Category

Literature of Europe

Cooking in the Wrong Century
For the hostess, food has always been about growing up. From the pancakes your grandmother made, dolloped with jam, to the salty glug of your very first oyster. Now, poised at the brink of midlife, the hostess prepares for a dinner party in her new apartment, desperate for the envy of her cultured...
The Deserters
A filthy and exhausted soldier emerges from the Mediterranean wilderness—he is escaping from an unspecified war, trying to flee incessant violence and find refuge in solitude. Meanwhile, on September 11, 2001, aboard a small cruise ship, a scientific conference takes place to pay tribute to...
A Dictator Calls
In June 1934, Stalin allegedly called Boris Pasternak and they spoke about the arrest of Osip Mandelstam. A telephone call from the dictator was not something necessarily relished, and in the complicated world of literary politics it would have provided opportunities for potential misunderstanding...
The Divorce
“The collapse of a thirty-two-year marriage is depicted with an even hand in this book, which amounts to two parallel novels: one about a woman 'feverish with confusion,' who feels that she was abandoned without warning, and another about a man who has been grappling with the end of his relationship...
The Doll

The Doll 2020

In this autobiographical novel, Albania’s most renowned novelist and poet Ismail Kadare explores his relationship with his mother in a delicately wrought tale of home, family, creative aspirations, and personal and political freedom. “Houses like ours seemed constructed with the specific purpose of...
Essays on World Literature
In isolationist Albania, which suffered under a Communist dictatorship for nearly half a century, classic global literature reached Ismail Kadare across centuries and borders—and set him free. The struggles of Hamlet, Dante, and Aeschylus’s tragic figures gave him an understanding of totalitarianism...
Eye of the Monkey
Eye of the Monkey begins in the wake of a devastating civil war that led to the formation of the United Regency, an autocracy in an unnamed European country. The ravages of war are sweeping, and the populace has been divided into segregated zones, where the well-off are under mass surveillance and...
Girl, 1983

Girl, 1983 2026

Paris, a winter’s night in 1983. She is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begin to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend...
Go, Went, Gone
The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits...
Joy in Service on Rue Tagore
Here, from artichokes to zinc, Muldoon navigates an alphabet of image and history, through barleymen and Irish slavers to the last running wolf in Ulster. The search involves the accumulated bric-a-brac of a life, and a reckoning along the way of gains against loss. In the poet’s skillful hands,...
Kairos

