humans can accomplish is that of translation. Machines cannot translate no matter how smart we make them. The slightest nuance of a nuance, and the machine mistranslates.” —Andrei Codrescu “For Michael, translation was a delight, yet it was also a secret mission to connect different worlds. Michael really believed that with the books he translated, American readers would become better educated, would become better, period.” —Dubravka Ugrešić Enjoy the issue. Margaret Brown publisher 4
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014
Photograph: Belinda Baldwin
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feature
interview
Dorthe Nors’ collection of concise, sharply observed short stories delve into human connections both beautiful and disturbing. Each story here is a masterpiece of writing.
Graywolf Press graywolfpress.org
Karate Chop by Dorthe Nors translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken 6
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014
Photography: Simon Klein Knudsen
Shelf Unbound: You are able to condense a novel’s worth of story and character development into your short stories. You’ve also written five novels. How do you approach writing a short story, as opposed to a novel. Dorthe Nors: I don’t plan my writing. It is as if the writing emerges from within. That goes for both my novels and my short stories. The difference is, though, that you have to control the story line of the novel for a larger span of time. You go back and forth on themes, characters, composition and so forth. The short story is more like singing. I truly feel like I’m singing a song, when I write a short story: The voice has to be strong. I have to stay with the theme. I cannot be lazy at any point. Every note counts — and I prefer to write my stories in one take; that is — most of the structure is written in one attempt. Afterwards I adjust — but the singing (the writing) itself happens pretty quickly and
without interruptions. Novels are in comparison oh so different to write. Shelf Unbound: Is there anything about the Danish language that is difficult to evoke in an English translation? Nors: I do think the kind of Danish I write in is pretty transferable into the English. I come from the part of Denmark that is called Jutland, and a lot of the Jutlandic dialect is related to English. But Danish only has 250,000 words. English has double that amount at least. That means that in Danish many words mean the same thing, and they change their meaning when they change their context. For instance “Kantslag” (the original Danish title for “Karate Chop”) means four different things in Danish. It means “karate chop,” but it’s also the word for “rimshot,” and for the chinks that you sometimes find on old china. On top of that it can also mean “the battle you undergo while being on the edge.” That’s of course
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hard to translate into the English. But that’s also a wonderful thing about my obscure little language — that it has all these double meanings. It’s also one of the reasons why the Danes are so incredibly ironic as a people. We say one thing. But we mean another. Shelf Unbound: You seamlessly transition from mundane to fantastical and back. For instance, the girl licking envelopes with her brother at their father’s office, who then manically imagines disturbing scenarios of the men the letters are addressed to. The segment ends with: “She wanted to shake the man and ask if he had a car. Because if he had a car she wanted him to take her home. She didn’t want to be there anymore. She wanted to go home to her mother, but she couldn’t, because this man, who was nothing but a name on an envelope, had stuck to
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her …” The brother becomes alarmed, “and at that moment Louise remembers saying she didn’t care for the adhesive.” And then back to the mundane. When writing such scenes, do you start with the mundane or the fantastical? Nors: Almost all of these stories are written from one end to the other. That is, in one take. Some of the stories have been created in a slightly different way, though. In a few of them I have had two interesting fragments that I for the fun of it have tried to put together to see what would happen. That is NOT the case with “Do You Know Jussi?” though. That story was written from one end to the other. But it’s not that mysterious. Our minds often start out in the mundane and then we drift into the realms of the subconscious and then we return to reality and so forth. I remember having licked envelopes when I was 10 (in a completely different context than the one described in the story).
The Big Tomato
T
he Bangs work a lot and never shop for groceries themselves. Everything in the refrigerator is ordered online. Every Sunday evening they place their order. Every Monday a box is left outside the door with all their food. One of these Mondays the box contains a tomato weighing more than four pounds, which the Bangs do not believe they ordered. The first thing is that they cannot possibly eat a tomato that big. The other thing is that they are paying by the ounce. It’s too expensive, says Mrs. Bang, so Mr. Bang calls the online grocery store to complain. At seven
that evening, while I am busy in the guest bathroom, the doorbell rings. As usual, Mr. and Mrs. Bang are not at home and it’s up to me to see who it is. A small man is standing there sweating and says he has come to collect the tomato. I fetch it from the refrigerator and give it to him. He remains standing on the mat, so I ask him if there is anything else. He says he doesn’t get paid for his work, other than what he makes in tips from the customers. I explain to him that the Bangs are not at home. He says he picks up his deliveries on a bike that has no brakes. He shows me the soles of his shoes
and wipes his forehead. Mr. and Mrs. Bang are very nice people. Mrs. Bang works for the Danish Consulate on Second Avenue, organizing trade delegations from her home country. Mr. Bang, or Lars, as he likes to be called, is a record producer. I got this job cleaning their penthouse in Lower Manhattan because I do the cleaning in his record studio. From Karate Chop: Stories by Dorthe Nors, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken, Graywolf Press 2014, graywolfpress.org. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
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But what I remembered was looking at the envelopes and feeling estranged from the names on them. I took that memory and used it in a completely different scenario. But I did it without planning it. It just happened. Shelf Unbound: Your first sentences are particularly masterful: “The Bangs work a lot and never shop for groceries themselves.” “It’s a year now since Allan moved out, and we had no children, though both of us were able.” “She started frequenting cemeteries that summer, preferring the ones others rarely visited.” How do you craft these intriguing first sentences? Nors: Thank you so much. I’m really thrilled that you like my first sentences. They are very important. In a short story (and even more in short-shorts) you don’t have an entire chapter to frame the scene. It has to happen in one sentence — and I don’t plan them. I don’t know why
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this works for me, but I do think precision, accuracy and being to the point is the essence of good story writing and I also think you can’t construct your way through it. Again, it just happens. It emerges. It’s singing. It’s notes. If it sounds well — I let it stay there. Shelf Unbound: Did you work with the translator Martin Aitken on the book’s translation? Nors: Martin Aitken would translate these stories without my interference. Afterwards there would be small things that needed adjustment, but all in all the translation was done by him. I think he did a very good job on these stories. My novella “Minna Needs Rehearsal Space,” which has been bought by Graywolf Press along side my novella “Days,” was translated by American writer and translator Misha Hoekstra. We work closely together. Misha has the final call but I’m participating and it’s so much fun.
C
rime’s an ugly constant in the big city. L.A., Chicago, New York. But when a savage murder brutalizes a small town and neighbor turns on neighbor, a tough-as-nails cop is essential to restoring order. Blood Land is a gritty, emotional saga set in the Wyoming badlands with both greed and vengeance at its core. When billions of dollars in natural gas rights hang in the balance and the town’s top law officer’s wife is slain by her own blood, a reluctant hero is forced to battle his own demons and ultimately choose between justice, revenge, and duty.
In the tradition of Dennis Lehane, Tony Hillerman and James Lee Burke, Guthrie’s sparse, haunting storytelling compliments his talent for creating richly-drawn, unflinching law officers with human frailties and a sense of justice.
“You may read this story once, but you’ll remember it forever.” Gail Gentry, Chickletslit.com
“Remarkable...The characters are richly drawn, the plot compelling the atmosphere palpable, the writing remarkable for its depth and lucidity...Deserving of more than five stars.” Russell Blake, bestselling author of the JET and Assassin series
R.S. Guthrie has won several awards in his young career, including a nod in 2013 from the Author’s Show as one of “50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading”. His book, “Blood Land” has also won several awards, including a Gold Medal in the Wise Bear Digital Book Awards and two “Best in Category” prizes in Mystery/Thriller and General Fiction.
WWW.RSGUTHRIE.COM
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feature
interview
Through the engaging story of an Albanian woman who chooses life as a man, a “sworn virgin,� Elvira Dones explores themes of gender, culture, and oppression.
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford 12
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014
& Other Stories andotherstories.org
Shelf Unbound: Becoming a “sworn virgin” is an Albanian tradition in which a girl or woman, to avoid an arranged marriage or for other such reasons, declares herself a man and dresses as a man and has the freedoms of a man but must forever remain a virgin. You were born in Albania and lived there until you defected to Switzerland in your late 20s—did you know any sworn virgins or was this something you would ever have considered for yourself ? Elvira Dones: The existence of the Sworn Virgins and the tradition that goes with them belongs to the northern part of Albania and extends in some of the other Balkan countries. I grew up in Tirana, Albania’s capital, and I came of age under a communist regime. There were no Sworn Virgins in Tirana and very few people knew of their existence. I happened to get a glimpse of a
Sworn Virgin for the first time as a teenager, in a family acquaintance’s photo album. There was this handsome man wearing a traditional outfit of the North right in the middle of a big wedding ceremony photo. That handsome man, I was told upon asking, was a woman by birth, a Sworn Virgin. My curiosity started there and then, and was satisfied only many years later, when I decided to write a novel about them. It took me years to research them. Shelf Unbound: Italian is an effusive, musical language. The English translation of Sworn Virgin feels poetic to me yet economical. Do you think the experience of reading the book in Italian vs. English is particularly different because of the inherent differences in the languages? Dones: I opted for a parsimonious, precise and somber form of storytelling from the very beginning.
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When I sat down to write the story, I had been several times up in the Albanian north, home of the Sworn Virgins. I was in awe of the almost ascetic silence of the Alps, their imposing beauty, their reckless valleys. As to the people of those magnificent lands, poise and a few carefully spoken words is the way they communicate. I wanted to preserve that, to give it back to the reader the way I had felt it. And the day I read chapters from the English translation by Clarissa Botsford I knew I had been very lucky. Clarissa had perfectly caught the rhythm of the short sentences and the cinematographic-like description, right away. Shelf Unbound: Hana Doda becomes Mark Doda the moment she puts on her uncle’s national costume and is dressed as a man. Fourteen years later she leaves her village of 280 people to live with a cousin in Washington,
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DC and her new American life abruptly begins as soon as she walks through customs. Do you see similarities in these transitions, from one gender identity to another and from one culture to another? Dones: My personal life is that of a person who lives between two continents, five languages and three countries, and is always traveling. I left Albania as a young woman when the country was still a communist dictatorship and I had to transition to a whole new world—literally. Deciding for the change and actually carrying it on is a complex process, a constant journey and a challenging way of being. Each time you cross a border and enter another language, another culture, you adjust, you have an adapting set of skills, a kit developed in you through years of experience. Hana, the main character of my novel, gets through the customs in Washington with much heavier baggage than any normal person who has a plain story.
Sworn Virgin
S
he washes quickly and comes out of the bathroom with her face still wet. Lila is pouring the coffee. Hana decides to light up a cigarette. They sit in silence. Now, in the daylight, the apartment looks beautiful. “They say that you’ve been getting stranger and stranger,” Lila says, more to herself than to her cousin. “They say you spend your time writing and reading.” Greenish smoke plays around Lila’s curls. “Does that scare you, Lila? I mean, the fact that I’m weird?” Lila doesn’t say a word. “I took the animals out, I chopped the wood, I worked in the fields, I went to the village meetings and I drank a lot of raki.
