PositiveForeword ReviewsBeautiful metaphors relating Lahiri’s pandemic experience to the works of Gramsci and Ovid illuminate the intricacies of translation that move beyond language into sensations and emotions ... Lahiri’s arguments are accessible to monolingual readers and are packed with applicable linguistic information. The original sections in the source language often accompany the translations, including through two appendices of essays that were translated from Italian for the book ... thought-provoking collection of essays about the art of modern translation.
Okezie Nwoka
RaveForeword Reviews... dazzling and disquieting ... with robust descriptions, Igboland is a vibrant landscape replete with a nightmarish evil forest, comforting compounds, and the serene Idemili river. Once the lens shifts to Amalike, the folkloric prose, which is written as if translated from Igbo, shifts to a Western style that coincides with Ijeoma’s learning of English and forced Bible study ... Rife with magical realism and full of promise, the novel God of Mercy undertakes a scrupulous review of the destructive power of colonialism through an imprisoned, gifted girl.
Cadwell Turnbull
RaveForeword Reviews... distinctive ... the novel places society’s taboos front and center, constructing a narrative replete with social critiques and criticism. And its precise language and masterful storytelling make each character’s story compelling and immediate. Difficult magical concepts are also made accessible and engaging through logical explanations that sometimes become scientific ... a horror and fantasy novel with a sociological bent, in which many secrets wait to be unearthed.
Faysal Khartash
RaveForewardA heartwrenching and shocking work of historical fiction, Faysal Khartash’s Roundabout of Death focuses on the human cost of Syria’s civil war ... The book’s short chapters read like self-contained stories about Jumaa, his family, intellectual friends who pass time in cafés, and notable people in Aleppo and Raqqa, like the shabbiha militiamen who sport Russian firearms as they loom in town squares and the corners of shops, and Miss Beauties, a woman who wanders the city, and who is raped and used by intellectuals and shabbiha alike ... Khartash’s idiomatic expressions and unusual sentence constructions preserve the culture and nuances of the source language, making the text and, by proxy, the realities that so many people face, accessible ... Precise language elucidates the book’s themes.