Kairos 2023

Kairos tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the...
The Meadow Where Time Stands Still
Osip Mandelshtam, arguably the greatest Russian poet of the 20th century, died in a Stalinist prison camp at the age of 47. It was not his first arrest - he had already been imprisoned multiple times, as well as tortured, exiled, and blacklisted for the criticism of the Soviet state implicit in his...
Mr. Distinctive
Mr. Distinctive has a memorable, attractive face. He only has to walk down the street, and everyone turns to smile at him. Once he starred in a TV commercial and was praised and congratulated for having a face that sold the product well. Mr. Distinctive is very pleased with himself and loves to take...
My Secret Life
My Secret Life is the first book in English translation of the poetry of Krisztina Tóth, one of the leading Hungarian poets of the generation who began publishing in the late 1980s. The recipient of many awards, Krisztina Tóth is also renowned for her fiction which has been translated into many...
On Histories and Stories
As writers of English from Australia to India to Sri Lanka command our attention, Salman Rushdie can state confidently that English fiction was moribund until the Empire wrote back, and few, even among the British, demur. A. S. Byatt does, and her case is persuasive. In a series of essays on the...
Open Minded
After nine years of dating, Holly is sure her boyfriend Will is going to propose. But instead of popping the question, he shocks her by suggesting they open their relationship to date other people. For the last three years, Fliss and her boyfriend Ash have been in a happily open relationship. But...
Signals of Being, or Verbum Caro Factum Est
In the early days of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the residents of a small co-op community outside of Kyiv find themselves in increasingly desperate circumstances, surrounded by occupying Russian forces. Pinched between Bucha and Borodianka, cut off from aid, and unable to escape, their...
A Slanting of the Sun
Donal Ryan's short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December left off, dealing with dramas set in motion by loneliness and displacement and revealing stories of passion and desire where less astute observers might fail to detect the humanity that...
The Spinning Heart
Set in the wake of Ireland’s devastating financial collapse following its Celtic Tiger boom, The Spinning Heart explores the fractured lives of a rural community left reeling by the sudden closure of a once-thriving construction firm. As the community grapples with vanishing jobs and crumbling...
The Sunflower Boys
In many ways, twelve-year-old Artem’s life in Chernihiv, Ukraine, is normal. He spends his days helping on his grandfather’s sunflower farm, drawing in his sketchbook—a treasured gift from his father, who works in America—and swimming in the river with his little brother, Yuri. In secret, Artem...
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years....
Talk of the Devil
Ian Fleming was best known for bringing to life the legendary character of James Bond, one of the most beloved and enduring icons of our time, but he was perhaps even more interesting than his creation. His career in Naval Intelligence and extensive travels around the world gave Fleming a keen eye...
Tangled Roots
An old soldier retires and is given a plot of land deep in the Finnish forest, as pension for his years of faithful service to the crown. Here, he carves a secluded croft and calls it home, but try as he might to tame the land, its wild magic endures. From this 17th-century beginning comes...
Things That Disappear
The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on...
The Wife of Willesden
In her stage-writing debut, celebrated novelist and essayist Zadie Smith brings to life a comedic and cutting twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic The Wife of Bath. The Wife of Willesden follows Alvita, a Jamaican-born British woman in her mid-50s, as she tells her life...

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Girl, 1983

Girl, 1983 December 15, 2026

Paris, a winter’s night in 1983. She is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begin to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend...
Cooking in the Wrong Century
For the hostess, food has always been about growing up. From the pancakes your grandmother made, dolloped with jam, to the salty glug of your very first oyster. Now, poised at the brink of midlife, the hostess prepares for a dinner party in her new apartment, desperate for the envy of her cultured...
The Meadow Where Time Stands Still
Osip Mandelshtam, arguably the greatest Russian poet of the 20th century, died in a Stalinist prison camp at the age of 47. It was not his first arrest - he had already been imprisoned multiple times, as well as tortured, exiled, and blacklisted for the criticism of the Soviet state implicit in his...
The Sunflower Boys

The Sunflower Boys August 4, 2026

In many ways, twelve-year-old Artem’s life in Chernihiv, Ukraine, is normal. He spends his days helping on his grandfather’s sunflower farm, drawing in his sketchbook—a treasured gift from his father, who works in America—and swimming in the river with his little brother, Yuri. In secret, Artem...
Tangled Roots

Tangled Roots June 30, 2026

An old soldier retires and is given a plot of land deep in the Finnish forest, as pension for his years of faithful service to the crown. Here, he carves a secluded croft and calls it home, but try as he might to tame the land, its wild magic endures. From this 17th-century beginning comes...
A Slanting of the Sun

A Slanting of the Sun May 19, 2026

Donal Ryan's short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December left off, dealing with dramas set in motion by loneliness and displacement and revealing stories of passion and desire where less astute observers might fail to detect the humanity that...
The Spinning Heart

The Spinning Heart May 19, 2026

Set in the wake of Ireland’s devastating financial collapse following its Celtic Tiger boom, The Spinning Heart explores the fractured lives of a rural community left reeling by the sudden closure of a once-thriving construction firm. As the community grapples with vanishing jobs and crumbling...
Signals of Being, or Verbum Caro Factum Est
In the early days of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the residents of a small co-op community outside of Kyiv find themselves in increasingly desperate circumstances, surrounded by occupying Russian forces. Pinched between Bucha and Borodianka, cut off from aid, and unable to escape, their...
Eye of the Monkey

Eye of the Monkey October 14, 2025

Eye of the Monkey begins in the wake of a devastating civil war that led to the formation of the United Regency, an autocracy in an unnamed European country. The ravages of war are sweeping, and the populace has been divided into segregated zones, where the well-off are under mass surveillance and...
Things That Disappear