Nothing else counts.” “But this morning, who are you?” Lila asks cautiously. “Have you decided to be Hana or Mark?” Whatever happened the day after her arrival, Hana had promised herself she would not regret it. She had never regretted anything and she wasn’t about to start now, at the age of thirtyfour. “For you, I’m Hana. For the others I’ll still be Mark for a while.” “Ok.” “Ok what?” “You’re Mark. I have to treat you like a man.” “I told you that for you I’m the same old Hana. Yesterday that’s what you called me. What’s making you change your mind?” Lila explains that this morning she looks like a man: her dark
skin, her morning hair, those baggy pajamas, her yellow teeth, her masculine gestures. She finds it hard to think of her as a woman. Hana plays for time. It’s strange, but hearing those words hurts. On the table there are those buns with a whole in the middle, three little jam jars, butter, orange juice, coffee, sugar, hard-boiled eggs. Stop making an inventory, she tells herself. “I’ve been a man for fourteen years.” Lila tries to drown her gaze in the oily dregs of the coffee. “It’s not going to be easy,” she says finally. “Not for any of us.” From Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones, translated by Clarissa Botsford, & Other Stories, www.andotherstories. org. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
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She comes from an arcane world, the Accursed Mountains of Northern Albania, and suddenly finds herself right in the heart of a vast country that inhabits multitudes. She claims her freedom, her sexuality, yet doesn’t know where her courage will take her. She has several adjustments to make.
Shelf Unbound: You wrote your first seven novels in Albanian and then switched to Italian. Why did you switch? Dones: I didn’t really switch, I rather slipped into the second language quite gradually. I lived in the Italian speaking region of Switzerland for sixteen years; Italian was the Shelf Unbound: The novel language we spoke at home and the begins just a few weeks after language of my journalistic work for the September 11 attacks in the Swiss Public Television. I had also 2001. Hana had seen the news penned some screenplays in Italian; reports of it in Albania on an old when the first sentences of “Sworn television with no sound. Why did Virgin” started imposing themselves you bring 9/11 into this story? in Italian, I simply followed them. At Dones: 9/11 happened only a that point in my literary journey I felt few weeks after I had gone back to comfortable and confident enough Switzerland from a vacation in the to make use of the other language. It States. The impact it had on us on so doesn’t mean that I don’t write, or I many levels was overwhelming. Later won’t write in Albanian anymore. I on, while I was in Albania shooting alternate. a documentary on blood feud, someone told me about watching the 9/11 news in a remote village in the Albanian Alps, on a TV set with no sound. Later, the anecdote found its way into the novel.
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A ROAD TRIP THAT WOULD CHANGE HIS LIFE...
Michael’s freshman year of college has not gone well either socially or academically. In 1969 failure from college or dropping out of school means the draft and possibly Vietnam. Michael desperately wants success, acceptance and popularity. He believes pledging a campus fraternity can help put him on the right path. As the final hurdle to get into the fraternity he must hitchhike 1500 miles over a weekend; a road trip which could save his freshman year and possibly change his life. The rides he gets, the people he meets and the obstacles he overcomes on his journey do change his lifebut in an unexpected way.
www.TomWascoe.com Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBookstore. UNBOUND
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feature
interview
A new publishing house, Deep Vellum in Dallas, Texas, launches big with Texas: The Great Theft by one of Mexico’s preeminent writers.
Deep Vellum Publishing deepvellum.org
Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa translated from the Spanish by Samantha Schnee 18
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Shelf Unbound: The story takes place in 1859 in the fictitious Texas-Mexico border town of Bruneville. What interested you in this time and place? Carmen Boullosa: I got to that date and place by sheer chance —it was a gift. A name called my attention, Juan Nepomuceno Cortina (an uncle, a cousin and a nephew of my father were Juan Nepomuceno Cortina). I started digging around about him, found two great biographies (one small and charming, a second one thorough and comprehensive), and I got hooked, not by Juan Nepomuceno so much as by Texas, his Texas, and how it ran in Mexican imagination. I chose a passage of Nepomuceno’s life, a small incident that triggered layers of events—among them the Cortina’s Troubles, the Mexican invasions into the American territory. I wasn´t after fiction but wanted to capture the legendary Mexican Texas. What interested me was to realize that Cortina, who had been so important, had vanished from Mexican memory.
How could it be? I wanted him back, and used the Ouija Board to invite him. The board worked. Shelf Unbound: You develop the story by detailing the reactions of a multitude of characters to the sheriff calling Don Nepomuceno a “dirty greaser.” I love the way you structured this story—how did you arrive at this approach? Boullosa: My real character was that place—a dated Texas. Its face was the prairie, and its voice a corrido, a ballad. I had to follow the logic of a geographical space, as I pictured the prairie; more of the same, but the same always different. Plus I wanted its voice, a voice that was constructed as a corrido— repetitive and sweetly obsessive, a tough combination. It was also like building a clock´s machinery. I gave myself a challenge: It had to be ample, like a prairie, and it had to be tight as the clock´s machinery. Because I wanted that Texas to have a soul, psychology,
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Texas, The Great Theft
I
t’s high noon in Bruneville. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun beats down, piercing the veil of shimmering dust. Eyes droop from the heat. In the Market Square, in front of Café Ronsard, Sheriff Shears spits five words at Don Nepomuceno: “Shut up, you dirty greaser.” He says the words in English. At that moment, Frank is crossing the plaza, muttering to himself, “. . . and make it snappy, make it snappy”, in English, which he speaks so well that people have changed his name from Pancho Lopez to Frank. He’s just delivered two pounds of meat and one of bones (for stewing) to the home of Stealman, the lawyer. Frank is one of the
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many Mexicans in the streets of Bruneville who run errands and spread gossip, a “run-speakgo-tell,” a pelado. He hears the insult, raises his eyes, sees the scene, leaps the last few feet to the market, and runs to Sharp, the butcher, to whom he blurts out the burning phrase at point-blank range: “The new sheriff said, ‘Shut up you dirty greaser!’ to Señor Nepomuceno!”, the syllables almost melting together, and continues immediately, in the same exhalation, to relay the message he’s been rehearsing since he left the Stealmans’ home, “Señora Luz says that Mrs. Lazy says to send some oxtail for the soup,” adding with his last bit of breath, “and make it snappy.” Sharp, standing behind his butcher’s
block, is so startled that he doesn’t respond by saying “How could a jumped-up carpenter dare speak that way to Don Nepomuceno, Doña Estefanía’s son, the grandson and great-grandson of the owners of more than a thousand acres, including those on which Bruneville sits?!” Nor does he take the opposite stance, “Nepomuceno, that nogood, goddamn, cattlethieving, red-headed bandit, he can rot in hell for all I care!” These two perspectives will soon be widely debated. From Texas, the Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa, translated by Samantha Schnee, Deep Vellum Publishing 2014, deepvellum.org. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
WINNER OF THE 2013 SHELF UNBOUND WRITING COMPETITION FOR BEST INDIE BOOK
life & times of persimmon wilson the
This extraordinary novel, part Cold Mountain, part Dances With Wolves, is a love story, a thriller, an epic adventure tale, and impossible to put down. Nancy Peacock writes with power and lyricism, creating characters who come to vivid life and whose struggles grip the soul. Deeply in the American grain, The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson is a tour de force of historical fiction. — Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves “I have been to hangings before, but never my own…” From this riveting beginning to the last perfect word, Nancy Peacock grabs her reader by the throat and forces him to hang on for dear life as the action moves from a Louisiana sugar plantation to life among the western Comanches, bringing to blazing life her themes of race and true love caught in the throes of history. The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson is as deeply moving and exciting an American saga as has ever been penned. — Lee Smith - author of Guest on Earth NANCY PEACOCK is the author of two previous novels and a memoir, including the New York Times Editor’s Choice Life Without Water. You may read the first chapters of all her books on her website
Available in print and as an ebook through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, or ordered through your independent bookstore.
www.nancypeacockbooks.com
personality, and psyche like that: ample today’s border situation? and tight. The clock-machinery form Boullosa: They would pretend suited me to build Texas´ persona. they do not live on the border. They would turn their backs to the facts Shelf Unbound: In this novel I and pretend to ignore the violence was particularly moved by the and death ruling the south. But they plight of Eleonor, the mail-order would enter the business and no bride of abusive Minister Fear, doubt profit from the revenues of all who is so trapped that she wants the illegal merchandize (arms, drugs, to die. What is the purpose of this humans) and help it grow. character in the overall story? Boullosa: Luckily, Eleonor Shelf Unbound: Robert Bolaño escaped my agenda. I wanted the has called you “Mexico’s characters to be part of my tight greatest woman writer.” machinery, gears to my service. Does it bother you at all to be Eleonor wanted to be a real person. categorized as a “woman writer” As did Magdalena. The girls had rather than just a “writer”? more heart and resisted more my Boullosa: Well, I´m not sure I clockmaker tools—not all but am a woman writer. Sometimes I some did. Maybe because as it´s a am, sometimes I´m more of a male cowboy story, and girls are not the writer. But men have no remedy ideal protagonists (though hell they (“los hombres no tienen remedio”). wanted it!), and when they are able A girl is a girl is a girl. Now I might to fit in, and make that hostile world be approaching “de-girlization”, their own, they are worth the trip. because old age might really make me neutral to others’ eyes (not to Shelf Unbound: What do mine! I feel more woman and more you think the residents of male than ever). Maybe then I won´t Bruneville would make of be a woman writer, but a writer.
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I A N PR ATTIS. COM
We are all staring into the abyss: climate change, ecosystem and financial collapse, nuclear breakdown, corruption, terrorism and anarchy. Instead of being eaten up by it all I say, “Awaken Spiritually,” as that transforms everything. We have made our world an unpredictable beast because we fail to work with it intelligently. We have to take back control of ourselves and this is a spiritual matter. Turning on the switch of awakening is a good idea right now.
Read the review by BlueInk HERE Watch the book trailer HERE
Trailing Sky Six Feathers sheds light on issues that will affect our world for generations to come. This exciting Hero’s Journey is like Indiana Jones meets the Buddha with a dash of Celestine Prophecy. The stor y told shines light on the darkest elements of the human condition, including my own. This challenging journey has me stumbling through the first part of life, Available at then standing strong in my own sovereignty Xlibris, Amazon, in the latter part. In India, Arizona, France Barnes & Noble, and and Canada’s wilderness, I go to extraordinar y www.trailingskysixfeathers.com leng ths to transform four centuries of karma.
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feature
flagged fiction
BEST TRANSLATED
BOOK AWARDS The blog Three Percent’s annual Best Translated Book Awards spotlights best original works published in the U.S. in the previous year. Here’s a look at their 2014 fiction finalists.
