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From the award-winning Serbian author David Albahari comes a devastating and Kafkaesque war fable about an army unit sent to guard a military checkpoint with no idea where they are or who the enemy might be.Atop a hill, deep in the forest, an army unit is assigned to a checkpoint. The commander doesn't know where they are, what border they're protecting, or why. Their map is useless and the radio crackles with a language no one can recognize. A soldier is found dead in a latrine and the unit vows vengeance-but the enemy is unknown. Refugees arrive seeking safe passage to the other side of the checkpoint, however the biggest threat might be the soldiers themselves. As the commander struggles to maintain order and keep his soldiers alive, he isn't sure whether he's fighting a war or caught in a bizarre military experiment. Equal parts Waiting for Godot and Catch-22, Checkpoint is a haunting and hysterical confrontation with the absurdity of war.

One of the world's oldest and best-loved tales, now retold and illustrated in thrilling detail for readers of all ages.Rama pulled the splendid arrow out of his quiver. It had been given to him long ago by the sage Agastya who had told him that he could use it only once and only for a great enemy. The incomparable arrow held the wind in its feathers, the sun and the moon in its shining tip, the earth in its shaft and the power of the doomsday fire in its flight.Ramayana-an unforgettable tale of love, adventure, flying monkeys and god acting in the world of humans-has been treasured by readers around the world for thousands of years. Now in an authoritative, gripping retelling by the renowned Ramayana scholar Arshia Sattar, readers have a new chance to explore this classic's riches.Rama is a brave young prince who is forced into exile. His brother Lakshmana and his wife, the beautiful princess Sita, loyally follow him into the depths of the mysterious forest, where they encounter strange and dangerous creatures. None is as terrifying as Ravana, the ten-headed demon king who kidnaps Sita and takes her to a fortified city in the middle of the ocean. To rescue her, Rama enlists the help of hundreds of thousands of magical monkeys and bears to fight the demon army and win her back. Even the gods gather to witness the harrowing battle. Will Rama and his friends prevail, and will Sita return to him? Only these captivating pages will tell...

A brilliant, kaleidoscopic exploration of soccer-and the passion, hopes, rivalries, superstitions, and global solidarity it inspires-from Juan Villoro, "e;Mexico's top futbol expert"e; (NBC News).On a planet where FIFA has more members than the United Nations and the World Cup is watched by more than three billion people, football is more than just a game. As revered author Juan Villoro argues in this passionate and compulsively readable tribute to the world's favorite sport, football may be the most effective catalyst for panglobal unity at the time when we need it most. (Following global consensus, Villoro uses "e;football"e; rather than "e;soccer"e; in the book.)What was the greatest goal of all time? Why do the Hungarians have a more philosophical sense of defeat than the Mexicans? Do the dead play football? In essays ranging from incisive and irreverent portraits of Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo, Pele, Zidane, and many more giants of the game to entertaining explorations of left-footedness and the number 10, Juan Villoro dissects the pleasure and pain of football fandom. God Is Round is a book for both fanatics and neophytes who long to feel the delirium of the faithful.

"e;Deeply psychological and mysterious, the book will stimulate the imagination of the reader's mind to the extreme."e; -Marina Abramovic "e;In his latest novel, Jodorowsky builds on his multi-decade long assault of the public imagination.... a fantastical and genre-defying parable of love and friendship.... At its core, Albina and the Dog-Men is a love story about two people committed to one another's survival and to discovering their potential. And, as with life, it is sometimes only through the weathering of a storm that our true capacities are made clear."e; -NPR BooksWhen two women-an amnesiac goddess and her protector, a leather-tough woman called Crabby-arrive in a Chilean desert town, Albina's otherworldly allure and unfettered sensuality turn men into wild beasts. Chased by a clubfooted corrupt cop, evil corporate overlords, giant-hare-riding narcos, and Himalayan cultists, Albina and Crabby must find a magical cactus that will cure Albina and the men's monstrous affliction before the town consumes itself in an orgy of lust and violence.Albina and the Dog-Men is Alejandro Jodorowsky's darkly funny, shocking, and surreal hybrid of mystical folktale, road novel, horror story, and social parable, ultimately uniting in a universal story of love against the odds and what makes us human.

