‘La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern’ by Lynn Garafola
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, APRIL 2022, 688 PP.Bronislava Nijinska and Valslav Nijinsky in L’Après-midi d’un faune, 1912. BRONISLAVA NIJINSKA (1891-1972) first made her mark as the kid sister and muse of the famous dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Nijinsky, the “God of Dance,” was a troubled genius⎯his original works include some of the first modern ballets–L’Après-midi […]
‘Life Ceremony: Stories’ by Sayaka Murata
GROVE ATLANTIC, JULY 2022, 356 PP. HORROR IS A genre full of feminist potential. In a talk at the 2020 Horror of the Humanities, an annual Halloween event hosted by DePaul University, philosophy professor and Humanities Center Director H. Peter Steeves made the point that horror is an excellent vehicle for feminist messages and interpretations, […]
‘Nevada’ by Imogen Binnie
MCD X FSG ORIGINALS, JUNE 2022, 288 PP. TO REREAD IMOGEN Binnie’s cult classic Nevada nearly ten years after its first publication is to remember the seismic shift this novel created in both queer/trans literature and in life. Nevada, initially published in 2013, was the crest of the wave that was Topside Press, a small-but-mighty, […]
‘All the Lovers in the Night’ by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
EUROPA EDITIONS, MAY 2022, 224 PP. Fuyuko Irie is a thirty-four-year-old freelance proofreader from Japan. One of her most defining characteristics, in her opinion, is that she likes to go for a walk once a year on Christmas Eve, her birthday. “But I was sure that no one else could comprehend what made this […]
‘Post-traumatic’ by Chantal V. Johnson
LITTLE, BROWN; APRIL 2022, 320 PP. In a late scene in Chantal V. Johnson’s novel Post-traumatic, Vivian, the central character, is confronted by two police officers knocking at her door. She’s a thirty-something Black and Latinx lawyer on hiatus; a concerned family member has called the cops to perform a “wellness check.” Calling the […]
‘Bad Girls’ by Camila Sosa Villada, translated by Kit Maude
OTHER PRESS, MAY 2022, 208 PP. We have always existed everywhere. In the Anglophone world of today, we are called trans women. We have had many names. Different cultures of “gender,” if that’s even the right word, leave different slots open for us. The gender system forced on much of the world by Western colonialism […]
‘Nightcrawling’ by Leila Mottley
KNOPF, MAY 2022, 288 PP. Nightcrawling opens with an apartment pool full of dog feces, the cackles of a woman driven mad by life, and a seventeen-year-old protagonist who’s trying to figure out how to pay the rent. Kiara and her barely older brother, Marcus, live in a crumbling East Oakland apartment complex, left […]
‘The Trayvon Generation’ by Elizabeth Alexander
GRAND CENTRAL, APRIL 2022, 144 PP. Born from a deeply resonant New Yorker essay of the same title published during the 2020 racial violence protests, The Trayvon Generation expands like a blanket of rain across a parched horizon. Following her critically acclaimed memoir, The Light of the World, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author […]
‘Either/Or’ by Elif Batuman
PENGUIN PRESS, MAY 2022, 360 PP. In “The Seducer’s Diary,” a novella from Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, a manipulative man stalks and courts a younger girl; soon enough, they are engaged. But the seducer takes his real pleasure in manipulation, not love, and he connives to have the girl break the engagement. Alone and without definitive […]
‘You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar’ by Pyae Moe Thet War
CATAPULT, MAY 2022, 224 PP. Pyae Moe Thet War’s debut begins and ends with writing. A collection of winding, looping personal essays, You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar follows a writer’s coming-of-age, threading through small revelations as Moe Thet War reconciles her life and her art. Anchoring each piece is […]