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Horses of God by Mahi Binebine translated from the French by Lulu Norman Morocco; Tin House n May 16, 2003, fourteen suicide bombers launched a series of attacks throughout Casablanca. It was the deadliest attack in Morocco’s history. The bombers came from the shantytowns of Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb on the edge of a dump whose impoverished residents rarely if ever set foot in the cosmopolitan city at their doorstep. Mahi Binebine’s novel Horses of God follows four childhood friends growing up in Sidi Moumen as they make the life-changing decisions that will lead them to become Islamist martyrs. Binebine navigates the controversial situation with compassion, creating empathy for the boys, who believe they have no choice but to follow the path offered them.” —Tin House
“O
Blinding by Mircea Cărtărescu translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter Romania; Archipelago Books art visceral dreammemoir, part fictive journey through a hallucinatory Bucharest, Mircea Cărtărescu’s Blinding was one of the
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most widely heralded literary sensations in contemporary Romania, and a bestseller from the day of its release. Riddled with hidden passageways, mesmerizing tapestries, and whispering butterflies, Blinding takes us on a mystical trip into the protagonist’s childhood, his memories of hospitalization as a teenager, the prehistory of his family, a traveling circus, secret police, zombie armies, American fighter pilots, the underground jazz scene of New Orleans, and the installation of the communist regime. This kaleidoscopic world is both eerily familiar and profoundly new.” —Archipelago Books Textile by Orly Castel-Bloom translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu Israel; Feminist Press wealthy Israeli family is at a precipice in their lives in this nuanced, contemporary novel. As Amanda Gruber, the matriarch of the family, undergoes an invasive cosmetic procedure, Lirit, her rebellious daughter, takes over operations at the family’s pajama factory. Her brother Dael serves in the Israeli Army as a sniper, while Irad, their neglectful father, a genius scientist, travels to the United States to conduct research on flak jackets. Each
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family member is pulled in conflicting directions, forced to examine their contentious relationships to one another. With surprising humor, Textile details the gradual disintegration of a family strained by distance and the corrosive effects of militarism and consumerism.” —Feminist Press Sleet by Stig Dagerman translated from the Swedish by Steven Hartman Sweden; David R. Godine tig Dagerman (1923– 1954) is regarded as the most talented young writer of the Swedish post-war generation. By the 1940s, his fiction, plays, and journalism had catapulted him to the forefront of Swedish letters, with critics comparing him to William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus. His suicide at the age of thirty-one was a national tragedy. This selection, containing a number of new translations of Dagerman’s stories never before published in English, is unified by the theme of the loss of innocence. Often narrated from a child’s perspective, the stories give voice to childhood’s tender state of receptiveness and joy tinged with longing and loneliness.” —David R. Godine
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The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein Italy; Europa Editions he second book, following 2012’s acclaimed My Brilliant Friend, features the two friends Lila and Elena. The two protagonists are now in their twenties. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila. Meanwhile, Elena continues her journey of self-discovery. The two young women share a complex and evolving bond that brings them close at times, and drives them apart at others. Each vacillates between hurtful disregard and profound love for the other. With this complicated and meticulously portrayed friendship at the center of their emotional lives, the two girls mature into women, paying the sometimes cruel price that this passage exacts.” —Europa Editions
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Tirza by Arnon Grunberg translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett Netherlands; Open Letter Books örgen Hofmeester once had it all: a beautiful wife, a nice house with a garden in an upperclass neighborhood in Amsterdam, a respectable job as an editor, two lovely daughters named Ibi and Tirza, and a large amount of money
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www.elzbthwashburn.com
A blood-curdling whodunit set against the backdrop of "small town" America titled "Scream for Me." At the heart of this imposing work of fiction is the cat and mouse chase of a female detective and a rampaging serial killer. This intriguing, race-againsttime thriller that integrates grisly crime, law and order, and suspense will keep even the most reluctant readers at the edge of their seat. "Scream for Me" keeps the intensity high from start to finish with an excellent mix blood and guts and brains and violence.
in a Swiss bank account. But during the preparations for Tirza’s graduation party, we come to know what he has lost. His wife has left him; Ibi is starting a bed and breakfast in France; the publishing house has fired him; and his savings have vanished. But Hofmeester still has Tirza, until she introduces him to her new boyfriend. A heartrending and masterful story of a man seeking redemption.” —Open Letter Books Her Not All Her by Elfriede Jelinek translated from the German by Damion Searls Austria; Sylph Editions er Not All Her is a play about, from, and to the great Swiss writer Robert Walser, by the great Austrian writer and Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. It highlights what Jelinek calls ‘the fundamental fragmentation’ of Walser’s voice, revealing Walser as ‘one of those people who, when they said “I”, did not mean themselves’. Presented here in a prize-winning translation by Damion Searls, it shows Jelinek to be an impassioned reader of classic European writers. The cahier contains an essay by the Director of the Robert Walser Centre, Reto Sorg, and thirteen paintings by the British artist Thomas Newbolt.” —Sylph Editions
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My Struggle: Book Two by Karl Ove Knausgaard translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett Norway; Archipelago Books alking away from everything he knows in Bergen, Karl Ove finds himself in Stockholm, where he waits for the next stretch of the road to reveal itself. He strikes up a deep friendship with another exiled Norwegian, a boxing fanatic and intellectual named Geir. He reconnects with Linda, a vibrant poet who had captivated him at a writers’ workshop years earlier, and the shape of his world changes. Book Two exposes the inner landscape of a man falling in love and the fraught joys and impossible predicaments he faces as a new father. We look on as he watches his life unfold. Love, rage, and beauty flood these pages.” —Archipelago Books
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Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet Hungary; New Directions eauty, in László Krasznahorkai’s new novel, reflects, however fleeting, the sacred—even if we are mostly unable to bear it. In Seiobo There Below we see the goddess Seiobo returning to mortal realms in search of perfection. An ancient Buddha being
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“I thought I knew Seng’s story after we met him in Cambodia to shoot a segment for 60 Minutes. His book has taught me how little I knew and how every detail adds to the miraculous nature of it all.” Bob Simon, correspondent on CBS 60 Minutes “An engaging, open memoir of one child’s wartime experiences.” Kirkus Review
W W W.SENGT Y.COM The Years of Zero
Coming of Age Under the K hmer Rouge is a sur vivor’s account of the Cambodian genocide carried out by Pol Pot’s sadistic and terrif ying K hmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. It follows the author, Seng Ty, from the age of seven as he is plucked from his comfortable, middle-class home in a Phnom Penh suburb, marched along a blistering , black strip of highway into the jungle, and thrust headlong into the unspeakable barbarities of an agricultural labor camp. AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, IBOOK
CONNECT WITH SENG TY
Ordinary reality cracks open restored; Perugino managing before our eyes in the pages his workshop; a Japanese Noh actor rehearsing; a fanatic of Autobiography of a Corpse, and the extraordinary spills of Baroque music lecturing out.” to a handful of old villagers; —NYRB tourists intruding into the rituals of Japan’s most sacred The Missing Year of Juan shrine; a heron hunting.… Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal Seiobo hovers over it all, translated from the Spanish watching closely. Melancholic by Nick Caistor and brilliant, Seiobo There Below urges us to treasure the Argentina; New Vessel Press concentration that goes into t the age of nine, Juan the perception of great art, Salvatierra became leading us to re-examine our mute following a horse riding connection to immanence.” accident. At twenty, he began —New Directions secretly painting a series of long rolls of canvas in which Autobiography of a Corpse he minutely detailed six by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky decades of life in his village on translated from the Russian Argentina’s river frontier with by Joanne Turnbull Uruguay. After the death of Ukraine; NYRB Salvatierra, his sons return to he stakes are wildly high the village from Buenos Aires to deal with their inheritance: a in these fantastic and shed packed with painted rolls blackly comic philosophical fables, which abound in nested stretching over two miles in narratives and wild paradoxes. length and depicting personal and communal history. But This new collection includes an essential one of its rolls some of Krzhizhanovsky’s is missing. A search that most dazzling conceits: a illuminates the links between provincial journalist who art and life ensues.” moves to Moscow finds his —New Vessel Press existence consumed by the autobiography of his room’s The Infatuations previous occupant; the fingers by Javier Marías of a celebrated pianist’s right translated from the Spanish hand run away to spend a by Margaret Jull Costa night alone on the city streets; Spain; Knopf a man’s lifelong quest to bite his own elbow inspires both ach day before work a hugely popular circus act María Dolz stops at the and a new refutation of Kant. same café. There she finds
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ear the top of Mount Everest, on 10 May 1996, eight climbers died. It was the worst tragedy in the mountain’s history. Lou Kasischke was there. Now he tells the harrowing story of what went wrong, as it has never been told before—including why the climbers were desperately late and out of time. His personal story, captured in the title After The Wind, tells about intense moments near the top. The moments that revealed the love story that saved his life.
“A vivid, intimate memoir that, with great clarity and attention to detail, tells an unforgettable survival story.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Kirkus’Indie Books of the Month Selection
“A thorough analysis of the 1996 Everest disaster…and the best preparation for my Everest ascent.” Jean Pavillard, IFMGA Swiss Mountain Guide
“After The Wind is a thoughtful, well-written love story of Kasischke’s dedication to his wife and anchor Sandy and his passion for climbing. It delivers an edge-ofyour-seat description of navigating and mountaineering Everest and is punctuated with beautiful illustrations nestled in each chapter. Those new to the story, as well as anyone hooked on Krakauer’s original tale, will find After The Wind an engrossing read.” BlueInk Reviews (starred review)
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and at local bookstores in hardcover, ebook, and soft cover (international edition only) formats.
WWW.AFTERTHEWIND.COM
herself drawn to a couple who is also there every morning. Observing their seemingly perfect life helps her escape the listlessness of her own. But when the man is brutally murdered and María approaches the widow to offer her condolences, what began as mere observation turns into an increasingly complicated entanglement. Invited into the widow’s home, she meets— and falls in love with—a man who sheds disturbing light on the crime. [The novel] grapples with questions of love and death, chance and coincidence, and above all, with the slippery essence of the truth and how it is told.” —Knopf A True Novel by Minae Mizumura translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Japan; Other Press True Novel begins in New York in the 1960s, where we meet Taro, a relentlessly ambitious Japanese immigrant trying to make his fortune. Flashbacks and multilayered stories reveal his life: an impoverished upbringing as an orphan, his eventual rise to wealth and success—despite racial and class prejudice—and an obsession with a girl from an affluent family that has haunted him all his life.
