Click here to read the abstract of the story on The New Yorker webpage (this week’s story is available only for subscribers). Akhil Sharma’s “We Didn’t Like Him” was originally published in the June 3, 2013 issue of The New Yorker. Betsy I liked Akhil Sharma’s “We Didn’t Like Him,” whose setting is the land of death and what we do
They’ve just announced this year’s winner of the Man Booker International Prize: Lydia Davis I’m thrilled at this news. Not only is Lydia Davis one of my favorite writers, she is also a short story writer and a supreme translator (in fact, the only thing I have reviewed here from her is her translation of
Leandro Sarmatz’s “The Count” (“O Conde”; tr. from the Portuguese by Peter Bush) is the ninth story in Granta 121: The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists. For an overview of the issue and links to my reviews of its other stories, please click here. This relatively short piece (only five pages) centers around Emil Fleischer, a Yiddish actor
Long out of print in the United States, Astragal (L’Astragale, 1965; tr. from the French by Patsy Southgate, 1967) came to New Directions in a wonderful way. One day Barbara Epler, publisher and president of New Directions, was talking to Patti Smith about favorite authors when Smith brought up Albertine Sarrazin. Epler admitted she had never
The winner of this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was just announced. The Detour, by Gerbrand Bakker; tr from the Dutch by David Colmer (in the U.S. this book was published as Ten White Geese) Exciting news! I haven’t read The Detour (or Ten White Geese) yet, but Bakker’s The Twin is one of those great books that I think
Episodes of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast: discussions of books and authors, shaped by curiosity, rereading, and the pleasures of talking things through.
The Mookse and the Gripes Instagram features a more immediate space with posts and videos about current reads, recent finds, including a steady dose of Criterion films.
