In Tatsuhiko Shibusawa’s allegorical novel Takaoka’s Travels, there are questions about whether a lifelong dream to reach the Buddha’s place of origin is worth it. Takaoka had a close relationship with his father’s consort,... Read More

This tongue-in-cheek picture book celebrates the creation—and the conclusions—of stories. The unnamed narrator describes their childhood desire to be an endfixer, “someone who fixes the ends of stories” because some endings are... Read More

A grandmother and her granddaughter are entombed in a house whose walls hunger for murderous vengeance in Layla Martínez’s horror novel "Woodworm". The women are trapped in their small town due to the curse of the elder’s father.... Read More

Set in the Netherlands, Jaap Robben’s novel "Afterlight" is about an elderly woman’s work to discover what happened to her child. In the book’s present, Frieda is in her eighties. After her husband, Louis, dies, she is deemed too... Read More

The freedom to live life on its own terms is at stake in Omar Youssef Souleimane’s novel "The Last Syrian", about the Arab Spring in Syria. When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in desperation over the situation in his native... Read More

A lonely hairdresser finds comfort and inspiration in an unlikely place in Stéphane Carlier’s effervescent English-language debut, "Clara Reads Proust". The people working at the Cindy Coiffure hair salon are a dissatisfied bunch.... Read More

A determined, empathetic woman works to preserve the stories that others dismiss in Valérie Perrin’s scintillating novel "Forgotten on Sunday". Orphaned as a toddler and raised by her grandparents, Justine could be cynical at... Read More