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    Tag: Contemporary

    It takes destiny for a human to tame a beast

    Dear Yan Ge, Your Strange Beasts of China (2020, tr.  Jeremy Tiang. Original: 异兽志, 2006) reads like a collection of entries from a bestiary: the city of…… Read more “It takes destiny for a human to tame a beast”

    7 de April de 202112 de April de 2021 by juliana

    You created me in the abyss of nonexistence

    Dear Carmen, The Book of Anna (2020, tr. Samantha Schnee. Original: El libro de Ana, 2016) takes off a couple of years after Tolstoy had left us…… Read more “You created me in the abyss of nonexistence”

    18 de March de 202118 de March de 2021 by juliana

    Madness has turned to logic

    Dear Gine, In Zero (2018, tr. Rosie Hedger. Original: Null, 2013), we follow a middle-class Norwegian girl from age ten to twenty-one, as she comes full circle…… Read more “Madness has turned to logic”

    28 de January de 202129 de January de 2021 by juliana

    Such shifting winds in life

    Dear Ida, A Change of Time (2019, tr. Martin Aitken. Original: En ny tid, 2015) is the record of a woman’s passage through grief. Told through diary entries…… Read more “Such shifting winds in life”

    29 de December de 2020 by juliana

    Happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural

    Dear Marie-Helene, Much of the disturbing, off-kilter sense of humour in Parakeet: A Novel (2020) comes from a finely-drawn contrast between the strong sense of reality in…… Read more “Happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural”

    21 de December de 2020 by juliana

    It was under the sway of that force that I began to feel,

    Dear Gabriela, A coming-of-age story, a road novel, a picaresque adventure, a piece of nature and travel writing, an epic, and a reinterpretation of Martín Fierro through a…… Read more “It was under the sway of that force that I began to feel,”

    18 de December de 202018 de December de 2020 by juliana

    The truth is a kind of regardless

    Dear Ali, Spring (2019) begins with chorus of angry voices, a collage of social media rants and headlines, disrupted in the end by a voice that seems…… Read more “The truth is a kind of regardless”

    16 de December de 2020 by juliana

    Things can be going on inside you without you even knowing

    Dear Hanne, Love (2018, tr. Martin Aitken. Original: Kjærlighet, 1997), or the absence of it, unfolds on a single day in the lives of Vibeke and her eight-year…… Read more “Things can be going on inside you without you even knowing”

    3 de December de 20207 de December de 2020 by juliana

    The world has dropped its petals

    Dear Olga, Reading Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (2018, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Original: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych, 2009) is all about…… Read more “The world has dropped its petals”

    2 de December de 2020 by juliana

    There was no new order

    Dear Natália, Controle (2019, ‘Control’, not translated yet) is a novel centred on an absence. Our protagonist, she’s lost control, and she’s clinging to the nearest passer-by:…… Read more “There was no new order”

    29 de August de 202029 de August de 2020 by juliana

    Just a desire, begun

    Dear Natália, Amora: Stories (2020, tr. Julia Sanches. Original: Amora, 2015) begins with ‘First Times’ and ends with ‘Profanation’ – and, for that alone, I knew this collection…… Read more “Just a desire, begun”

    28 de August de 2020 by juliana

    Their movement through life is invisible

    Dear Jokha, Celestial Bodies (2018, tr. Marilyn Booth. Original: Sayyidat al-Qamar, 2010) revolves around a family and their household members, in an Omani village, in the late 20th…… Read more “Their movement through life is invisible”

    31 de July de 202031 de July de 2020 by juliana

    Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only

    Dear Ariana, Die, My Love (2017, tr. Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff. Original: Matate, Amor, 2012) is all about voice: a short musical piece of sustained rage,…… Read more “Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only”

    4 de July de 20204 de July de 2020 by juliana

    A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time

    Dear Auður, In Butterflies in November, tr. Brian FitzGibbon (2013. Original: Rigning í nóvember, 2004), you play with our sense of reality, bringing into light what is fundamentally odd…… Read more “A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time”

    7 de January de 2019 by juliana

    The all-seeing eye

    Dear Claire, In Bitter Orange (2018), we are made accomplices of the main character’s voyeurism, caught in a claustrophobic atmosphere that grows ever more disturbing as we…… Read more “The all-seeing eye”

    4 de January de 20194 de January de 2019 by juliana

    The view and the woods opening to a light that’s itself untrodden

    Dear Ali, Winter (2017) is a novel full of the ambivalence embodied in this season: the dying of light that is also a promise of new light.…… Read more “The view and the woods opening to a light that’s itself untrodden”

    22 de December de 201822 de December de 2018 by juliana

    Standing at this border where land and water meet

    Dear Han Kang, The White Book, tr. Deborah Smith (2017. Original: 흰, 2016) is a meditation on colour. We start with a list of white things –…… Read more “Standing at this border where land and water meet”

    21 de December de 201821 de December de 2018 by juliana

    My past life would be but a dream,

    Dear Ottessa, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) seems to be a novel suffering from split personality: on the one hand, it is a book about…… Read more “My past life would be but a dream,”

    18 de December de 2018 by juliana

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    Copyright © The Blank Garden (2007-2020). All Rights Reserved. Authors and artists hold the rights to their individual work. Any works posted against the wishes of the copyright owner will be removed asap upon request. This is a personal and non-commercial blog. The posts and videos published here are not sponsored, and the material published here is in conformation with Fair Use: criticism and comment, research and scholarship, and other educational uses. To know more about the blog policies, visit this page. Please do not use my words, videos or personal photos without attribution. Thank you.

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