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Book of Numbers is superb. The first 100–150 pages require some patience, but then it picks, and, boy, does it take you places. I think Cohen's a gem. A genuine wordsmith who has increasingly dedicated himself to crafting narratively compelling fiction. You don't go from Dalkey Archive to...

Novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator, Joshua Cohen (b. 1980) debuted in 2005, grabbed our attention with 2010's 800+ page Witz (Dalkey Archive), and went mainstream five years later, publishing the sprawling, frenetic epic Book of Numbers with Random House. He hates — hates —...

If Zero K can be limned in one line—its sense and feel, its spirit, its questions—it is DeLillo's biography in seven words: "Bronx boy wondering why he is here." And how radiant a wondering it is! This latest novel feels, I admit, like a last breath. (Maybe I am thinking too much about his...

two comments on Appelfeld: first, like Conrad or Nabokov, he learned his language late (in his teens and twenties, I think?), which is always an impressive feat. Second, I read The Conversion last year and, while it opens with what I still think of as a tired critique of Jewish assimilation in...

Chaim Grade (1910-1982) was one of the great Yiddish writers. A poet by vocation, he came to the attention of English-language readers as a prose-writer after moving to the US in 1948. His best known works include the two-volume novel The Yeshiva, the memoir (written in the third-person) My...

One of the better sites for Yiddish literature nowadays is In Geveb (ingeveb.org). Between the articles and reviews penned by major figures and up'n'comers in the field to the nonacademic-friendly blog section (the best-dressed Yiddish writers are worth a look: stylish gentlemen, big-hatted...

After having watched Antichrist for, oh, the fourth time I think, I found on Youtube a clip of the film critic Mark Kermode discussing the film. While overall his seemed to me a fair analysis, one of Kermode's comments stuck with me uncomfortably. Kermode was going on about misogyny in von...

Kjell Espmark (1930-) is, as some of you may know, a member of the Swedish Academy, that body of people whose job it is to decide each year who the Nobel Laureate will be. He is also a poet - a superb one at that. Reading the collection Route Tournante (1992), as translated by Joan Tate, I would...

Frans Kellendonk (1951-1990) was a Dutch writer best known for his 1986 novel Mystiek lichaam (The Body Mystic), who died at 39 from AIDS-related illnesses. Since there's very little available information on Kellendonk (in English), I'll gather together what I know and put some links at the...

Gerard Kornelis van het Reve (1923-2006) is one of the most distinguished figures of Dutch literature in the 20th Cent. Gay, devout Roman Catholic, ironic, and much admired, but very controversial, it seems, in the Netherlands, though I'm not sure what his reputation is in other places. Thought...

David Rosenmann-Taub (1927-) is a respected Chilean poet and composer. A precocious boy, Rosenmann-Taub published his first poem at ("The Adolescent") at fourteen. Armando Uribe Arce, 2004 winner of Chile's Premio Nacional, called him "the most important living poet of the Spanish language." His...

Derick Thomson (or Ruaraidh MacThòmais) (1921-) is a Scottish poet and academic who writes in Scottish Gaelic. This is his wiki page. And this is the openDemocracy article which made me aware of Thomson: Gaelic poet in the world. Some informative selections from that (quite long) article:

Vasily Rozanov (1856-1919) is considered to be one Russia's most important and highly controversial philosophers. Rozanov is especially remembered and praised for his "deeply personal diaries, which contain his intimate thoughts, impromptu lines, unfinished maxims, vivid aphorisms...

Henri Cole (1956-) is among America's greatest contemporary poets. Here's his website, which contains audio, videos, some essays, and various other links and whatnot. Some poems and some biographical info: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1083 I've been reading Cole for a while now, mainly...

Poet, playwright, and philosopher Lucian Blaga (1895-1961) appears to be one of the most important Romanian writers of the first half of the 20th Cent. His poetry has apparently had a lasting effect on the literature of Romania. Since only his poetry (all of it) and one play have been translated...

Never heard of him until today, but Jens Bjørneboe (1920-1976) seems like a fascinating, and important, author. The wiki page is pretty solid. Anyone else ever read or heard of him before? From his highly regarded novel Moment of Freedom (1966), part of The History of Bestiality trilogy (in...

Re: And For Those Looking For Printed Translations Romanian literature suddenly seems so rich to me, probably because of my interest, now, in two close friends: Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade. I've been reading Cioran for a little while now and I'm in love with everything he wrote, especially...

Anne Sexton (1928-1974). Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton Some poetry: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anne-sexton Anne Sexton is a much more complex and emotionally incisive poet than her reductive (and over-discussed) connection with Sylvia Plath tends to imply. Despite...

No, not Czeslaw Milosz. Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz (1877-1939), Czeslaw's distant cousin, and a staggering poet all in his own right. Here's the wiki bio. I've decided to tag this with the Lithuanian flag because O. Milosz, though he wrote exclusively in French and lived most of his life...

It's always fun to talk about the films we love and to quibble over this or that director's oeuvre, but it's also nice to admit, sometimes, that you really just despised a great film (I'm thinking of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, personally) or to rail against some more obscure, as yet...