It’s not often that I do arrivals posts these days, but I had to highlight these lovely books that popped through the letter box. They are the first three in a new series from World Editions, a New York based publisher (but with UK distribution). Thank you so much to the publisher Christine McSweeney for sending them to me to read and review.
‘Read the World A-Z’ will feature novels from around the world – one country per letter of the alphabet from Argentina to Zambia. The first three above are published in October, so you’ll have to wait a little while for my reviews. Interestingly, there are three letters that only have one country each – O for Oman, Q for Qatar and Y for Yemen – all in the Middle East. I’ll be particularly interested to get to them, as I’ve been aiming to read more from that part of the world. I’ve been sent a sneak peak of all the cover art below – although only the first three are announced and fully realised. The rainbow of spines will look glorious on the shelves, and it’s great to see the translator’s names on the front covers.
- ARGENTINA – All that Dies in April by Mariana Travacio, transl. from the Spanish by Will Morningstar and Samantha Schnee – ‘an ancestral tale rooted in a long Latin American history of rural displacement.
- BELGIUM – The Woman who Fed the Dogs by Kristien Hemmerechts, transl. from the Dutch by Paul Vincent – ‘a deep dive in the mind of the country’s most hated woman.’
- CHINA – Cocoon by Zhang Yueran, transl. from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang – two childhood friends who grew up in the 1980s, reunite, and determine what happened in 1967 involving their grandparents.
You can pre-order the books from the World Editions website.
