English & Comparative Literature

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez Literary icon and great American novelist Julia Alvarez, bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, returns with a luminescent novel about storytelling that reads like an instant classic. "Only an alchemist as wise and sure as Alvarez could swirl the elements of folklore and the flavor of magical realism around her modern prose and make it all sing . . . Lively, joyous . . . often witty, occasionally somber and elegiac."--Luis Alberto Urrea,The New York Times Book Review "Engaging and written in a playful, crystal-clear prose, this novel explores friendship, love, sisterhood, living between cultures, and how people can be haunted by the things they don't finish . . . Entertaining . . . Heartwarming." --Gabino Iglesias, The Boston Globe **Named a Most Anticipated Book by the New York Times, Washington Post, Today.com, Goodreads, B&N Reads, Literary Hub, HipLatina, BookPage, BBC.com, Zibby Mag, and more** Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

The Cleaving by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud (Editor); Lan Duong (Editor); Viet Thanh Nguyen (Editor) The first and only book to gather the voices and perspectives of Vietnamese diasporic authors from across the globe. Edited by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Lan P. Duong, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Cleaving brings together Vietnamese artists and writers from around the world in conversation about their craft and how their work has been shaped and received by mainstream culture and their own communities. This collection highlights how Vietnamese diasporic writers speak about having been cleaved--a condition in which they have been separated from, yet still hew to, the country that they have left behind. Composed of eighteen dialogues among thirty-seven writers from France, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Canada, Australia, Israel, and the United States, the book expands on the many lives that Vietnamese writers inhabit. The dialogues touch on family history, legacies of colonialism and militarism, and the writers' own artistic and literary achievements. Taken together, these conversations insist on a deeper reckoning with the conditions of displacement. Featured writers: Hoai Huong Aubert-Nguyen, Amy Quan Barry, Doan Bui, Thi Bui, Lan Cao, Cathy Linh Che, André Dao, Duy Đoàn, Lan P. Duong, Dương Vân Mai Elliott, Le Ly Hayslip, Matt Huynh, Violet Kupersmith, Thanhhà Lại, Vincent Lam, T.K. Lê, Tracey Lien, Marcelino Trương Lực , Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, Anna Möi, Beth (Bich) Minh Nguyen, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Hoa Nguyen, Philip Nguyễn, Thảo Nguyễn, Vaan Nguyen, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Andrew X. Pham, Aimee Phan, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood, Bao Phi, Dao Strom, Kim Thúy, Paul Tran, Monique Truong, Minh Huynh Vu, Ocean Vuong

Ghostroots by 'Pemi Aguda In this beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, 'Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before. In "Manifest," a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughter's face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In "Breastmilk," a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable to produce milk for her newborn, she blames herself for failing to uphold her mother's feminist values and doubts her fitness for motherhood. In "Things Boys Do," a trio of fathers finds something unnatural and unnerving about their infant sons. As their lives rapidly fall to pieces, they begin to fear that their sons are the cause of their troubles. And in "24, Alhaji Williams Street," a teenage boy lives in the shadow of a mysterious disease that's killing the boys on his street. These and other stories in Ghostroots map emotional and physical worlds that lay bare the forces of family, myth, tradition, gender, and modernity in Nigerian society. Powered by a deep empathy and glinting with humor, they announce a major new literary talent.

I Am My Country by Kenan Orhan "A powerful and provocative debut collection" (The New York Times Book Review) by"a startling talent who can seemingly do anything" (Anthony Marra) thatexplores the lives of ordinary people in Turkey to reveal how even individual acts of resistance have extraordinary repercussions. "I Am My Country employs many different literary styles and voices to dazzling effect."-The Atlantic FINALIST FOR THEPEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE . LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE . AN ELECTRIC LIT AND LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Spanning decades and landscapes, from the forests along the Black Sea to the streets of Istanbul, Kenan Orhan's​playfulstories​conjure dreamlike worlds-of talking animals, flying houses, and omniscient prayer-callers-to​examine humanity's unfaltering pursuit of hope in even the darkest circumstances. A determined florist trains a neighborhood stray dog to blow up a corrupt president. A garbage collector finds banned instruments-and later, musicians-in the trash and takes them home to form a clandestine orchestra in her attic. A smuggler risks his life to bring a young woman claiming to be pregnant via immaculate conception across the border with Syria. A poor cage-maker tries to use his ability to talk to birds to woo his childhood love just before the 1955 Istanbul pogrom. These characters are united by a desperate yearning to break free from the volatile realities they face- rising authoritarianism, cultural and political turmoil, and staggering violence. Ranging from the absurd to the tenderhearted, the stories in I Am My Country illuminate the constant force amid one country's history of rampant oppression and revolutionary progress- the impulse to survive.