"The moving story of three generations of women adapting to their new home, and it's mythical inhabitants, in the tragic aftermath of the 2011 Tåohoku earthquake disaster"--

"This volume is a people's history of English in the United States, told by those who have transformed it: activists, teachers, immigrants, journalists, poets, dictionary makers, actors, musicians, playwrights, preachers, presidents, rappers, translators, singers, children's authors, scientists, politicians, foreigners, students, homemakers, lexicographers, scholars, newspaper columnists, senators, novelists, and a slew of fanatics. It begins with the English used by the settlers in Plymouth Colony and concludes (for now) with John McWhorter's tribute to punctuation that bends the rules. The quest is to understand how an imperial language like English, with Germanic origins, whose spread resulted from the Norman conquest, came to be an intrinsic component of the most influential democratic experiment in the world. Edited by internationally renowned cultural commentator and consultant for the OED Ilan Stavans, it is organized chronologically and offers a banquet of letters, poems, essays, dictionary entries, stories, songs, legislative documents, and other evidence of verbal mutation. Immigrants have propelled these transformations. Hybrid dialects like Yinglish, Spanglish, and Hawaiian pidgin have flowered. Our linguistic and cultural multiplicity has sparked fierce national debates that play out in these pages--from the compulsory education (and deracination) of Native Americans, to the classification of Black Vernacular English (once celebrated and ridiculed as Ebonics), to the dictionary wars over prescriptive versus descriptive usage, to the push for "English only" mandates that persist to this day. What is clear is that as much as we try to corral it, American English gallops ahead to its own destiny. Driven by American innovators, English has become the global language of both business and entertainment--the medium of the laws that bind us, the art that inspires us, and the connections we forge across cultures. A compendium that is as rich and diverse as the country itself, The People's Tongue helps us grapple with how English has become the world's lingua franca."--

From award-winning Nordic author and illustrator Linda Bondestam comes a new kind of climate change story, narrated by an adorable axolotl who is-possibly-the last of its kind.In a forest of seaweed there was ME, a rare and beautiful little axolotl, going for my first-ever swim.So graceful, and yet so lonesome-out of 987 eggs, mine was the only one that hatched.Who knows, maybe I was the last axolotl in these waters?At the bottom of a lake in Mexico City, our axolotl narrator goes to underwater school, collects treasures tossed away by the big lugs on land, and has dance parties with tiger salamander friends. Life is good!But as the world gets hotter and hotter, the water gets murkier. Friends become harder to find, and the lonesome axolotl grows even lonelier. Until one day when, out of the blue, a colossal wave carries the axolotl into a surprising new future....Bittersweet, droll, existential, and hopeful, My Life at the Bottom is a tale from the climate crisis unlike any other. Combining her irresistible visual wit with exquisite aquatic art and rare empathy, Linda Bondestam brings us a story of catastrophe that bursts with life.

Andrea Chapela, one of Granta's Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists of 2021, breaks down literary and scientific conventions in this prize-winning collection of experimental essays exploring the properties and poetics of glass, mirrors, and light as a means of understanding the self. In powerful, formally inventive essays, The Visible Unseen disrupts the purported cultural divide between arts and science. As both a chemist and an award-winning author, Chapela zeros in on the literary metaphors buried in the facts and figures of her scientific observations. Through questioning scientific conundrums that lie beyond the limits of human perception, she winds up putting herself under the microscope as well. While considering the technical definition of glass as a liquid or a solid, Chapela stumbles upon a framework for understanding the in-between-ness of her own life. Turning her focus toward mirrors, she finds metaphors for our cultural obsessions with self-image in the physics and chemistry of reflection. And as she compiles a history of the scientific study of light, she comes to her final conclusion: that the purpose of description-be it scientific or literary-can never be to define reality, only to confirm our perception of it. Lyrical, introspective, and methodical, The Visible Unseen constructs a startling new perspective from which to examine ourselves and the ways we create meaning.

Award-winning South Korean author Choi Jeong-Hwäs English-language debut, The White City Tale is a powerful exploration of existence, social hierarchies, and resilience as one man fights against a system of inequalities in a quarantined city as a pandemic of bodily and mental erasure rages.

In a small Italian town on the brink of World War II, ten-year-old Micù has a difficult life-diagnosed with polio, alienated by his peers, and potentially cursed by the local witch, the boy finds an unlikely ally in a mischievous demon named Farfariel, and the two embark on a search for a rare and magical book which might hold the key to turning Micù's life around.All that Micù wants from life is to go to school, which his father discourages. Instead, he passes the time with his favorite uncle Tatà, who just returned from years spent living in America with stories galore. But nothing seems to turn out well for Micù. If it weren't enough that he struggles with polio, the young boy is also afflicted by awful nightmares, endures relentless bullying from his peers, draws constant suspicion from the local villagers, and might even be under a curse!One day, Micù has a terrifying dream about a mysterious book that promises to solve his problems. Soon after that he meets Farfariel, a mischievous demon invisible to everyone else, and his life is turned upside down. Together with Farfariel, Micù searches for the book, confronting his greatest fears and finding a confidence in himself that he never knew he had.

