February 2023 MBR The Literary Fiction Shelf

The Literary Fiction Shelf

A Bach Concert
Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu, author
Olga Rogozenco, illustrator
Gabi Reigh, translator
Center for Romanian Studies
c/o Histria Books
www.histriabooks.com
9781592111701, $29.99, HC, 244pp

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Concert-Classics-Romanian-Literature/dp/159211170X

Synopsis: One of the first successful novels written by a female author in Romania, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu's "A Bach Concert" remains a classic work of Romanian literature. Originally published in 1927 in Romanian, the novel follows the life of the Hallipa family. The main plot revolves around a Bach concert organized by Elena Hallipa-Draganescu for the elite society of Bucharest. It's a story of high society intrigue, family tragedy, East European urban life after World War I, and culture. Published for the first time in English, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu's realistic novel will delight its readers with stories of this long-forgotten era.

Critique: Featuring illustrations by Olga Rogozenco and ably translated into English by Gabi Reigh, "A Bach Concert" by Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu will prove to be of particular appeal to readers with an interest in World War I historical romance fiction. A 'time lost' classic that is now brought back into print for a new generation of appreciative readers, "A Bach Concert" is highly recommended for community and academic library Literary Fiction collections. It should be noted that "A Bach Concert" is also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note #1: Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu was born in 1876 in Galati, Romania. After her marriage with General Nicolae Papadat at only 20 years old, her literary career was stalled because of frequent military relocations and the need to care for her three children. She started publishing stories in literary magazines and in 1919 she published her first novel. Unfortunately, after a long life filled with literary accomplishments and collaborations, she died forgotten by her friends and former colleagues at the age of 79.

Editorial Note #2: Gabi Reigh won the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation in 2017, which inspired her to translate more Romanian literature. As part of her Interbellum Series project, she has translated interwar novels, poetry, and drama by Lucian Blaga, Liviu Rebreanu, and Mihail Sebastian, including The Town with Acacia Trees, which received a PEN Translates award. She has also translated of The Illuminated Burrow by Max Blecher (2022).

Editorial Note #3: Olga Rogozenco is a talented young artist from the Republic of Moldova.

The Last Pomegranate Tree
Bachtyar Ali, author
Kareem Abdulrahman, translator
Archipelago Books
232 Third Street #A111, Brooklyn, NY 11215
https://archipelagobooks.org
9781953861405, $24.00, PB, 321pp

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Pomegranate-Tree-Ali-Bachtyar/dp/1953861407

Synopsis: "Whenever he told lies, the birds would fly away. It had been that way since he was a child. Whenever he told a lie, something strange would happen."

So begins Bachtyar Ali's novel "The Last Pomegranate", a phantasmagoric warren of fact, fabrication, and mystical allegory, set in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's rule and Iraq's Kurdish conflict.

Muzafar-i Subhdam, a peshmerga fighter, has spent the last twenty-one years imprisoned in a desert yearning for his son, Saryas, who was only a few days old when Muzafar was captured. Upon his release, Muzafar begins a frantic search, only to learn that Saryas was one of three identical boys who became enmeshed in each other's lives as war mutilated the region.

An inlet to the recesses of a terrifying historical moment, and a philosophical journey of formidable depths, "The Last Pomegranate" interrogates the origins and reverberations of atrocity while also probing, with a graceful intelligence, unforgettable acts of mercy.

Critique: A deftly scripted chronicle of war and an a memorable story of love between a father and his son from one of Iraq's most celebrated contemporary writers,"The Last Pomegranate" by Bachtyar Ali (and ably translated from Kardish into English by Abdulrahman) is an eloquent and deftly crafted work of literature that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book has been finished and set back upon the shelf. While readily available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99) from Archipelago Books, "The Last Pomegranate Tree" is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to both community and academic library Literary Fiction collections.

Editorial Note #1: Bachtyar Ali (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachtyar_Ali) is one of the most prominent contemporary authors and poets from Iraqi Kurdistan. He has written over 40 books of fiction, poetry, and criticism, including 12 novels, and has been widely translated, a renown very few authors writing in the Kurdish language enjoy. In 2017, he was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize, joining past recipients such as Milan Kundera, Margaret Atwood and Javier Mar¡as. He is the first author writing in a non-European language to do so. In 2009, Ali received the first HARDI Literature Prize, part of the largest cultural festival in the Kurdish part of Iraq. In 2014, he was also awarded the newly established Sherko Bekas Literature Prize.

Editorial Note #2: Currently residing in London, Kareem Abdulrahman is a translator who has also worked as a Kurdish media and political analyst for the BBC. His translation of Bakhtiyar Ali's "I Stared at the Night of the City" was the first Kurdish novel to be translated into English. (https://www.catranslation.org/person/kareem-abdulrahman)

What We Don't Talk About
James Janko
University of Wisconsin Press
728 State Street, Suite 443, Madison, WI 53706-1418
www.uwpress.wisc.edu
9780299340049, $17.95, PB, 224pp

https://www.amazon.com/What-We-Dont-Talk-About/dp/029934004X

Synopsis: Orville, Illinois, is bucolic, charming, and almost Norman Rockwellesque -- if you're white. But like many midwestern cities in the 1960s, it is a "sundown" town, a place where Black Americans are prohibited from entering or remaining after dark.