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A True Novel then widens into an examination of Japan’s westernization and the emergence of a middle class. The winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Literature Prize, Mizumura has written a beautiful novel, with love at its core, that reveals, above all, the power of storytelling.” —Other Press In the Night of Time by Antonio Muñoz Molina translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman Spain; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ctober 1936. Spanish architect Ignacio Abel arrives at Penn Station, the final stop on his journey from war-torn Madrid, where he has left behind his wife and children, abandoning them to uncertainty. Crossing the fragile borders of Europe, he reflects on months of fratricidal conflict in his embattled country, his own transformation from a bricklayer’s son to a respected bourgeois husband and professional, and the allconsuming love affair with an American woman that forever alters his life. Winner of the 2012 Prix Méditerranée Étranger and hailed as a masterpiece, In the Night of Time is a sweeping, grand novel and an indelible portrait of a shattered society.” —Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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AN AVERAGE JOE’S PURSUIT FOR FINANCIAL FREEDOM offers a different perspective on money than what is traditionally taught by our parents and in our school systems. The reason there is such a discrepancy between the wealthy and the poor is due to the difference in the way money is perceived. We are not born with the ability to maintain wealth: it is something that is learned. The knowledge of knowing how to make money work to generate passive income is something that anyone can learn as long as they are disciplined. An Average Joe’s Pursuit for Financial Freedom is based on practical concepts and discusses the problems that the majority of us face with our personal finance. The concepts in this book are based on theory by an author that practices what he writes about.
About the Author Michael Munsey works in the oil industry and resides in Houston, Texas. He received his undergraduate degree from Murray State University in May of 1995. While working to climb the corporate ladder within Halliburton Energy Services, Michael enrolled in the EMBA program at Rice University in 2005. After earning his MBA, he had a major change in the way he perceives money which he is sharing in this book.
“If you are looking for financial freedom, this book is definitely for you!” - review from The Frugal Mrs Jones
“Reading this book, will not only enlighten you, it will educate you as well.” - review from Deneale’s Book Buzz
“An encouraging and fast read that will change your thoughts on money management and how you will go about seeking financial freedom for yourself and family.” - review from Living the Leviner Life
Book Available from... Website Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon UK
www.freeaveragejoe.com
The African Shore by Rodrigo Rey Rosa translated from the Spanish by Jeffrey Gray Guatemala; Yale University Press n the vein of the writings of Paul Bowles, Paul Theroux, and V. S. Naipaul, The African Shore marks a major new installment in the genre of dystopic travel fiction. Rodrigo Rey Rosa, prominent in today’s Guatemalan literary world and an author of growing international reputation, presents a tale of alienation, misrecognition, and intrigue set in and around Tangier. He weaves a double narrative involving a Colombian tourist pleasurably stranded in Morocco and a young shepherd who dreams of migrating to Spain and of “riches to come.” The author addresses the anxiety, distrust, and potential for violence that characterize the border of all borders: the strait that divides Africa and Europe.” —Yale University Press
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Through the Night by Stig Sæterbakken translated from the Norwegian by Seán Kinsella Norway; Dalkey Archive entist Karl Meyer’s worst nightmare comes true when his son, Ole-Jakob, takes his own life. This tragedy is the springboard for a complex novel posing essential
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questions about human experience: What does sorrow do to a person? How can one live with the pain of unbearable loss? How far can a man be driven by the grief and despair surrounding the death of his child? A dark and harrowing story, drawing on elements from dreams, fairy tales, and horror stories, the better to explore the mysterious depths of sorrow and love, Through the Night is Stig Sæterbakken at his best.” —Dalkey Archive Commentary by Marcelle Sauvageot translated from the French by Christine Schwartz Hartley & Anna Moschovakis France; Ugly Duckling Presse ommentary is a narrative—hovering between the genres of memoir, theory, and fiction—told by a dying woman whose abandonment by a lover precipitates a complex and moving investigation into suffering, solitude, friendship, and the nature of romantic and sexual love. Sauvageot died of tuberculosis, after several stints in sanatoriums, at the age of 34. Commentaire was highly praised in its time by Paul Claudel, Paul Valéry, André Gide, Charles Du Bos, René Crevel and Clara Malraux. This edition [contains] a
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Curl Up With This Blend Of Mystery And Romance PINNACLE BOOK ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER FOR FICTION
Edward M. Krauss Author of Here On Moon and Solomon The Accountant The relationship between the police and the media has always been a strange one, but it turning romantic certainly raises some questions. “A Story of Bad” is the tale of a cop and reporter entering into a controversial romance, where they both try to stay loyal to each other and their employers while respecting business ethics and trying to both solve and cover the murder mystery that brought them together in the first place as other chaos erupts all around the them. “A Story of Bad” is a highly recommended and deftly composed mystery and romance blend, for fans of either. —Midwest Book Review
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nvestigating the murder of the owner of a sportswear factory in Queens, New York, Detective Terry Stans determines that the victim knew his assailant. The dead man’s workers and bereaved family are all suspects. June Replyn, a reporter covering the business side of the fashion world, is assigned to write how a small company survives the death of its inspirational leader. During interviews at the factory June is slipped a note from someone claiming to know the identify of the murderer. The reporter meets the detective. Stans is stuck. The case is going nowhere, and he believes the fashion writer has a better view inside the company. Terry encourages June to share information with him, hoping fresh eyes will see something he hasn’t. But she doesn’t tell him about the note. In the midst of his investigating and her reporting they start dating. Their relationship raises questions about confidentiality, loyalty to one’s employer, professional ethics. Both of their bosses caution them about the dangers to their careers raised by this situation. And there they are, in bed. The tale is designed to intrigue the reader with two intertwining stories, the mystery of the murders and the unexpected love affair. During the course of the novel the reader visits the worlds of police investigations, newspapers and their editorial policies, drug smuggling, and the Cambodian experience in America. Note: The novel contains no graphic sex or graphic violence.
A three-minute video, including an excerpt, is available at
EDWARDMKRAUSS.COM
The Whispering Muse by Sjón translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb Iceland; FSG he year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the Leg over Leg Vol. 1 influence of fish consumption by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq on Nordic civilization, has had translated from the Arabic the extraordinary good fortune by Humphrey Davies to be invited to join a Danish Lebanon; New York merchant ship on its way to the University Press Black Sea. Among the crew eg over Leg recounts is the mythical hero Caeneus, the life of ‘the Fariyaq,’ disguised as the second mate. alter ego of Ahmad Faris alEvery evening after dinner he Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in entrances his fellow travelers the intellectual and literary with the tale of how he sailed history of the modern Arab with the fabled vessel the Argo world. The always edifying on its quest to retrieve the and often hilarious adventures Golden Fleece. What unfolds is of the Fariyaq, as he moves a slender but masterful, brilliant, from his native Lebanon to and always entertaining novel Egypt, Malta, Tunis, England that ranges deftly from the and France, provide the comic to the mythic as it weaves author with grist for widetogether tales of antiquity with ranging discussions of the the modern world.” intellectual and social issues —FSG of his time, including the The Forbidden Kingdom ignorance and corruption of the by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff Lebanese religious and secular translated from the Dutch establishments, freedom of by Paul Vincent conscience, women’s rights, Netherlands; Pushkin Press sexual relationships between lauerhoff’s The men and women, the manners Forbidden Kingdom is and customs of Europeans a blend of historical chronicle, and Middle Easterners, and fiction and commentary, the differences between bringing together the seemingly contemporary European and unrelated lives of a twentieth Arabic literatures.” century ship’s radio operator —New York University Press and the sixteenth century new introduction by Jennifer Moxley. It also includes translations of a foreword and note by Charles du Bos and an essay by Jean Mouton, all from previous French editions of the book.” —Ugly Duckling Presse
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Lamb to the Slaughter is a novel about love and courage, sin and redemption. “Iron” Mike McGann is facing the twilight of his prizefighting career and has refused to honor his promise to his wife to quit the ring and start a family. In despair, his wife, Madge, is leaving him. Rufus “Hurricane” Hilliard, Mike’s next opponent, is the most menacing presence in prizefighting. Behind Rufus Hilliard’s menacing ring presence lives a man nobody knows, a complex man who despises his own image. Unexpectedly left alone before his bout with McGann, Rufus “Hurricane” Hilliard is forced to confront the past that haunts him and the future he dreads. Charles “Charliehorse” O’Connell, Rufus’s cornerman an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, blames himself for the ring deaths of two prizefighters. Trapped in a moral crisis, he must finally confront his “Cardinal Sin.” Rufus “Hurricane” Hilliard vs “Iron” Mike McGann, just another fight shown on The Continuous Sports Network, but by the time it is over the lives of these and many others will be forever different..”
PETE DELOHERY LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER DELOHERY
LAMB TO THE
S l au g h t e R
ALSO available in Spanish: El cordero al matadero
“This heartfelt tale makes a powerful emotional impact.” —Blue Ink Starred Review
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Portuguese poet-in-exile, Luis Camoes. Slauerhoff draws his reader into a dazzling world of exoticism, betrayal and exile, where past and present merge and the possibility of death is never far away. Through a narrative that evolves into a critique of European history, culture and colonialism, Slauerhoff speculates about the lessons to be learnt from history.” —Pushkin Press The Devil’s Workshop by Jáchym Topol translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker Czech Republic; Portobello Books young boy grows up in Terezín—an infamous fortress town with a sinister past. Together with his friends he plays happily in this former Nazi prison, scouting the tunnels for fragments of history under the careful eye of one of its survivors, Uncle Lebo, until one day there is an accident, and he is forced to leave. Returning to Terezín many years later, he joins Lebo’s campaign to preserve the town, but before long the authorities impose a brutal crack-down, chaos ensues, and the narrator finds himself fleeing to Belarus, where fresh horrors drive him ever closer to the evils he had hoped to escape. Bold, brilliant and blackly comic. —Portobello Books
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The End of Love by Marcos Giralt Torrente translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver Spain; McSweeney’s wo tourists visit a remote island off the coast of Africa and are undone by a disconcerting encounter with another couple. A young man, enchanted by his bohemian cousin and her husband, watches them fall into a state of resentful dependence over the course of decades. A chaste but all-consuming love affair between a troubled boy and a wealthy but equally troubled girl leaves a scar that never heals. The son of divorced parents tries in vain to reunite them before realizing why he is wrong to do so. In The End of Love, Giralt Torrente forges discomfiting and gripping dramas from the small but consequential misunderstandings that shape our lives.” —McSweeney’s
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Red Grass by Boris Vian translated from the French by Paul Knobloch France; Tam Tam Books oris Vian (1920-1959) was a magnificent jackof-all-trades—actor, jazz critic, engineer, musician, playwright, songwriter, translator—not to mention the leading social light of the Saint-Germain-
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Love is what binds us in brotherhood, blinds us from hate, and makes us soar with desire. Magic and destiny collide in Christian A. Brown’s breathtaking debut novel, Feast of Fates. Together known as the Sisters Three, Eean, the hand of fate, Elemech, the reader of fate, and Ealasyd, the spinner of fate, foresee a war between the Immortal Kings--and only one girl who can stop it.
This is no Twilight romance, but a dark fairy tale for adults; with grit, sweat and true passion.