In a new collection that brings together the work of eleven notable translators, with an introduction by the bestselling Iranian-American author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi, and original illustrations by Syrian artist Rama Duwaji, the Restless Classics edition of 1,001 Nights showcases the breadth and imagination of these legendary tales from the Arab world. Beginning as an oral storytelling tradition long before the first authoritative manuscript was composed in the 14th century in Syria, which was rendered into French in the 1700s, spawning an exoticized portrait of the ¿Orient¿ that still informs Western stereotypes, the tales of the 1,001 Nights have captivated readers for centuries. We begin with violence, and the power of storytelling: When his wife is unfaithful, King Shahryar takes revenge on all womankind by marrying a virgin and murdering her at the end of every night¿until one named Scheherazade asks to tell a story to her sister. When dawn comes and the story is still unfinished, Shahryar allows her to live and continue the tale the next night¿and Scheherezade does so for one thousand and one nights until the King gives up on killing. In her insightful introduction to the Restless Classics edition of 1,001 Nights, Iranian author Azar Nafisi describes Scheherezade as the true heroine of the tales for those in oppressive regimes who find power and courage in her example: ¿Shahrzad's own story contains a hidden theme, old and timeless¿the theme of what can happen when reality closes all doors; when life seems uncontrollable and unchangeable; when life means death; when one's own life appears to be an insoluble puzzle and only one's own imagination can lead one out of a predicament.¿ There is another vital protagonist in the history of this book: the translator. Told and retold and recreated in the process, these tales are a case study of translators as co-creators. Over the centuries, each translator, deliberately and otherwise, has added to the narrative current, shaping this endless river of stories that is never the same twice. The Restless Classics edition is the first to showcase a wide variety of English translations, presenting a new frame to experience the 1,001 Nights.

In a lush, sun-dappled forest, animal friends discover the advantages of living slowly, in this soothing picture book from beloved South Korean author and illustrator Yeorim Yoon and Jian Kim.Little Bird is all afluttertoo many things to do. Elephant cries with frustration when a shoelace breaks. Rabbit tries so hard and loses the race anyway. But what about Slow Lizard?Just like my name, I live a slow, relaxed life.And because I live a slow life,I see many things,I hear many things,and I have lots of time to help my friends.Meandering through a sunny forest, Slow Lizards friends learn how wonderful it is to slow down together. Filled with blooming trees and fluffy flower beds, Its OK, Slow Lizard glows with the beauty of a hidden magic world, where we take the time to help each other enjoy lifeeven when the rain comes.

