translation – A Girl Named Tommi

LEMON – Kwon Yeo-Sun

“Lemon, I muttered. Like a chant of revenge, I muttered: Lemon, lemon, lemon.” Da-on “Her beauty was urgent, precarious, like the piercing wail of a speeding ambulance. I could not look away.” – Sanghui’s description of Taerim Lemon (Other Press 2021, translated from the Korean by Janet Hong) is Kwon Yeo-sun’s first novel to beContinue reading “LEMON – Kwon Yeo-Sun”

US AGAINST YOU – Fredrik Backman

“People we love will die. We will bury our children beneath our most beautiful trees.” “On the hilltop stand two girls, watching the car disappear. They’ll soon be sixteen. One of them is holding a guitar, the other a rifle.” Fredrik Backman is easily one of my top five contemporary authors. The following is quoteContinue reading “US AGAINST YOU – Fredrik Backman”

BEARTOWN – Fredrik Backman

“Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there.” With perhaps the most memorable of openings, Fredrik Backman begins Beartown (Atria 2017, English translation byContinue reading “BEARTOWN – Fredrik Backman”

THE BATHING WOMEN – Tie Ning

Tie Ning’s The Bathing Women (2000, 2012 – English translation by Hongling Zhang and Jason Sommer) was an unexpected read. The translation received mixed reviews, and I initially found it a bit “off” – but I realized it wasn’t the translation so much as the style of storytelling. It was a bit frustrating, especially earlyContinue reading “THE BATHING WOMEN – Tie Ning”

MY GRANDMOTHER ASKED ME TO TELL YOU SHE’S SORRY – Fredrik Backman

“But they do what they can. They construct words of forgiveness from the ruins of fighting words.” I’ve read countless books over the years. Countless. There have been books I loved, books I hated, books I enjoyed, and books that were entirely forgettable. I am a reader, and every reader knows that once in aContinue reading “MY GRANDMOTHER ASKED ME TO TELL YOU SHE’S SORRY – Fredrik Backman”

Fredrik Backman – A Man Called Ove

I picked up Fredrik Backman’s A MAN CALLED OVE while in the used bookstore. I didn’t need to add to my stack of books, but I’ve never been able to turn down a book. Originally published in Swedish in 2012, A MAN CALL OVE is positively brilliant. It is so beautifully translated. Translations can beContinue reading “Fredrik Backman – A Man Called Ove”