“The clash of two immortal kings is felt throughout the realm in Feast of Fates by Christian A. Brown. No tired story lines or boring characters here; Brown has created a thrilling, action-packed fantasy suffused with elements of folklore and legend, and spiced with a bit of metal magic for some steampunk flair.” —ForeWord Clarion Reviews “Christian Brown has the remarkable ability to weave an intricate tale of mythical proportions. “Feast of Fates” is an engrossing read, mesmerizing and chimeric.” —Amazon Review “Feast of Fates is a well-executed fantasy fiction with a flawlessly structured plot. There is an assurance to the writing that immediately grabs the reader and doesn’t let go.” —Amazon Review
www.christianadrianbrown.com
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des-Prés scene. His third major novel, Red Grass is a provocative narrative about an engineer, Wolf, who invents a bizarre machine that allows him to revisit his past and erase inhibiting memories. A frothing admixture of Breton, Freud, Carroll, Hammett, Kafka and Wells, Red Grass is one of Vian’s finest and most enduring works, a satire on psychoanalysis—which Vian wholly and vigorously disapproved of—that inflects science fiction with dark absurdity and the author’s great wit. Much in the novel can be regarded as autobiography.” —Tam Tam Books City of Angels, or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud by Christa Wolf translated from the German by Damion Searls Germany; FSG hree years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the writer Christa Wolf was granted access to her newly declassified Stasi files. What was surprising was a thin green folder whose contents told an unfamiliar—and disturbing— story: in the early 1960s, Wolf herself had been an informant for the Communist government. And yet, thirty years on, she had absolutely no recollection of it. Wolf’s extraordinary autobiographical
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final novel is an account of what it was like to reckon with such a shocking discovery. Based on the year she spent in Los Angeles after these explosive revelations, City of Angels is at once a powerful examination of memory and a surprisingly funny and touching exploration of L.A.” —FSG Sandalwood Death by Mo Yan translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt China; University of Oklahoma Press his powerful novel by Mo Yan is both a stirring love story and an unsparing critique of political corruption during the final years of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last imperial epoch. Sandalwood Death is set during the Boxer Rebellion (1898–1901)—an anti-imperialist struggle waged by North China’s farmers and craftsmen in opposition to Western influence. The novel centers on the interplay between its female protagonist, Sun Meiniang, and the three paternal figures in her life. One of these men is her biological father, Sun Bing, an opera virtuoso and a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. As the bitter events surrounding the revolt unfold, we watch Sun Bing march toward his cruel fate.” —University of Oklahoma Press
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Lisa-Mae is at the crossroads of her life. Stressed out by work, her personal life and health are suffering. Her world revolves around her job and mobile phone. Feeling despondent one Sunday afternoon, she looks outside the window and sees a bird. She follows the bird to a secluded beach, where she finds a young boy building a sandcastle. The young boy will take her on a journey, in which she will explore her past, present and future. As the journey ends, Lisa-Mae will need to make a decision. Live in the past or move forward with her life. What will Lisa-Mae decide to do?
WWW.LOUISWHITE.COM WWW.WHITEKNIGHTPUBLISHING.COM.AU
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translations
french
Hysteric by Nelly Arcan translated from the French by David Homel and Jacob Homel
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Anvil Press www.anvilpress.com
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hen we saw each other the first time at Nova on SaintDominique Street, it was already too late: our story would be a calamity. If only I’d known, like people say, not knowing what exactly they should have known and not understanding that knowing ahead of time only makes it worse, if only we could have read my aunt’s tarot cards to discover what colour hair my rivals would have, the ones waiting just around the corner, and if the year of my birth could have told us that you’d never leave my thoughts after Nova…That night on Saint-Dominique Street, I loved you immediately, forgetting I had programmed my own end at the age of fifteen, not thinking that not only would you be the last love of my life, but that you might not even be there to watch me die. When we got to know each other better that became a problem; between
us, there was the injustice of your future. Today I realize I loved you because of your French accent, I heard the race of poets and thinkers come from the other side of the world to fill our schools, that accent so particular, beveled by your years of living in Quebec, that made you different from everyone else, from Quebeckers and French people alike, that made you a bearer of the Word like my grandfather said of his prophets. If my grandfather had been there at Nova on SaintDominique Street, he would have pushed me in your direction to give calamity a helping hand; my grandfather believed in the beauty of victims. From Hysteric by Nelly Arcan, translated from the French by David Homel and Jacob Homel, Anvil Press 2014, anvilpress.com.
Forced out of the DEA after twenty years, Hardin Steel, Stainless to his close friends, has managed to get himself elected Sheriff of Cameron County, Texas. Twice divorced, with a bit of a drinking problem, he’s now dating Rory Roughton, a fiery sixthgeneration Texan who’s as rich as she is beautiful—and hell-bent on keeping Steel on the straight and narrow. But then his best friend, Wes Stoddard, is nearly shot down flying in a load of pot, Rory is kidnapped by a Russian mercenary working for the most dangerous cartel in Mexico, and the Cuban Mafia decides they’d like the former DEA agent—dead. Steel is forced to take unsanctioned, unconventional—and mostly illegal— action in order to save himself and those closest to him...
www.randall-reneau.com Available at
translations
portuguese
Nowhere People by Paulo Scott translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
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And Other Stories www.andotherstories.org
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f he’d had to summarise his days as a political militant, Paulo would have said that he went from total idealism to unparalleled cynicism, then finally to the melancholy escapism of these last months. That’s not how it should have been, just when the Workers’ Party won the Town Hall elections in Porto Alegre and he became known up and down the country as a student leader, a key figure with a good chance to try for a seat on the City Council three years from now, and only twenty-one years old, about to graduate in law at the end of the year from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and for whom it took the whole of last year to realize this fact: that despite his great potential, he is no more than a minor foot-soldier, a pawn among the other pieces on the board, not greedy enough to challenge, equal to equal, the schemings of the gang
on the second echelon, many of them creeps he had already hated even before he joined, back in eighty-four. His current difficulty in getting more deeply involved in political life, in making a career of it and fighting for it, would only end up in physical dependency, and its price already seems to him to be too high; and he knows that if he does not push himself forward and just allows himself to be carried along by the party’s almost inevitable ascent he runs the risk of one day having to cling shamefully to the coat-tails of one of the creeps he so despises in order to get himself a place in the administrative machine and support himself financially. From Nowhere People by Paulo Scott, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn, And Other Stories 2014, andotherstories.org. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
“WhipEye is a gripping, imaginative adventure from start to finish. I didn’t want to put it down until the very last page!... I cannot wait to read book two!”
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amantha and her neighbor, Jake, have no idea that Samantha’s best friend, a parrot named Charlie, is a thousand years old. Charlie is also at the center of a secret battle between magical creatures and an ancient, evil man. When Charlie asks Samantha and Jake to protect him, they are chased by monsters from both sides. To save Charlie, and two worlds, Samantha and Jake have twenty-four hours to figure out how to use the supernatural staff, WhipEye, and find the courage to confront what they fear most… Available in Paperback and eBook at
Watch the book trailer HERE
WWW.GEOFFREYSAIGN.NET
translations
spanish
Monastery by Eduardo Halfon translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn
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Bellevue Literary Press www.blpress.org
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he block across the street from Pensión Peñablanca was onerously defended all night by a loud and territorial street dog. He would bark awhile, then stop barking awhile—just long enough for me to begin to doze off—then start barking again. Close to dawn, I gave up. I threw off the heavy quilt and went to rummage in my backpack for the last of my cigarettes. Smoking faceup on the bed, I watched the objects in the room gradually turn to light, come to life. I couldn’t stop thinking about Don Juan Martínez, about the coffee growers, about Iliana’s work at the co-op, about the pictures and diplomas hanging in the hallway, about the sisters’ silent dance, about the dead brother. And once again I started thinking about my own brother, and my own sister, and our own sibling dance—an ungainly dance, an awkward dance, sometimes even
a furious dance. Perhaps because of the cold, or perhaps because of the lack of sleep, all I could think of were our quarrels and fights. The early ones, flailing and hysterical, were typical of spoiled children. The later ones, with my brother, even came to blows (in the last of these, he wound up in the emergency room with a broken foot when he tried to kick me in the stomach and I blocked his kick with my elbow). The adult ones, although still violent, were now waged not with our fists but with our silence. And the most recent one, the hardest and most silent one, had been before my sister’s Orthodox wedding, in Israel. From Monastery by Eduardo Halfon, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn, Bellevue Literary Press 2014, blpress.org. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
“A thoroughly readable account of a woman, a dog and a spiritual journey.” PETS
U.S. $XX.XX
E. Rawlins
“A heartfelt and engaging read”
Learning to Live with Fritz
— Kirkus Reviews
— BlueInk Reviews
“Genuously hilarious...”
Available at Amazon, Barnes+Noble and IUniverse
— Clarion Reviews
w w w.LearningtoLivewithFritz.com
translations
icelandic
The Last Days of My Mother by Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson translated from the Icelandic by Helga Soffía Einarsdóttir
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Open Letter www.openletterbooks.org
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had decided to take Mother to die in Amsterdam. The terminal echoed the discords of the northern gales outside, and behind us herds of drowsy people trudged along toward the security gates. Mother stood next to me in silent conversation with the cosmos while rummaging through her handbag. She believed in maximum utilization of carry-on luggage and made sure I carried my weight— and hers. I’d suggested sending a box or two by mail or paying for the extra weight, but she wouldn’t hear of it. It was simply depressing to watch how I squandered money. “Like that apartment you shared with Zola,” she continued while we fed our things onto the conveyor belt for the X-ray machine. “Very high maintenance, that woman. And then she just takes off with some Frenchman.” “That’s not quite what happened.” “Mind you, you’re much better off without her, Trooper. I know
you don’t like to talk about it, but let me just say this once and for all: she didn’t deserve you.” Mother walked through the security gate and was stopped by a young woman in uniform who ran a metal detector up and down her body. “Anything in your pockets? Belt?” Like always, when astonished by something in my presence, Mother turned around and stared at me. “Just take off the belt and go through again,” I said. “What nonsense. I suppose I should take off my shoes, too” “Well, yes, since I see you have a metal heel,” the woman said. “I’ve never met anyone so rude in my life. And I’ve been all over.” From The Last Days of My Mother by Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson, translated from the Icelandic by Helga Soffía Einarsdóttir, Open Letter 2014, openletterbooks.org. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
PAMELAHUTCHINS.COM
Get swept away to fall in love with a rainforest jumbie house and a Texas attorney who is as much a danger to herself as the island bad guys.
Over 650 reviews with a 4.5 Star rating on Amazon. Winner of numerous awards. Book #1 in a best selling 3-book series. ebook is available for FREE on all platforms!
Going for Kona has it all: unforgettable characters, an epic love story, and a page-turning mystery that will keep you guessing until the last page. When her husband is killed in a hit-and-run bicycling accident, it takes all of Michele Lopez Hanson’s strength not to burrow into their bed for the rest of her life. But their kids need her, and she promised herself she’d do the Kona Ironman Triathlon in Adrian’s honor, and someone seems to be stalking her family, so she slogs through the pain to keep herself on track. Her dangerously delirious training sessions become a link between her and Adrian, and she discovers that if she keeps moving fast enough to fly, she can hold onto her husband—even as she loses her grip on herself and faces her biggest threat yet.
