Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano

September 13, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis. Peirene Press, 2019. 128 pgs. The short stories included in this collection are connected through its shared characters, the shared setting of rural France, and the shared themes of dispossession, hitchhiking, and suicide. Some of these shared connections are stronger than others; there was, for example, little about the setting that stood out as distinctly French to me. If I had not read about the setting in […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Emmanuelle Pagano, Jennifer Higgins, Sophie Lewis

The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay

June 10, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman. Peirene Press, 2017. Originally published 2013. 160 pgs. Purchased. Twin brothers, Ahmed and Aziz, live near an orange grove established by their grandfather. The orange grove provides Ahmed and Aziz with a shaded, safe place to play-act, as young children are ought to do. When a bomb falls on the grandparents’ house, the people living on the other side of the mountain – people that Ahmed and Aziz have been […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Fiction, French, Middle East, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Larry Tremblay, Sheila Fischman

Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi

May 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. Tin House Books, 2012. Originally published 2001. 110 pgs. Library copy. Rather than recap the book for myself, I’d like to copy the summary provided by the publisher as I think it best incapsulates the haunting tone of this novella: “A single mother takes her two sons on a trip to the seaside. They stay in a hotel, drink hot chocolate, and go to the funfair. She wants to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Adriana Hunter, Véronique Olmi

Hostage by Guy Delisle

August 2, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French. Drawn and Quarterly, 2017. 436 pgs. Library copy. In 1997, a French administrator for Médecins Sans Frontières (or, Doctors Without Borders) named Christophe Andre was kidnapped in the middle of the night from the organization’s base in Nazran and taken to Chechnya in Russia. Andre is held hostage for three months and tormented by the thoughts of escaping and fantasies of rescue. Delisle is best known for his graphic travelogues of places normally […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Comics, Crime, Europe, French, Nonfiction, Russia, Translated • Tags: Guy Delisle

Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda

July 8, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 2011. 128 pgs. Purchased.i In the 1960s, a young boy named Hadachinou moves between the public streets of Tripoli and the private spaces inhabited by his mother, her best friend, and other women of his acquaintance. His age and size means he isn’t viewed as a threat in Libya’s patriarchal society, allowing him to blend in and go unnoticed in female spaces. It also […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Africa, Feminism, Fiction, French, Peirene Press, ReadDiverse, Translated • Tags: Adriana Hunter, Kamal Ben Hameda

Climate Changed by Philippe Squarzoni

March 18, 2016 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French. Harry N. Abrams, 2014. 467 pgs. Library copy. When it comes to comics and graphic novels, I tend to be drawn to those on the nonfiction shelf. I find the format tends to make darker or complex topics more accessible and personalized than a long nonfiction tome. So I was intrigued by Squarzoni’s comic, which is subtitled “a personal journey through the science”, when I was browsing the library’s comics section. This book grew […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Chunkster, Comics, Europe, France, French, Nonfiction, Translated

Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie

February 26, 2016 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the French by Helge Dascher. Drawn and Quarterly, 2007. 105 pgs. Library copy. Nineteen-year-old Aya lives in working-class city of Yopougon (also known as Yop City) of the Ivory Coast in 1978. Aya’s father works for Solibra, a beer company, and is determined to establish a match between the young son of his boss and his daughter. As a studious young woman determined to become a doctor, Aya is neither interested in this match nor in the cousin of one […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Africa, Comics, Fiction, French, ReadDiverse, Translated • Tags: Clément Oubrerie, Marguerite Abouet

An Iranian Metamorphosis by Mana Neyestani

April 20, 2015 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Translated from the French by Ghazal Mosadeq. Uncivilized Books, 2014. Originally published 2012. 160 pgs. Library copy. A cartoonist for a newspaper geared towards children in Iran, Neyestani drew a cartoon featuring a cockroach speaking an Azeri word – which is used to mean “what?” in Iranian Persian – in 2006 and ended up in one of Iran’s notorious secret jails. Such a sentence seems surprisingly harsh, but the Iranian government charged Neyestani with working against the […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Comics, French, Middle East, Nonfiction, Translated • Tags: Mana Neyestani

Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano

April 8, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti. Yale University Press, 2014. 213 pgs. Library copy. Like many who read solely in English, the announcement that Modiano won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature left me a bit confounded. I have never heard of the author and never, to my recollection, seen a review for his work on one of the many book blogs I religiously read. Journalists and bloggers alike blamed the lack of awareness for his […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Genocide, Holocaust, Nobel Prize, Short Stories, Translated • Tags: Patrick Modiano

A Game for Swallows by Zeina Abirached

December 10, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French. Graphic Universe, 2012. Originally published 2007. 188 pgs. Library copy. Born to a Lebanese Christian family in 1981, the Lebanese Civil War has been a constant part of Abirached’s life and it seems almost normal that the city of Beirut is cut into two – East Beirut for Christians and West Beirut for Muslims – by bricks and sandbags. Snipers and artillery bombings keep people from leaving in the windowless rooms of their […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Comics, French, Middle East, Nonfiction, Translated • Tags: Zeina Abirached

Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle

December 9, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French by Helge Dascher. Drawn and Quarterly, 2008. Originally published 2007. 263 pgs. Library copy. Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been ruled by a military junta since a coup in 1962 and has largely been demonized by the governments of Western countries, particularly the United States. The ruling generals use isolation as a tool of social control – censors monitor the papers and remove stories with scissors, the leader of the opposition won […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, Comics, French, Nonfiction, Translated • Tags: Guy Delisle

Shenzhen by Guy Delisle

December 6, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French by Helge Dascher. Drawn and Quarterly, 2006. Originally published 2000. 148 pgs. Library copy. Once again, Delisle is hired by an animation company to oversee the animation office outsourced to an Asian country. This time, he spends a few months living in an urban city in southern China located near Hong Kong but sealed off from the rest of the country by electric fences and armed guards. Such conditions were unknown to me […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, China, Comics, French, Nonfiction, Translated • Tags: Guy Delisle