"In 1968-1969 I wanted to die, that is to say, stop living, being killed, but it was blocked on all sides", wrote Helene Cixous, esteemed French feminist, playwright, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. Instead of suicide, she began to dream...

Mirroring Romania's drastic transition from totalitarianism to Western-style freedom in the late 1980s, "Mr. K Released" captures the disturbingly surreal feeling that many newly liberated prisoners face when they leave captivity. Employing his trade...

A novel in five parts, "Only a Lodger... And Hardly That" puts Vesna Main's power of beautiful observation on full display as she explores how writing stories about one's ancestors is key route to learning about and fashioning one's own identity. Whi...

In "Winter Stories", Norwegian author Ingrid H. Rishoi gives us three contemporary tales about personal resilience in the face of adversity. We meet a teenager on the run from social services with her younger half-sister and half-brother in tow; a yo...

Gustave Roud, perhaps the most beloved poet of Swiss Romandy, is widely considered the founder of modern francophone Swiss literature, along with Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz. Roud lived at his grandfather's farm in Carrouge, Canton Vaud, for his entire l...

In 1950s France, Camille struggles to figure out who she is and where she fits in the world of her coastal working-class neighborhood. Her mother holds the family together, with the support of a group of women who talk over coffee and cigarettes each...

Jerusalem. The early years of the State of Israel. Naomi, a former architect from secular Tel Aviv, has just married Jochanan, a religious doctor who emigrated from Sweden. "Days of Peace" follows Naomi through 1950s Jerusalem as she meets a rich cas...

"Everything starts with a song and everything ends with another song", says the narrator of "The Divine Song". Paris is an old Sufi cat who keeps watch over his brilliant yet pathetic master, Sammy Kamau-Williams, the Enchanter. In Sammy, we recogniz...

Exploring longing, lust for life, ageing, mortality, grief, and flowers in her inimitable late style, etudes is a diary-like sequence of poems by one of the greatest living Austrian poets. Friederike Mayrocker's almost daily entries give us a unique...

Is it possible to fight for social justice if you've never really loved another person? Can you save a country if you're in love? Forty-six-year-old Anton Stover's marriage is broken. His affairs are a thing of the past, and his career at the univer...