Available in print and ebook October 1, 2014
translations
arabic
The Book of Gaza edited by Atef Abu Saif
T
Comma Press www.commapress.co.uk
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he last time they had met was on the day of their final exam, which was held in the huge hall of the old al-Azhar University building. After the exam, they left together and sat on one of the stone benches in the park next to the university. They talked about their hopes and dreams for the future—goals which they would dedicate their lives to achieving. Cars sped up along the road in front of the park, cutting through red lights to make way for the procession that bore the body of one of the martyrs from the Shifa Hospital to his home in the Ramal neighbourhood. Voices were raised in anger. Politicians walked among the marchers thronged by guards, photographers and journalists. At the back, women bewailed the young man whom death had snatched away. Ramzi and Samir got up to join the procession, then parted and did not meet again. All at once, these moments leaped
onto the wooden table before them, into the present where none of their dreams had been realized, and the fruit of life, whose tree they still climbed, remained mostly unpicked. Two cups of ashab were followed by two cups of coffee and talk that led to yet more talk about dreams, life and plans. But this time, the share of disappointments, defeats and unpicked fruit was greater than it had been ten years ago, when the angry procession had surged through the city streets carrying that guiltless young lad. Then, the flower of youth had been in full bloom, its perfume intoxicating their senses, and glowing brightly, like one of the burning coals on Ramzi’s nargilah pipe… From “A Journey in the Opposite Direction” by Atef Abu Saif, translated by Thomas Aplin, from The Book of Gaza, edited by Atef Abu Saif, Comma Press 2014, commapress.co.uk. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
E S A E L E R W E N e i r a M . E r o h t u A m o r F As you climb up the ladder, watch out for the dodgeballs!
Dodgeballs are hard hitting nerve-racking and sometimes life changing events that can occur on the job. This career guidance book gives you straight-to-the-point advice —with a touch of humor—on how to handle potential work related drama. The book addresses a variety of subject matters including: project management, team work, managing your boss, performance evaluations, sexual harassment, difficult coworkers and networking.
Available October 15, 2014 in print and Kindle at
w w w.avoidingthedodgeballs.com
r
ses are read book club
ROMANCE NOVELS FOR THE DISCRIMINATING READER
D
umped by the Earl of Redgrave and with her reputation in tatters, Lady Abigail agrees to a quick marriage of convenience with longtime family friend Rector Joseph Fox. Envisioning a sedate life in the country, little does she know that hot romance and cold danger await. Read an excerpt from Callie Hutton’s The Lady’s Disgrace below.
“Y
ou are an intelligent, vibrant, beautiful woman. Who would not want you for a wife?” “Apparently Lord Redgrave,” she said wryly. “The man’s a fool. But I am not. We’ve known each other since we were children. I like to think that we are already friends. A marriage between us is a first-rate idea. Of course your dowry plays into it, but I had full intention of soliciting donations from friends here in London. Also, there is my own property, and the inheritance I will receive upon my marriage.” “What you are attempting to tell me is, if I came with no dowry, you would still entertain the idea of marrying me?” He gave himself a minute to reflect on her question. Abigail was a woman most men would want to marry. Beautiful, smart and possessed of curves even a man of the church desired. She’d been trained to be an advanta-
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geous wife to a titled gentleman. She was graceful, witty, and gently bred. Energy radiated from her, even now making the air snap with vitality. To have all that energy in his life – and bed – would make him a fortunate man indeed. Except she was seeking to put restriction on the bedding part of it. He sighed. Something he would need to work on. “Yes, I would.” From The Lady’s Disgrace by Callie Hutton, Entangled Publishing 2014, entangledpublishing.com. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
“Fans of The Fault In Our Stars will fall in love with Charlie and Charlotte’s story!” —International bestselling author Julie Cross
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ISBN: 978-1-291-73643-4 Paris Syndrome by Tahir Shah Secretum Mundi Publishing | secretum-mundi.com
A young Japanese woman obsessed with Paris is driven mad once she arrives there in this intriguing story by Tahir Shah. The novel is based on an actual condition, Paris Syndrome, that affects about a dozen Japanese tourists annually.
S
itting at the desk of his surgery in the eighteenth arrondissement, the leading psychiatrist Dr. Georges Mesmer finished the editorial in Le Monde and laid the newspaper on his desk. Well-dressed and precise in manner, he was the kind of man who considered even the smallest question before answering. Some of those who encountered him regarded Mesmer as a bore, because he was not prone to drama of any kind. Squaring the newspaper,
he touched a knuckle to his mouth, and thought for a moment. It was surprising to him that the case of the Japanese woman’s outburst at Louis Vuitton was attracting such attention. At the same time, the case seemed very familiar. Exactly five years before, Dr. Mesmer had been asked by the police to contribute an expert analysis. The patient was a Japanese woman of retirement age who had been found babbling nonsense and flapping her arms up and down in the public toilets
Learn more about Bowker at Self PublishedAuthor.com. 54
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014
Two travelers uncover the legend of Prince Dracula’s treasure, but their rever the legend of Prince Dracula’s search into the Romanian past could researchawaken into the Romanian pastjust royal riches. much more than
ch more than just royal riches.
Legend claims that bloodthirsty Romanian prince Vlad “Dracula” left a treasure y Romanian prince Vlad “Dracula” left a A fifteenth-century woodcut reveals the behind after his death. A fifteenth-century gs of blue flame that rise from the ground only woodcut reveals the harbingers of this cut is also believed to harbor an evil curse that treasure: rings of blue flame that rise from d the treasure as yet uncovered. the ground only on St. George’s Eve. The ow are on woodcut holiday in Romania theirto harbor an evil is also during believed ay of the Dracula Tour through Bucharest, they curse that has kept weaker souls away and at the edge the forest. Her name is Gina Marin, theoftreasure asand yetManda uncovered. e blue flames legend. Ben decide
the help of local librarian Dinu Varmas in an easure. Ben Florand and Manda Murrow are on
holiday in Romania during their spring
o uncover history, Varmas has something else in Onpositive the second of the Dracula arch seemsbreak. to produce results, day the team uch more than a treasureBucharest, hunt. It is possible Tourjust through they come upon more thanarevealing it might bring a of the forest. young treasure; girl lying at the edge e dead.
Jacqueline Mahan
Her name is Gina Marin, and she claims bluebooks, flames e Mahan isto thehave author seen of two the children’s The of legend. d Duck and Ben The Courage of Violet Hue. Her fi rst and Manda decide tonovel, abandon the ateau: Legend of the Cemetery Witch, was published in tour and enlist the help of librarian of 2011. She is an artist and educator and resides local in New York. Dinu Varmus in an effort to discover the hidden treasure.
While Ben and Manda hope to uncover history, Varmas has something else in $XX.XX mind. US Although their initial search seems to produce positive results, the team begins to realize they are on much more than just a treasure hunt. It is possible that the woodcut is capable of more than revealing treasure; it might bring a longdead prince back from the dead.
Jacqueline “It must be challengingMahan to come up with Author of Th e Courtyard Duck, Th e VioletMahan Hue, a newandtwist on the DraculaCourage story.ofMs. Ezrah’s Plateau: Legend of the Cemetery Witch has done it…a pleasant surprise from a generous talent.” “This plot was different from any other I have read…original…” “I would recommend it as a vacation book and, of course, to anyone who loves to read about Vlad Tepes…”
www.jacquelinemahan.com
JACQUELINE MAHAN
Author of The Courtyard Duck, The Courage of Violet Hue, and Ezrah’s Plateau: Legend of the Cemetery Witch UNBOUND
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near the Arc de Triomphe. A year later, a young Japanese man was discovered near the Pompidou Centre. He had taken off his suit, turned it inside out, put it on again, and was hopping around on one foot. The following year, five more isolated cases were brought to the psychiatrist’s attention—all of them Japanese tourists in a state of hysteria. Each case had been reported to the police. And, each time, it was agreed that Dr. Mesmer would be permitted to take charge of the patient. In return, he guaranteed that they would pose no more harm to decent society. An expert in Japanese culture, and with a keen interest in cross-cultural matters, Mesmer was perfectly placed to make certain deductions. Having carried out a detailed examination of each patient, he had concluded that they were all suffering from the same condition—a condition known as Paris Syndrome.
Manifesting itself in many ways, the hysterical state frequently included hallucinations and feelings of perceived persecution, aggression and anxiety, dizzy spells, nausea, and acute delusions. Secret figures collected by the Japanese embassy found that, each year, approximately forty of their citizens were believed to be affected by the condition. Although in private there was a sense of national embarrassment at the condition, diplomats maintained in public that there was no such thing as Paris Syndrome. Despite the diplomatic denials, victims kept coming to light. Obsessing about the French capital, they found themselves unable to cope with the language barrier, the breakneck pace of their tours, the beauty, the dirt, the rich food, the strong wine, the rudeness of the café waiters, and the sense that Paris was not at all how they imagined it would be. During the previous five
years, Dr. Mesmer had published sixteen papers on the condition, which he regarded as an offshoot of Stendhal Syndrome. Although received warmly by his profession, the studies had not broken out from the limited world of academia. Until that moment, no examples of Japanese tourists running amok had ever been featured on television or in the French national press. Picking up the telephone from his desk, Mesmer asked his secretary to connect him with the officer dealing with Miki Suzuki’s case. A few minutes later he found himself talking to the officer in charge. Mesmer introduced himself, exchanged pleasantries, and asked for permission to make a cursory evaluation of the patient. “She is obviously quite insane,” the gendarme-incharge explained. From Paris Syndrome by Tahir Shah, Secretum Mundi Publishing 2014, secretum-mundi. com. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Learn more about Bowker at Self PublishedAuthor.com. 56
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2014
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photo essay india sponosored by
COLOURS OF RAJASTHAN by Massimo Rumi
I
n 2007 I took a sabbatical and went traveling around the world. I started with a two month overland trip to Africa, from Nairobi down to Cape Town, the journey that got me very interested in wildlife. I did several motorbike trips in Latin America, New Zealand, Cambodia, Laos, Australia. But photography was still just a way of framing traveling memories, nothing more than that. At the beginning of 2013 something inside me
changed. All of a sudden I felt driven toward the emotional side of photography, and my desire to capture emotions with the camera soon became an obsession. I love the challenge of trying to capture the moment when it presents in front of me. Nothing is planned, nothing is pre-set. I tend, for as much as I can, to tell a story with just one photo. This is my first book on one of my favourite places in the world. —Massimo Rumi
Text and photos from Colours of Rajasthan by Massimo Rumi. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
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BOOK SHELF Take a Walk on the Wild Side by Janet Balcombe
J
anet Balcombe never had a plan for her life, but sitting in prison on a raft of charges including kidnapping, guns, drugs and counterfeiting was a little disappointing. Meth-addiction. Grief. Adultery. Evil. Brokenness. Her life was a psychotic hybrid of Breaking Bad and Paranormal Activity. Without divine intervention, things just weren’t going to end well. But no matter how bad things get, there’s hope. www.wildside.com.mx Available at Amazon. The Vampire Girl Next Door by Richard Arbib
M
ark falls in love with Sylvia, the beautiful, but quirky girl next door, not realizing that she’s a vampire who killed his last neighbor. When Mark first meets Sylvia, he tells her, “You’re the girl of my dreams!” Sylvia smiles and responds with a warning—“Be careful what you wish for.” “The Vampire Girl Next Door is a choice pick for one looking for a romance with a supernatural twist, highly recommended.” —John Burroughs, Midwest Book Review www.thevampiregirlnextdoor.com
Available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle. Paperback and all e-book formats available on author’s website.