The town's most adventurous woman, Cassie Zeul, is an outcast because she has no husband and takes an occasional lover. Her son, Gus, guided by Sister Damien, aspires to be a priest, but he is increasingly overwhelmed by his infatuation with Pat Lemkey -- who is herself drawn to Jenny Biel, considered by many to be the most beautiful girl in town.

Gus's best friend, Fenza Ryzchik Jr., a somewhat notorious bully desperate for his father's attention, hates "colored people," doesn't think he knows any, and is certain he can convince Jenny to marry him one day -- without realizing that her devout mother has been passing for white her entire life. Events come to a head when a visiting nun from the South brings an African American friend with her to Midnight Mass one Christmas Eve.

Critique: With its theme of prejudice, privilege and power in Midwest America, "What We Don't Talk About" by James Janko is a timely (given the present and pressing social issues of being Black in America) and a deftly crafted novel by an author with a genuine flair for revealing the dramatic in the mundane. With a special appeal to readers with an interest in small town based race relations historical fiction, "What We Don't Talk About" is one of those thought-provoking works of literary fiction that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book has been finished and set back upon the shelf. While highly recommended for both community and academic library collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "What We Don't Talk About" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $17.050.

Editorial Note: James Janko (https://jamesjanko.com) is also the author of Buffalo Boy and Geronimo and The Clubhouse Thief. His short stories have been published in The Sun, Massachusetts Review, and Eureka Literary Magazine, among others.

About The Victor Of The Cold War And The Emperor's New Clothes
Avrora Kepler
Brown Dog Books
9781839523663, $21.67, PB, 278pp

https://www.amazon.com/ABOUT-VICTOR-COLD-EMPERORS-CLOTHES/dp/1839523662

Synopsis: "About The Victor Of The Cold War And The Emperor's New Clothes" by Avrora Kepler is the story of Raya -- a naive but spirited girl growing up in Warsaw Pact Eastern Europe.

As a young adult in the nineties, she buys a one-way ticket to the United States, eager to pursue opportunities away from Eastern Europe's disintegrating society. What Raya discovers, however, is that the black and white polarity in Cold War Europe was just an illusion, and that one hemisphere is by no means better than the one she left behind.

Inspired by true events, "About the Victor of the Cold War and the Emperor's New Clothes" is a novel set in one of the most defining periods of the twentieth century and offers a unique perspective on capitalism as the perfect economic solution to modern civilization's prosperity.

Author Avrora Kepler's novel is also about one girl's quest for the truth amidst the noise of mass media and political doctrines, as she experiences life on both sides of the Iron Curtain, from one extreme ideology to another, in search for the answer to a utopian society.

Critique: An entertaining, thought-provoking, inherently interesting read from cover to cover, "About The Victor Of The Cold War And The Emperor's New Clothes" is an extraordinary novel and one that is unreservedly recommended for community and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that it is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $1.99).

Orphans of Canland
Daniel Vitale
Strij Publishing
www.danielvitale.com
9798986355306, $28.00, HC, 360pp

https://www.amazon.com/Orphans-Canland-Daniel-Vitale/dp/B0BMNW4V71

Synopsis: It's the year 2088, decades after an environmental collapse, and the dust has settled on America. The eco-totalitarian organization, WORLD, has reconfigured society with the intention of restoring nature. Twelve-year-old eternal optimist Tristan Weekes lives in what he believes must be paradise: Canland, an agrarian California desert-greening project. However, Tristan's life-defining medical condition, analgesia, prevents him from feeling physical pain, leaving his brain's stress centers unresponsive to everything from ego-blows to heat waves.

Well-intended, curious, and wielding a stunning vocabulary, Tristan loves to listen to the subversive theories spouted by his older brother, Dylan, a drug-addicted satellite hacker. He also wants to prove his independence to his mother, Helena, a powerful population control-extremist. Meanwhile, all around him, the survivors of the environmental collapse are just working toward a better tomorrow. But when a slew of violent acts befalls Canland, Tristan must confront certain truths about the community he loves-including his family's secrets, his own involvement in the horrors enacted by WORLD, and the debts that are owed to the orphans of Canland.

Critique: "Orphans of Canland" is a deftly crafted work of dystopian literary fiction, set against the backdrop of a frighteningly plausible future. In this original and compelling novel, author Daniel Vitale explores the fate of our planet, the nature of family, and the duty of science, as "Orphans of Canland" asks of the reader -- What does it mean to belong on Earth? While especially and unreservedly recommended for community and academic library Dystopian Fiction collection, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Orphans of Canland" is also available in a paperback edition (9798986355313, $14.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $8.99).

Editorial Note: Daniel Vitale (https://www.danielvitale.com) is a writer and graduate of Amherst College. Orphans of Canland is his first novel.

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