Things That Disappear October 7, 2025

The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on...
Joy in Service on Rue Tagore

Joy in Service on Rue Tagore September 2, 2025

Here, from artichokes to zinc, Muldoon navigates an alphabet of image and history, through barleymen and Irish slavers to the last running wolf in Ulster. The search involves the accumulated bric-a-brac of a life, and a reckoning along the way of gains against loss. In the poet’s skillful hands,...
Talk of the Devil

Talk of the Devil May 27, 2025

Ian Fleming was best known for bringing to life the legendary character of James Bond, one of the most beloved and enduring icons of our time, but he was perhaps even more interesting than his creation. His career in Naval Intelligence and extensive travels around the world gave Fleming a keen eye...
The Deserters

The Deserters May 20, 2025

A filthy and exhausted soldier emerges from the Mediterranean wilderness—he is escaping from an unspecified war, trying to flee incessant violence and find refuge in solitude. Meanwhile, on September 11, 2001, aboard a small cruise ship, a scientific conference takes place to pay tribute to...
Mr. Distinctive

Mr. Distinctive May 6, 2025

Mr. Distinctive has a memorable, attractive face. He only has to walk down the street, and everyone turns to smile at him. Once he starred in a TV commercial and was praised and congratulated for having a face that sold the product well. Mr. Distinctive is very pleased with himself and loves to take...
My Secret Life

My Secret Life April 15, 2025

My Secret Life is the first book in English translation of the poetry of Krisztina Tóth, one of the leading Hungarian poets of the generation who began publishing in the late 1980s. The recipient of many awards, Krisztina Tóth is also renowned for her fiction which has been translated into many...
Open Minded

Open Minded November 12, 2024

After nine years of dating, Holly is sure her boyfriend Will is going to propose. But instead of popping the question, he shocks her by suggesting they open their relationship to date other people. For the last three years, Fliss and her boyfriend Ash have been in a happily open relationship. But...
The Divorce

The Divorce August 6, 2024

“The collapse of a thirty-two-year marriage is depicted with an even hand in this book, which amounts to two parallel novels: one about a woman 'feverish with confusion,' who feels that she was abandoned without warning, and another about a man who has been grappling with the end of his relationship...
A Dictator Calls

A Dictator Calls September 19, 2023

In June 1934, Stalin allegedly called Boris Pasternak and they spoke about the arrest of Osip Mandelstam. A telephone call from the dictator was not something necessarily relished, and in the complicated world of literary politics it would have provided opportunities for potential misunderstanding...
Kairos

Kairos June 6, 2023

Kairos tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the...
The Wife of Willesden

The Wife of Willesden February 14, 2023

In her stage-writing debut, celebrated novelist and essayist Zadie Smith brings to life a comedic and cutting twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic The Wife of Bath. The Wife of Willesden follows Alvita, a Jamaican-born British woman in her mid-50s, as she tells her life...
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years....
The Doll

The Doll November 17, 2020

In this autobiographical novel, Albania’s most renowned novelist and poet Ismail Kadare explores his relationship with his mother in a delicately wrought tale of home, family, creative aspirations, and personal and political freedom. “Houses like ours seemed constructed with the specific purpose of...
Essays on World Literature

Essays on World Literature February 20, 2018

In isolationist Albania, which suffered under a Communist dictatorship for nearly half a century, classic global literature reached Ismail Kadare across centuries and borders—and set him free. The struggles of Hamlet, Dante, and Aeschylus’s tragic figures gave him an understanding of totalitarianism...
Go, Went, Gone

Go, Went, Gone September 26, 2017

The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits...
On Histories and Stories

On Histories and Stories March 30, 2002

As writers of English from Australia to India to Sri Lanka command our attention, Salman Rushdie can state confidently that English fiction was moribund until the Empire wrote back, and few, even among the British, demur. A. S. Byatt does, and her case is persuasive. In a series of essays on the...