Winter Newsletter 2023 Fiction - Small Press

This collection of early stories from Hiromi Kawakami opens readers to a world of a fantastical Japan. Pulling from deep within Japanese narrative traditions, Kawakami revitalizes the weird with tales of shapeshifting con men, people possessed by fox spirits, a tale of love between ancestors born 400 years apart, deftly mixing traditional ideas with modern settings and sentiments. A great introduction to Japanese literature for the curious.  

—Ed

A darkly entertaining tale, Recital of the Dark Verses takes notes from Cervantes and Dumas and the absurdity of Shakespeare’s comedic mishaps, and never ceases to surprise in gruesome, cadaverous humor. With naive thieves, a perfume-scented corpse, and the many forms of the devil/trickster at play, we traverse the Spanish landscape on the backs of donkeys while debating whether verses written by St. John of the Cross were ecstatically written for God or for an illicit lover. Delight yourself in this playful but wise comedy of errors.  

—Tyler

One of the great novels of Latin American literature and a touchstone for surrealist writers the world over, Pedro Páramo is a haunting journey through memory, loss, and grief. Its critique of authoritarianism remains as pertinent today as the day it was published. Gorgeously translated by the renowned Rulfo scholar Douglas J. Weatherford, this new Grove Press edition includes an introduction by Gabriel García Marquez that should be all the convincing you need to put this novel at the top of your reading list.  

—Rico

The Girls is a delightfully harrowing story about a lesbian couple who become enmeshed in a small town murder. John Bowen is a master of the bizarre and his talent truly shines through his peculiar protagonists. If you're a fan of mystery novels set in charming locales with sinister underbellies, this should be the next book on your reading list.  

—Katrina