Nino Haratischvili, Trans. by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin
PositiveForeword ReviewsThe novel covers more than a century; each of its characters are developed through the extensive internal monologues. All roads lead to Brilka, who runs away to Vienna in an attempt to reclaim some of her family history; she prompts Niza to preserve everything she knows for her niece, resulting in this sprawling epic of love and loss ... Though oftentimes bleak, The Eighth Life is an expansive and hopeful tale centered on family touched by war and revolution.
Rawi Hage
PositiveForeword Reviews... an intimate glimpse at the effects of civil war that challenges social and religious norms ... The narrative pulls no punches in depicting the violence and depravity that war births, and cynicism runs throughout ... At times brutally intense, Beirut Hellfire Society unsettles detached views of war. There are, it insists, real and horrible consequences of wars that cannot be ignored, forgotten, or romanticized. Here, escape into perceived comforts and safety is not an option.
Sergei Lebedev Trans. by Antonina W. Bouis
PositiveForeword Reviews... an impressive tangle of branches in a single ancestral tree ... expositional but crafted in poetic prose. Individual stories of family members are compelling but grow even more fascinating as the narrative makes connections leading to the present-day Kirill ... The depth of historical research is evident everywhere. German immigrants’ struggles to establish themselves in Russia despite restrictive laws are a chilling reminder of how widespread hatred is damaging to a nation’s—any nation’s—social fabric ... An evocative excursion across more than a century, The Goose Fritz provokes consideration of national identity and the role it plays in sustaining an individual.
Leonid Yuzefovich, trans. by Marian Schwartz
PositiveForeword Reviews\"History and human drama collide in Leonid Yuzefovich’s Horsemen of the Sands, a wonderful tangle of relationships, religions, and realism ... The prose adroitly bears both an ethereal and a concrete quality ... Using two vastly different settings, Horsemen of the Sands combines narratives rife with loss and disillusionment.\
Ersi Sotiropoulos, Trans. by Karen Emmerich
RaveForeword ReviewsBeautifully reconstructing three days in Paris, Ersi Sotiropoulos traverses the complex hallways of the poet Constantine Cavafy’s mind ... A poignant meditation on the origins of an individual’s art ... Karen Emmerich’s translation renders Cavafy’s internal strife—the driving force of the novel—in melodic, anguished, well-researched prose. Equal parts a character study and a treatise on the creative mind, the novel boldly provokes questions about the relationship between an artist’s life and his art, specifically the quality of art that is born out of immense suffering ... Haunting and enthralling, What’s Left of the Night successfully fosters an almost mystical communion with Cavafy and his torment. Ultimately, pinpoints of light peek through the gloom and illuminate the refuge that art can offer.
Maria Sonia Cristoff, trans. by Katherine Silver
PositiveForeword Reviews\"[Cristoff\'s] chronicling is never a dry reporting of facts; rather, she gives Patagonia a face—even multiple faces—as she draws out riveting stories from people whom many might otherwise ignore ... Sketched in lovely prose, False Calm opens up vistas to the true heart of Patagonia. The turbulence within the inhabitants whom Cristoff encounters belies the region’s halcyon facade.\
Eugene Vodolazkin, Trans. by Lisa C. Hayden
RaveForeword Reviews...an unabashed, panoramic view of the landscape of human consciousness affected by time, place, faith, and faces ... Lisa Hayden’s translation reads beautifully and carries the poignancy well ... In the vein of Dostoyevsky, religion here is not an enemy to be vanquished, but rather a consolation and a means of deciphering the mechanisms of the human mind and the world—seen and unseen ... Draped in thoroughly Russian trappings, The Aviator speaks to common experience while soaring into realms that enfold the human drama below.