Indigenous Journeys, Transatlantic Perspectives by Anna M. Brígido-Corachán (Editor) Writing from a vantage point that respects tribal specificities and Indigenous sovereignty, the essays in this volume consider the relational place-worlds crafted by the Native American authors Louise Erdrich, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Gordon Henry Jr., Louis Owens, James Welch, Heid E. Erdrich, Ofelia Zepeda, and Simon J. Ortiz. Each is set in conversation with kindred writers and larger sociopolitical debates in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. The shared aim is to decolonize academic methodologies and disciplines across the Atlantic by tracing the creative, spiritual, and intellectual networks that Native writers have established with other communities at home and around the world. Key issues to arise include Native American/Indigenous theories and literary practices that center on relationality, the planetary turn, grounded normativity, trans-Indigeneity, transborder identities, movement, journeying, migration, multilingualism, genomic research, futurity, ecology, and justice.

James (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Percival Everett PULITZER PRIZEWINNER*#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST *ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE* KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER*A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE LAST 30 YEARS In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg * A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more. "Genius"--The Atlantic* "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."--Chicago Tribune* "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."--The Boston Globe* "Everett's most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."--The New York Times When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.  Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

Knife by Salman Rushdie NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring--and surviving--an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time, NPR, Town & Country, New York Post, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black--black clothes, black mask--rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it's you. Here you are. What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide. Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature's capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art--and finding the strength to stand up again.

Love in the Time of Self-Publishing by Christine M. Larson Lessons in creative labor, solidarity, and inclusion under precarious economic conditions As writers, musicians, online content creators, and other independent workers fight for better labor terms, romance authors offer a powerful example--and a cautionary tale--about self-organization and mutual aid in the digital economy. In Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, Christine Larson traces the forty-year history of Romancelandia, a sprawling network of romance authors, readers, editors, and others, who formed a unique community based on openness and collective support. Empowered by solidarity, American romance writers--once disparaged literary outcasts--became digital publishing's most innovative and successful authors. Meanwhile, a new surge of social media activism called attention to Romancelandia's historic exclusion of romance authors of color and LGBTQ+ writers, forcing a long-overdue cultural reckoning. Drawing on the largest-known survey of any literary genre as well as interviews and archival research, Larson shows how romance writers became the only authors in America to make money from the rise of ebooks--increasing their median income by 73 percent while other authors' plunged by 40 percent. The success of romance writers, Larson argues, demonstrates the power of alternative forms of organizing influenced by gendered working patterns. It also shows how networks of relationships can amplify--or mute--certain voices. Romancelandia's experience, Larson says, offers crucial lessons about solidarity for creators and other isolated workers in an increasingly risky employment world. Romancelandia's rise and near-meltdown shows that gaining fair treatment from platforms depends on creator solidarity--but creator solidarity, in turn, depends on fair treatment of all members.

Lustre by Keenan Norris; Michaela Mullin (Editor) Taking place in the other California, the desert city of San Suerte, LUSTRE is about the luckless Lustre Little, a boy haunted by the violence of his hometown; ex-convict Sharone Bonilla, who is haunted by his history; and Destiny Deveraux, an orphan, come of age, who is learning and teaching love and responsibility. "This book settles in this Faulknerian way into its own Yoknapatawpha County. Lustre, Sharone, Destiny, Eddie, Pedro, all of these people live within the landscape of San Suerte."--Laleh Khadivi, author of A Good Country "There is much to admire and learn from Norris' storytelling and his ability to create a city such as San Suerte with its intensive, complicated, and engaging characters. In Lustre, a triangle of characters provides us with profound insights into how individuals deal with poverty, loss, and their haunting indecisions. They say that people in Southern California when hit with a firestorm, earthquake, flood, or mudslide, rebuild on the same spot instead of moving away. Norris' characters stay and face their specific hardships, dramatizing a grit in people who try to rebuild their lives while confronting a violent past and unsure future. We know Norris' characters; they are our neighbors."--Juan Delgado, author of Vital Signs, winner of the American Book Award "Lustre is a pleasure! In his thoroughly distinctive voice, Keenan Norris seduces the audience into a world of Bibleizing hustlers, where sleep is cavernous and the khakis stiff. As a lifelong resident of the city Norris has fictionalized in this profound story of an Empire, a people and their placelessness, this reader finds himself full 'like so much syrup risen and settled, thick-sweet and still ... ' In San Suerte, the barbershop feels like church, and church, like revival. A masterful offering."--Eric DeVaughnn, author of The Beauty of Dragons Fiction. African & African American Studies.