The East by Fritz Schroeder
T
he East, part fiction, part autobiography, allows its readers to look at World War II from the inside out—through the eyes of a young German boy, just barely of school age at the war’s beginning, and totally unprepared for the changes that are about to come marching into his innocent and carefree world, both during the war and after Germany’s division into east and west. www.theeastbook.com Available at Amazon, CreateSpace, and Barnes and Noble. A Life Singular Part One by Lorraine Pestell
A
six-part contemporary fiction serial, A Life Singular tells the story of a successful celebrity writing his autobiography after the tragic loss of his wife. In essence a love story, it weaves themes of the triumph over mental scars, the choice between right and wrong, and the endless passage of time. Everyone has a life singular: one, unique, extraordinary.
www.alifesingular.net Available at Amazon.
BOOK SHELF Sailing on Broken Pieces: Essential Survival Skills for Recovery from Mental Illness by Gary Rhule
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evealing strategies on coping and recovering from mental illness, Sailing on Broken Pieces takes you into the action of the fast-paced emergency room, and into the life of a person with mental illness. Told from the personal perspective of former ER doctor, Dr. Gary Rhule living with a brother with schizophrenia, it looks at mental illness in a refreshing way. www.garyrhule.com Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, BooksaMillion, Walmart, and Indigo. Shadowed Souls by Allison Aileen Masters
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The Antigone Poems by Marie Slaight Art by Terrence Tasker
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n intensely personal invocation of the Sophocles tragedy, The Antigone Poems, questions power, punishment and one of mythology’s
oldest themes: rebellion. Created in the 1970s while writer Marie Slaight and artist Terrence Tasker were living in Montreal and Toronto, its poetry and images capture the anguish and despair of the original tale in an unembellished modernized rendition. www.theantigonepoems.com Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, ans Book Depository. The Disappearance by J.L. Robb
J
s a Seer of angels and demons, Ava Malone, has lived her life within the shadows of the one world government. Working as a special agent, she has managed to keep herself and her sister alive. All that changes when she meets Aedus, a highranking angel, who introduces her to a world where no one plays by the rules.Â
eff Ross never believed in God nor end-of-the-world stories until strange things started happening, things his Mom had always preached. Israel surrounded, drought, disease, war, beheadings, crime and disappearing people. That was especially troubling. Melissa disappeared at the wedding, so there could be no denial. There were many witnesses. The saga continues in The Disappearance, the fourth book in The End The Book Series.
www.aamasters.com Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.
www.TheEndTheBook.com Available at Amazon and other book retailers or at www.TheEndTheBook.com.
BOOK SHELF The Hooks Files: Murder, Arson, Robbery, Amnesia by Paul Boyce
Looking for some wholesome, action packed, reading for your teenager or yourself—look no further.
T
he Hooks Files series teams a retired civil engineer and two eleven-year-old cousins to solve mysteries in rural 1936 America. Your teenager will love this wise old mentor and his delightful protégés—you will too. Two volumes have been published and a third is near completion.
The Hooks Files ll by Paul Boyce The second in a series of wholesome action-packed mysteries for you and your teenager.
S
killful storyteller Paul Boyce is again at his best as he takes us back to that intriguing summer of 1936 when Hooks and his young colleagues solve a battery of baffling mysteries. Come along with them as they engage a kidnapper, a petty thief, a gang of professional burglars and even an elusive ghost.
Buy both books and get ready for a tussle! www.thehooksfiles.tateauthor.com Available in print and as an ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the author’s website. The Weather Dragons in Accidental Rainbows by Wally Felts
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he Weather Dragons in “Accidental Rainbows” is the first of a series of children’s books for young readers. This is a whimsical story, which is evocative and richly descriptive. Its adventurous storyline will entertain young readers, and the beautiful prose will hold the attention of older readers and parents alike. Order ‘Now’ For Christmas www.weatherdragons.org Available at Amazon.
www.thehooksfiles.tateauthor.com Available in print and as an ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the author’s website.
The Infant Conspiracy by Traveler Pelton
V
iolet and Noah Oberllyn just want to run a retreat center. Events force their four adult children to return home. Led by their eldest son Kai, the family discovers a government plot to reduce earth’s population from 7 billion to 500 million. All the technology in this book exists now; it could happen and some already has. Be forewarned. www.travelerpelton.com Available at Amazon and electronically at Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Copia Gardners, Baker & Taylor, eSentral, Scribd, Flipkart, and Oyster.
BOOK SHELF Midlife Fairy Tales and Murder: A Happily-Ever-After Disaster by Corky Reed-Watt
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Both Sides Now: A Bisexual Memoir Book One: The Underclassman by M. Bancroft
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hat would happen if “one more thing” happened when you felt that nothing more could go wrong? Beverly’s lost fairy tale includes divorce, sassy teenagers, and finding a murder victim in the ladies restroom at work. This is a great mystery for anyone who aspires to fairy tales (even when reality falls short) and finds new hope in accidental surprises.
vents made Bancroft’s college years seem more like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice or Boys in the Band rather than Love Finds Andy Hardy. The truth probably falls in the middle—which is also where he found himself a great deal of the time. Del Shores called it “Delicious.”
www.2wattscreative.com Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Createspace, and Kobo.
http://bothsidesnow.biz Available at TxAuthors, Ebay, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
We’ll All Die as Marines: One Marine’s Journey from Private to Colonel by Colonel Jim Bathurst USMC (retired)
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olonel Jim Bathurst quit high school and enlisted in the Marines in 1958. After advancing to gunnery sergeant, he received a combat commission to second lieutenant. This is a true-to-life story of how the Corps molded him into someone that believed he would never retire as long as he had the privilege of doing what he absolutely loved—leading Marines. www.wellalldieasmarines.com Available at Amazon.
Stephen Michael Shearer found it “Charming & Delightful.”
An Owl among the Ruins—A War Story by William Frank Bellais
H
enry Benson, a retired Army officer and now Episcopal clergyman, receives a letter from a woman in St. Louis seeking information about her father’s death in Vietnam. The Letter opens up memories and rekindles emotions believed long buried. This is a story of personality conflict around the events of the Second Tet Offensive in February 1969. In his effort to understand his own emotions and his effort to provide an honest answer to the daughter of the deceased soldier, Benson recovers memories and reacquaints with Army colleagues. His dilemma is that the woman’s father and Benson were not friends but in a way adversaries. Available at Amazon, and Barnes and Noble
BOOK SHELF Two Shakes of a Dead Lamb’s Tail by Noreen Reeves
The Humanitarian Code by Jeff Thomsen
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n engrossing true life tale littered with humour about a young Australian woman who faces the trials and tribulations of living in isolation on Bougainville Island PNG. It is an experience which brings ingenuity to the fore and facilitates courage and determination which moulds her character for the challenging life on a dust-encrusted isolated sheep station in outback Western Australia.
www.thehumanitariancode.com Available at Xlibris.
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Xlibris. Mystery
Another Exciting Escapade Begins
Once again, these loveable, four-footed detectives are up to their noses in a mystery. The stakes are higher than ever—a dear friend is in serious trouble. Spunky and her felines-extraordinaire begin sniffing out the truth, but soon the trail becomes muddled with secrets and lies. The more they dig, the greater the danger. They need help! In fact, they need An Army of Noses to track down the truth.
A
An Army of Noses
Shopping for A Spunky Murder Mystery the You AnReal Army of Noses by Andrea Pflaumer
practical, entertaining and highly informative primer about a subject Holly L. Lewitasfaces: every woman what should I wear? Author Andrea Pflaumer distills the wisdom of some of the pre-eminent authorities in the fields of color, style and fashion. This easy-to-read and beautifully illustrated book will become a reference you will return to over the years. But—what will happen when they must confront a killer?
PRAISE FOR THE NEWEST SPUNKY MYSTERY
“Mystery readers who want a cozy mystery with a bite (pun intended) and humor will love An Army of Noses.” —Hollywood Book Reviews
is a registered nurse and animal lover. A transplanted Yankee, she now lives in the South, surrounded by her beloved rescued critters —the stars of her books. They’re all busy working on the next mystery! Visit SpunkyMysteryBooks.com
www.shoppingfortherealyou.com Available at Amazon.
Holly L. Lewitas
“An Army of Noses is a delightful mystery. Lewitas is an impeccable storyteller … a treat of a read not only for animal lovers but mystery lovers as well.” —Pacific Book Review
T
he Humanitarian Code is the sum, direction and intent of essentially all New Age writers on earth. Freedom lovers, Intelligent early adopters, students of Consciousness, aware individuals and everyone desiring time proven answers, this is your book. It is your very existence that created this book. Welcome to Human Teleology my friends; it is the future worth living in.
Holly L. Lewitas
An Army of Noses by Holly L. Lewitas
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punky, the adorable crime-solving terriermutt and her feline cohorts are again up to their noses in a mystery. In this third book of highly acclaimed Spunky Murder Mystery series, a human friend is in A Spunky Murder Mystery serious trouble. This twisty-turney, engrossing, cozy mystery told from the animals’ wise, quirky, heartwarming, and often funny perspective will keep you guessing! The adventure awaits! http://spunkymysterybooks.com Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and Createspace.
BOOK SHELF Climbing the Coliseum by Bill Percy
An Average Joe’s Pursuit For Financial Freedom by Michael Warren Munsey
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limbing the Coliseum (no, it’s not Rome!) is the compelling story of people in a small town in Montana—or anywhere!—grappling with our contemporary world’s threats. If you like rich, flawed characters; political conspiracy; tough police work; a kid fighting abandonment; and a hint of romance—not to mention action set amid breathtaking Montana mountains—you’ll love this book. www.billpercybooks.com Available at XLibris, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Death Song by Jeff W. Manship
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n his debut novel, Jeff W. Manship weaves history and fiction into a masterful portrayal of the bloody conflict between Mormon settlers in 19th century Utah and the region’s native inhabitants. Seeking their stolen children, the Mormons follow their abductors’ trail into previously unexplored canyons, discovering a mysterious, ancient people and their centuries-old secret.
