New Directions paperback cover (2021) Palestinian author Adania Shibli's third novel, Minor Detail (2021), has been shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. Translated into English by Elizabeth Jaquette, the short novella concerns the murder and rape of an anonymous Arab woman by Israeli forces shortly after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The first half of... Continue Reading →
Contemporary Knopf paperback cover In Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1988), a novel about the haunting effects of slavery, grief takes many forms. For Sethe, the female protagonist who killed her oldest daughter, Beloved, in order to protect her from slavery, grief becomes physical. The arrival of an older Beloved at Sethe’s home, presumably a reincarnation of... Continue Reading →
Apollo Editions cover, later reused by HarperPerennial In Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman (1964), a white woman named Lula mocks, seduces, and ultimately murders a young black man named Clay as they ride together on a New York City subway train. During their journey, they discuss matters of Black identity, racial politics, and the potential for interracial... Continue Reading →
In her debut novel The Street (1946), African American author Ann Petry examines the ways in which the Black community of 1940s Harlem—including the protagonist, a single mother named Lutie Johnson—suffers constant exposure to white racism, even when the presence of that racism remains hidden from direct observation. While this theme is most obviously personified... Continue Reading →
First edition hardcover from Harper Collins. As the esteemed screenwriter of such films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Being John Malkovich (1999), Charlie Kaufman’s debut novel was bound to be devoured by readers and critics alike. Antkind, published in July 2020, centers around a failed film critic named B. Rosenberger Rosenberg,... Continue Reading →
Valperga Literature Review 