Hot News This Week
January 4, 2024
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| “I hope that when the war ends I can go back to Gaza, to help rebuild my family home and fill it with books,” writes Mosab Abu Toha in the latest issue of the New Yorker. Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet and the author of Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (City Lights Publishers), was fleeing Gaza with his family when he was taken into custody and beaten by Israeli soldiers.
On Sunday, the New York Times published a video feature about his experiences: watch their interview with Abu Toha here.
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| | Verdigris
by Michele Mari, trans. Brian Robert Moore
And Other Stories • January 2024 • 9781913505905
“Another genre-flipper here, with the touching coming-of-age intro comfortably incognizable by the classic gothic horror ending.” — Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop (Athens, GA)
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“A sharp, poignant debut collection of stories from a truly gifted storyteller. . . . Each story is precise, thoughtful, and powerful on its own and I can’t wait to talk about it with someone!” — Jamie Southern, Bookmarks (Winston-Salem, NC)
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| Love Novel is an Indie Next Pick
The ABA announced this week that Ivana Sajko’s Love Novel, translated by Mima Simic, is an Indie Next pick for February. “Claustrophobic and cutting, this is an honest portrait of a modern marriage and all the tender, violent actions that love can extract,” says Torrin Nelson of Queen Anne Book Company (Seattle, WA), one of the nominating booksellers. “This novel also excellently comments on the unlivable conditions we’re collectively spiraling towards.”
Love Novel
by Ivana Sajko, trans. Mima Simic
Biblioasis • February 2024 • 9781771965989
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| Kimberlé Crenshaw Talks #SayHerName
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 Click here for more top titles publishing this week and next Tuesday, Jan. 9.
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★ “A fresh imagining of an icon. . . . [Florence Nightingale], in Pritchard’s portrayal, is an indomitable force.” — Kirkus Reviews
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| | The Understory
by Saneh Sangsuk, trans. Mui Poopoksakul
Deep Vellum Publishing • March 2024 • 9781646052752
★ “A moving folk story about a lost world where occultists could shape shift into animals and tiger-demons could take human form, which builds toward the tragedy that sets Paw Tien on his path of penance and monkhood. This is transfixing.” — Publishers Weekly
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| | The Singularity
by Balsam Karam, trans. Saskia Vogel
Feminist Press • January 2024 • 9781558611931
★ “In Karam’s beautiful and harrowing English-language debut, a pregnant woman witnesses another woman plummet to her death from a promenade above the sea.” — Publishers Weekly
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★ “Even the staunchest Davis devotees are likely to discover new material and new ways to reimagine a more just world. A must-read essay collection for anyone invested in racial equity.” — Kirkus Reviews
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| | Radio Days
by Ha Jaeyoun, trans. Sue Hyon Bae
Black Ocean • October 2023 • 9781939568724
“These are poems of strange stillness, poems that quiet the mind and light it up at the same time, a rare feat.” — Boston Globe
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| | Desire Museum
by Danielle Cadena Deulen
BOA Editions • October 2023 • 9781960145000
“The poems, about being a woman and a mother . . . are harrowingly candid about the stresses and anxieties of trying to meet impossible standards while ‘waning and wanting forever.’” — Ron Charles, Book Club (Washington Post)
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| | Sylvester’s Letter
by Matthew Burgess, illus. Josh Cochran
Enchanted Lion Books • August 2023 • 9781592703807
“[Sylvester] enlists sky divers to land on top of a train headed to a jungle where a river packed with piranhas will carry his letter to a place where pink dolphins wait.” — New York Times Book Review
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| | Hamza Attends a Janaza
by Shabana Hussain, illus. Atefeh Mohammadzadeh
Kube Publishing • August 2023 • 9780860378938
“[A] gentle story . . . this book is geared toward Muslim children, but it contains a universal message about honor and respect.” — New York Times Book Review
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“These stories are populated by isolated characters who exist in crumbling worlds sometimes governed by the logic of dreams.” — New Yorker
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| New Digital Review Copies
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Hex Americana
by Bree D. Wolf
Iron Circus Comics • December 2023 • 9781945820762
“The cartoonist Bree Wolf spins a tale about auto racing, teen romance, monsters and ghosts.” — New York Times
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Jake Adelstein, author of The Last Yakuza (Scribe), recently wrote for Airmail about his work as a journalist covering the yakuza.
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Last month, Axios highlighted authors Pilar Quintana (Abyss, World Editions) and María Fernanda Ampuero (Human Sacrifices, Feminist Press) in a piece on Latin American women forging a new literary canon.
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