Results by title
331 books match the query 'World Literature' and 4 start with n
New Waw, Saharan Oasis
By Ibrahim al-Koni
University of Texas Press, 2014
Winner, National Translation Award, American Literary Translators Association, 2015
Upon the death of their leader, a group of Tuareg, a nomadic Berber community whose traditional homeland is the Sahara Desert, turns to the heir dictated by tribal custom; however, he is a poet reluctant to don the mantle of leadership. Forced by tribal elders to abandon not only his poetry but his love, who is also a poet, he reluctantly serves as leader. Whether by human design or the meddling of the Spirit World, his death inspires his tribe to settle down permanently, abandoning not only nomadism but also the inherited laws of the tribe. The community they found, New Waw, which they name for the mythical paradise of the Tuareg people, is also the setting of Ibrahim al-Koni’s companion novel, The Puppet.
For al-Koni, this Tuareg tale of the tension between nomadism and settled life represents a choice faced by people everywhere, in many walks of life, as a result of globalism. He sees an inevitable interface between myth and contemporary life.
No Hand Held Mine
Stories — "Granny Wild Goose" and "The Root's Tale"Kim Soom
Rutgers University Press, 2026
An elderly Korean woman talking about being forced into sexual slavery during World War II. A modern Korean woman extricating herself from a failing relationship with an artist. Award-winning South Korean writer Kim Soom presents us with portraits of two women who couldn’t be more different but who both show resilience and compassion. No Hand Held Mine: Stories, containing one non-fiction piece and one short story, demonstrates the power and breadth of Kim’s writing. “Granny Wild Goose” uses former Comfort Woman Gil Won-Ok’s own words, recorded during conversations with Kim, to tell her life story of brutality, betrayal, and survival. In “The Root’s Tale,” the female protagonist comes to understand the strength of solitary women. Both devastating and reaffirming, No Hand Held Mine shows why Kim Soom has received every major literary award in Korea. Joon-Li Kim and Doo-Sun Ryu’s sensitive translation maintains Kim’s lyricism and exquisite imagery.
This book is published with the support of The Daesan Foundation.
Northern Lights
Drago Jancar
Northwestern University Press, 2001
Nothing Vast
A NovelMoshe Zvi Marvit
Acre Books, 2024
Spanning from 1932 to 1973, Nothing Vast delves deeply into the circumstances and concerns of Jews in cities across the globe—in Poland, France, Morocco, and the United States—as well as in Israel. Giving voice to characters male and female, young and old, Moshe Zvi Marvit braids together stories of migration and struggle, of custom and superstition, of long-held secrets and lies. This beautifully crafted novel follows a survivor of sexual assault, a member of the French resistance, a dream interpreter, a petty criminal, and a venerated rabbi.
Based on the experiences and traditions of the author’s own half-Arab Jewish family, the book is rife with historical and cultural detail and with the intricacies of faith and identity, both personal and national. At the center of the novel is Israel itself—a place existing first in the collective imagination, then in reality as Marvit slips into nonfiction to document the establishment of the country and the reactions to its birth. The characters’ experiences upon arrival in their new nation are vastly different: one family is given a large orange grove upon which to establish a Yeshiva, while the other, not accorded the same privileges, lives beneath notice. The story takes yet another twist when, years later, a grandchild of one of the founding rabbis, seeking answers, discovers the origin of his family’s land.
Visceral, intellectual, and searching, Nothing Vast is nothing short of a virtuosic debut.