NPR Best Books of 2022The Christian Science Monitor 10 Best Books of JuneMost Anticipated Books of 2022: The Millions, Electric Literature, Brittle Paper, Open Country Magazine, Ms. MagazineWinner of the 2020 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, Ethiopian American author Meron Hadero¿s gorgeously wrought stories in A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times offer poignant, compelling narratives of those whose lives have been marked by border crossings and the risk of displacement.Set across the U.S. and abroad, Meron Hadero¿s stories feature immigrants, refugees, and those on the brink of dispossession, all struggling to begin again, all fighting to belong. Moving through diverse geographies and styles, this captivating collection follows characters on the journey toward home, which they dream of, create and redefine, lose and find and make their own. Beyond migration, these stories examine themes of race, gender, class, friendship and betrayal, the despair of loss and the enduring resilience of hope.Winner of the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, ¿The Street Sweep¿ is about an enterprising young man on the verge of losing his home in Addis Ababa who pursues an improbable opportunity to turn his life around. Appearing in Best American Short Stories, ¿The Suitcase¿ follows a woman visiting her country of origin for the first time and finds that an ordinary object opens up an unexpected, complex bridge between worlds. Shortlisted for the 2019 Caine Prize, ¿The Wall¿ portrays the intergenerational friendship between two refugees living in Iowa who have connections to Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A Best American Short Stories notable, ¿Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin¿ Newton¿ is a coming-of-age tale about an Ethiopian immigrant in Brooklyn encountering nuances of race in his new country.Kaleidoscopic, powerful, and illuminative, the stories in A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times expand our understanding of the essential and universal need for connection and the vital refuge of home¿and announce a major new talent in Meron Hadero."Exquisite ¿.Sentences infused with attitude throw gut punches that land with enough power to bring on tears."¿Daphne Kalotay, The Washington Post¿Witty and wistful, complex and heartbreaking, these stories capture lives caught between cultures and continents, past and present, truth and lies. As its displaced characters seek belonging, this collection explores the challenges of connection with empathy and nuance. A thrilling debut.¿¿Brit Bennett, bestselling author of The Vanishing Half and The Mothers¿Debut books don¿t get much stronger than this. Meron Hadero¿s remarkable stories explore a diverse cast of people doing their best to find acceptance or at least stability¿Hadero is deeply perceptive; her dialogue always rings true, and the regard she has for her characters is apparent. This isn¿t just an excellent first book, it¿s an excellent book, period.¿¿Michael Schaub, NPR Best Books 2022: Books We Love¿This book heralds the arrival of a gifted, stunning writer. A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times held me spellbound¿These stories unfold with an intensifying power, each of them a testament to what¿s possible when we move through this world insisting on the potential of hope, and love.¿¿Maaza Mengiste, author of Booker Prize finalist The Shadow King¿This richly detailed, subtly impressionistic short-story collection¿by the first Ethiopian-born writer to win the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing¿pulls at threads of geography, language, generation, race, and gender¿Hadero¿s page shines¿expanding instead of narrowing the range and representation of immigrant experiences.¿¿Daniel King, Mother Jones"Meron Hadero's collection, A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times brims with lives on the margins¿This style, which time and time again comes off the page as truly effortless, is what makes Hadero a new master of the form, and this collection a masterful one." ¿Chigozie Obioma, author of Booker Prize finalists An Orchestra of Minorities and The Fishermen¿Intricate and precise, A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times casts a glimmering light into the most elusive corners of estrangement which all migrants¿torn between past and present, home and journey¿come to know¿A powerful, unforgettable collection.¿¿Ingrid Rojas Contreras, bestselling author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree¿In her debut story collection, Addis Ababäborn Hadero addresses Ethiopian Americans' struggles for acceptance, the painful ties between present and past, and the elusive meaning of home¿. A full range of stylistic approaches is on display in these stories¿. Entertaining and affecting stories with a deft lightness of touch.¿ ¿Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review¿In this impressive debut collection, award-winning Ethiopian American writer Hadero showcases the lives of displaced people trying to create a space for themselves to call home in America and EthiopiäHadero¿s powerful stories usher characters along their searches for belonging, often with nothing but hope and a sense of community pushing them forward.¿¿Emily Park, Booklist, Starred Review¿Meron Hadero¿s dazzling short stories span the diaspora, poignantly portraying characters in search of opportunity and belonging. Rich with insight, compassion, and wit, A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times is an unforgettable debut.¿¿Vanessa Hua, bestselling author of A River of Stars and Forbidden City¿With enormous power and wonderful subtlety, Meron Hadero grants us access to the inner worlds of people at moments when everything is at risk. In the stories that make up A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times, the emotional stakes are high¿.these sharp, humane, beautiful portraits are a gift.¿¿Dinaw Mengestu, Achy Obejas, and Ilan Stavans, from the judges¿ citation¿Although she¿s concerned with specific geographies, Hadero creates a remarkable universal resonance, exquisitely illuminating quotidian moments that could, and do, happen anywhere in the world where people long to belong.... [A] stupendous collection¿. From narrative to narrative, Hadero is a wondrously agile writer.¿¿Terry Hong, The Christian Science Monitor, 10 Best Books of June¿Hadero¿s characters face challenges including racism, crushing misunderstandings, and visits home that remind them of how much they no longer belong, if they ever did¿. Their experiences may be unique, but their desires to live in peace and happiness are universal. A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times is a heartfelt collection about the highs, lows, and ordinary of Ethiopian life.¿¿Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews, Starred Review¿Meron Hadero¿s A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times is an astonishing debut¿.If the danger faced by those who live on the anxious edge of societies, whether in Ethiopia or Germany or the United States, is not always¿or even often¿recognized, Hadero suggests, the signs are present long before they¿re understood. In A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times, she has crafted a profound collection that identifies this sensibility while also, in its overflow of stories, signaling the hope of a teller that a good listener will be ready to receive them.¿¿Anita Felicelli, Alta Journal¿It is the dignity that makes this collection a stunner.¿¿Lauren Francis-Sharma, San Francisco Chronicle¿The dispossessed peoples of the world are explored in Ethiopian-born Hadero¿s dazzling new story collection¿Each story has a lyrical power. As the author says: 'To be receptive to what the story needs, I try to step back and almost hear what the story sounds like from a reader¿s point of view.¿ She is definitely a writer to watch.¿¿Melanie Fleishman, The Center for Fiction

