Cees Nooteboom wrote the poems that make up "Monk's Eye" on two islands: he began them on the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and finished them on the Spanish island of Minorca, where he has spent summers for decades. The poems – which can be read in...

Two men talk in Tokyo. One, a Belgian, is a diplomat. The other, Dutch, is a photographer. What, they wonder, is the real face of Japan? How can they get beyond the European idea of the nation and its people – with its exoticism – and see Japan as it...

This book focuses on six brilliant women who are often seen as particularly tough-minded: Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus, and Joan Didion. Aligned with no single tradition, they escape straightforward categories....

Set during the last years of Spanish rule in Equatorial Guinea, "Shadows of Your Black Memory" presents the voice of a young African man reflecting on his childhood. Through the idealistic eyes of the nameless protagonist, Donato Ndongo portrays the...

Laura Wilmote is a television journalist living in Paris. Her life couldn't be better – a stimulating job, a loving boyfriend, interesting friends – until her phone rings in the middle of one night. It is C., an old school friend whom Laura recently...

When Anna discovers a long letter that her mother Marie wrote, Marie has been dead for some time, and Anna is shocked to learn that her mother disappeared with a secret. The letter is addressed to Marie's first great love, a much older teacher who sh...

"Fly Away, Pigeon" tells the heart-wrenching story of a family torn between emigration and immigration and paints evocative portraits of the former Yugoslavia and modern-day Switzerland.  In this novel, Melinda Nadj Abonji interweaves two narrative s...

In "Suki", Suniti Namjoshi weaves a witty and delightful tapestry from threads of longing, loss, memory, metaphor, and contemplation. Taken as a whole, the picture she draws is a stunning evocation of the love and friendship shared between herself an...

"Listening to the Loom" brings to light a previously unknown body of ideas and essays from renowned Indian Dalit scholar D. R. Nagaraj, representing his most important writings on literature, politics, and violence. Comprised of thirteen pieces – the...

Cees Nooteboom is best known in the English-speaking world for his acclaimed novels, essays, and travel writing; however, Nooteboom has always seen himself first and foremost as a poet. He has said, "without poetry my life would be unthinkable". "Lig...