Available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
A
n Average Joe’s Pursuit For Financial Freedom offers a different perspective on money than what is traditionally taught to us. It is based on practical concepts and discusses the problems that the majority of us face with our personal finances. www.freeaveragejoe.com Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads. No Tears for My Father: A True Story of Incest by Viga Boland
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rapped in a web of deceit and confusion spun by her father from the age of 11, the author shares her true story of incest. She hopes that by telling of her own sexual abuse, other victims will be encouraged to do the same. This is an important, no-holds-barred book with graphic scenes and language because “that’s the way it happened and that’s how it must be told.” Winner of a Gold Medal in the 2014 Readers Favorite Book Awards Signed, soft cover versions available only from the author’s website: www.vigaboland.com Electronic versions available from author’s website, Amazon, iBookStore, Sony e-Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook Store, Smashwords.
poetry Reverberations from Fukushima: 50 Japanese Poets Speak Out edited by Leah Stenson and Asao Sarukawa Aroldi
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Essay and poems from Reverberations from Fukushima: 50 Japanese Poets Speak Out, edited by Leah Stenson and Asao Sarukawa Aroldi, Inkwater Press 2014, inkwaterbooks.com. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
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n March 11, 2010, Japan was struck by an earthquake and tsunami the likes of which no Japanese alive today has ever experienced. This disaster was followed almost immediately by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. For a time, the eyes of every Japanese and people around the world were riveted on the Tohoku region, and on Fukushima. Faced with daily television and newspapers reports on the sweeping extent of the damage, and confronted with gruesome catastrophic images of destruction, we were at a loss for words. Six months passed, and then a year. Now, as we are poised to mark the third anniversary on March 11, it is time to ask ourselves whether we possess the necessary power of imagination to understand the reality that is unfolding in Fukushima. Moreover, to what extent do people around the world possess the power of imagination to understand that nuclear power is a pressing issue that has direct bearing on their daily lives? Unleashing the power of imagination is key to reclaiming our integrity, so as not to lower ourselves to the point of becoming people who end up serving the interests of the system, even if we are co-opted into doing so unconsciously. In other words, the power of imagination will help us in our endeavor to understand others, to put ourselves in their place, and to cultivate the power of judgment needed to discern what is important in order that we all might lead a more humane existence. —from “The Power of Imagination” by Asao Sarukawa Aroldi
poetry
Like Tomatoes by Shizuka Kawana translated by Naoshi Koriyama I place the frying pan on the fire, grease it, and put in some cherry tomatoes. Their thin skin peals off crisply. Red flesh is exposed. Oil soaks in steadily. Sauce seeps in gradually. They look hurt. The skin of hibakusha peels off, dangling from their red flesh. Their lymph oozes out; they feel thirsty. On that day, human beings were burned like tomatoes. The burned tomatoes ran around in disarray on white feet as a result of the devil’s toy.
UNBOUND
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poetry Stealth by Koichi Omura translated by Eriya Tanase In the destroyed city, a form clad in white is reflected in the cracked and warped mirror as it passes by. Its body is shattered, its parts disconnected. The left side of its face in stark contrast to the right. Almost everything is reflected as a shattered image. In other words, the mirror shows almost nothing, or should I say, everything is invisible. Its face is invisible, hidden from everyone. This is how my body, my reflection is projected in this world now. Never will I live with a clear conscience. The big doubt lies over everyone, contaminating them. No one knows where to look for answers. We are looking only for a rehash of yesterday’s joys. Whoever tries to deceive, or however I try to deceive myself, we already know that in the world we contaminated with our own hands, my shattered image will never be restored, that the shadow of death hangs heavy on everyone’s back.
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ss le d a h rs e sh li b u -p lf se , Once upon a time d e w ie v re s k o o b ir e th g of a chance gettin d e k ic w r e h g n si a le p d a h than Cinderella hanged. c s a h y r o st t a Th r. e th o stepm BlueInk Review: because every book
might not be a princess, but they all deserve a shot at the ball.
serious reviews of self-published books www.blueinkreview.com
on our shelf
AVOIDING THE DODGEBALLS … AT WORK
S
TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
J
anet Balcome has written a compelling, searingly candid memoir of her journey from meth addict jailed with charges of kidnapping, guns, drugs, and counterfeiting to redemption. Take a Walk on the Wild Side takes you inside her struggle with grief and addiction, offering hope to others who can, as she says in her introduction, “Be encouraged by my personal journey from hell to whole.” An ultimately inspiring story. —Anna Nair Take a Walk on the Wild Side by Janet Balcombe, Wild Side Publishing, wildside.com.mx. 74
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ubtitled “A Young Woman’s Guide to Succeeding at a First Job,” Avoiding the Dodgeballs … at Work is a helpful primer that addresses such topics as project management, teamwork, managing your boss, performance evaluations, sexual harassment, difficult coworkers, and networking with equal measures of good sense and good humor. —Anna Nair Avoiding the Dodgeballs … at Work by E. Marie, CreateSpace, avoidingthedodgeballs.com.
CONSOLE WARS
I
n Console Wars, Blake Harris brings to life the wide range of personalities (not to mention the massive egos) behind the videogame wars of the early 1990s. Much of the narrative focuses on upstart Sega’s efforts to unseat Nintendo as America’s most popular game system, yet the book also examines the cultural differences between the United States and Japan that severely hampered the efforts of both companies to dominate the market. —Marc Schuster Console Wars by Blake Harris, It Books 2014, harpercollins.com.
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small press reviews The Race by Jacke Wilson
J
acke Wilson’s The Race is an incredibly astute novella about ego and politics that attempts to explain why anyone in their right mind might run for political office. The answer, it turns out, is that they wouldn’t, as the political arena is reserved for the eternally deluded and arguably insane. The narrative focuses on Tom Olson, a fictional disgraced former governor of Wisconsin who is attempting to revive his career by running for Congress. In a “ripped from the headlines” kind of way, Olson’s fall from grace is highly reminiscent of former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s. Yet while Olson and Sanford both mysteriously vanished from their offices only to turn up at later dates in foreign love nests, there are hints of other political figures wrapped up in the novella’s central figure as well. Echoing Bill Clinton’s 1992 remark that Hillary would be so central to his presidency that he might as well adopt “buy one, get one free” as his campaign slogan, a common refrain surrounding Olson’s first bid for governor was “Vote for him and get the pair.” Likewise, something about Olson also harkens to Mitt Romney. He’s relatively handsome in the way many career politicians aspire to be, he’s idealistic in his own way, and he’s optimistic to a fault—so much so that his grand vision of the world completely eclipses reality. Most of all, however, Olson demonstrates that what truly drives politicians is a desire to control the narratives of their own lives, as his tragically optimistic efforts at running for office are forever haunted by the specter of the good man he was before throwing his hat into the political arena. Smart, well-written, and frequently funny, The Race offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the American politician. —Marc Schuster, www.smallpressreviews.wordpress.com jackewilsonauthor.com
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Shelf Unbound Contributing Editor Marc Schuster is the author of The Grievers, The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl, Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum, and, with Tom Powers, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: The Discerning Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who. He is the editor of Small Press Reviews, and his work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals. Marc teaches writing and literature courses at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.
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TRADUCTION
“
It’s crucial that a national literature be fed from outside its borders, and literary translation does just that. —David Scott Hamilton, whose translation of
”
Exit by Nelly Arcan was short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation and named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book CLICK HERE to see Hamilton discuss translation in this video interview.
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october/november MARTIN AITKEN lives and works in rural Denmark. His translations have appeared in numerous journals and periodicals, including AGNI, The Literary Review, PRISM International, The Boston Review, Calque and FENCE. NELLY ARCAN was a Canadian novelist. Arcan’s first novel Putain was a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina,[3] two of France’s most prestigious literary awards. Putain was followed with three more novels that established her as a literary star in Quebec and France. CLARISSA BOTSFORD studied Italian at Cambridge and Comparative Education in London before moving to Rome, Italy. She has worked in the fields of teaching, intercultural education and publishing and is also a musician. She currently teaches English and Translation Studies at Rome University and translates contemporary Italian fiction and poetry. CARMEN BOULLOSA is one of Mexico’s leading novelists, poets and playwrights. The prolific author, who has had literally scores of books, essays and dissertations written about her work, has been lauded by critics on several continents. ELVIRA DONES was born in Durres (Albania) and raised in Tirana, the state capital. She has written seven novels, two collections of short stories, a few screenplays; she also directs and produces documentary films. Dones now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and divides her time between the US, Switzerland, Italy and Albania. EDUARDO HALFON was named one of the best young Latin American writers by the Hay Festival of Bogotá; he is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the prestigious José María de Pereda Prize for the Short Novel. He has published eleven books of fiction in Spanish. The Polish Boxer, his first book to appear in English, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection and finalist for the International Latino Book Award. CALLIE HUTTON, a USA Today best selling author of The Elusive Wife, writes both Western Historical and Regency romance, with “historic elements and sensory details” (The Romance Reviews). She also pens an occasional contemporary novel or two. DORTHE NORS is the author of three novels: “Soul” (2001), “Stormesteren” (2003) and “Ann Lie” (2005) and in 2008
contributors
published a collection of short stories entitled “Kantslag” (Karate Chop). Stories from this collection have been published in The Boston Review, AGNI, Fence Magazine, New Letters, Ecotone Journal, Gulf Coast, Harpers, The Normal School, The Nervous Breakdown, The New Yorker and A Public Space. She appeared in the New Yorker in 2013 as the first Dane ever to have short fiction in the magazine. MASSIMO RUMI says: “My vision is to use my photography to serve good causes and as I take the smiles and souls of these unfortunate people through my lens I want to give back to them by selling fine art prints and using part of the revenues to fund specific social projects where small money can makes big difference.” ATEF ABU SAIF was born in Jabaia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in1973. He is the author of four novels: Shadows in the Memory (1997), The Tale of the Harvest Night (1999), Snowball (2000), and The Salty Grape of Paradise (2003 & 2006). He also published a collection of short stories entitled Everything is Normal. SAMANTHA SCHNEE is the founding editor and chairman of the board of Words Without Borders, an online magazine of literature in translation into English; since its inception ten years ago, WWB has published over 1,600 translations from nearly 120 countries in over 90 languages. Born in the UK and raised in the US, she also translates from the Spanish. PAULO SCOTT was born in 1966 in Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, and grew up in a working class neighbourhood. At university, Scott was an active member of the student political movement and was also involved in Brazil’s redemocratisation process. For ten years he taught law at university in Porto Alegre. He has now published four books of fiction and four of poetry. He also translates from English. SÖLVI BJÖRN SIGURÐSSON is the author of three books of poetry and the novels Radio Selfoss (2003), The Murakami Girlfriend (2006), and The Last Days of My Mother (2009), also out in Danish. A translator of classical poetry, he has also received distinguished nominations for his translation of Rimbaud’s A Season In Hell. Shelf Unbound is published bimonthly by Shelf Media Group LLC, 3322 Greenview Drive, Garland, TX 75044. Copyright 2014 by Shelf Media Group LLC. Subscriptions are FREE, go to www.shelfmediagroup.com to subscribe.
what to read next in independent publishing