Award-winning journalist Javier Sinay investigates a series of murders from the nineteenth century, unearthing the complex history and legacy of Moisés Ville, the ¿Jerusalem of South America,¿ and his personal connection to a defining period of Jewish history in Argentina.When Argentine journalist Javier Sinay discovers an article from 1947 by his great-grandfather detailing twenty-two murders that had occurred in Moisés Ville at the end of the nineteenth century, he launches into his own investigation that soon turns into something deeper: an exploration of the history of Moisés Ville, one of the first Jewish agricultural communities in Argentina, and Sinay¿s own connection to this historically thriving Jewish epicenter. Seeking refuge from the pogroms of Czarist Russia, a group of Jewish immigrants founded Moisés Ville in the late 1880s. Like their town¿s prophetic namesake, these immigrants fled one form of persecution only to encounter a different set of hardships: exploitative land prices, starvation, illness, language barriers, and a series of murders perpetrated by roving gauchos who preyed upon their vulnerability. Sinay, though a descendant of these immigrants, is unfamiliar with this turbulent history, and his research into the spate of violence plunges him into his family¿s past and their link to Moisés Ville. He combs through libraries and archives in search of documents about the murders and hires a book detective to track down issues of Der Viderkol, the first Yiddish newspaper in Argentina started by his great-grandfather. He even enrolls in Yiddish classes so he can read the newspaper and other contemporaneous records for himself. Through interviews with his family members, current residents of Moisés Ville, historians, and archivists, Sinay compiles moving portraits of the victims of these heinous murders and reveals the fascinating and complex history of the town once known as the ¿Jerusalem of South America.¿¿Sinay acknowledges the impossibility of fully separating legends from facts. . . but his diligence has produced as definitive an account as possible of what actually happened during this bloody period. This nuanced search for truth should have broad appeal.¿¿Publishers Weekly, starred review"I greatly admire Javier Sinay's enlightening and humane account of his sleuthing¿the disinterment of a violent episode of buried history¿now no longer forgotten. Its implications resonate far beyond the borders of Argentina."¿Paul Theroux, author of The Mosquito Coast and Under the Wave at Waimea"Part detective story, part family history, The Murders of Moisés Ville: The Rise and Fall of the Jerusalem of South America ¿ by Buenos Aires journalist Javier Sinay¿ offers a compelling path to learn more."¿Howard Freedman, Jewish News of Northern California¿In the pursuit to understand his own past, while unraveling the mysteries surrounding Moisés Ville, Javier Sinay has created an unflinching portrait of the first Jewish community in Argentina, who, despite enormous challenges, life-threatening privations, and demeaning persecution, endured to pave the way for others seeking a new life in ArgentinäSinay has demonstrated once again, that history must be preserved no matter the cost ¿ for ourselves, as well as for future generations.¿¿Stephen Newton, Litro Magazine¿ What begins as an exercise in historical sleuthing evolves into a more ambitious exploration of Argentine Jewish history and identity¿Sinay doesn¿t need to create a direct connection to this tragic present. It is more than enough that he refuses to flatten the Moisés Ville murders to fit a totalizing narrative of antisemitic violence in Argentina. In so doing, he not only rejects facile conceptions of Jewish victimhood, but also defies the Zionist idea that, by virtue of having suffered in one country, Jews are automatically entitled to land in another.¿¿Lily Meyer, Jewish Currents

Restless Classics presents Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece of horror, Dracula, newly introduced by celebrated author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel Alexander Chee and gorgeously illustrated by Kaitlin Chan.

Restless Classics presents a trenchant new edition of Machiavelli's most powerful works of political philosophy, including The Prince and selections from Discourses on Livy, introduced by New Yorker writer and biographer of Che Guevara, Jon Lee Anderson.

Emilio Renzi, literary alter ego of legendary Argentine author Ricardo Piglia, returns in The Way Out, an academic thriller that relentlessly questions the lengths we go to hide our own truths and to uncover the secrets of others.

Sixty years in the making and the capstone of a monumental literary career, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: A Day in the Life is the final volume of the autobiographical trilogy from the author who is considered Borges¿ heir and the vanguard of the Post-Boom generation of Latin American literature.

A touching and profound tale of friendship, differences, and acceptance from renowned Estonian children¿s author and illustrator Piret Raud. World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translation of 2020