Germany’s colonial crimes in Namibia: Matthias Häussler’s Die Last der Sonne recounts the Ovaherero and Nama resistance and the genocide that followed. A review by Christoph Nick... #booksky #namibia #germany #colonialism literatur.review/de/rezension...

Deutsche Kolonialverbrechen in Namibia | literatur.review

Matthias Häussler schildert in „Die Last der Sonne“ die Kriege der Ovaherero und Nama gegen die deutsche Kolonialherrschaft in Namibia – Selbstbewusste Afrikaner treffen auf rassistische Menschenverac...

literatur.review

Student protests in France awaken memories of Beirut: of hope, war and shattered dreams. Lebanese writer Iman Humaydan reflects on generations of protest, the fear of losing home and the freedom to imagine a different future... #booksky #beirut #paris #studentprotest literatur.review/en/essay/whe...

When the streets of Paris stir memories of Beirut | literatur.review

From the student protests in France in 2026 to the demonstrations in Beirut in the 1970s and the uprising of 2019: reflections by a Lebanese writer living in Paris on youth, protest and the homeland w...

literatur.review

To survive, Hadiyya becomes Hajj Hadi, a respected healer in wartime Iraq. But war threatens to destroy the identity she has built. A haunting story of survival, violence and power. (CW: Sexual violence, suicide.) #booksky #iraq #war literatur.review/en/literatur...

The Hyenas’ Feast | literatur.review

literatur.review

Love, debt and class consciousness: Ruth-Maria Thomas’ Die zweitgrößte Liebe explores inequality without reducing its heroine to her circumstances. Anina Englert on a distinctive literary voice beyond Eribon and Louis. #booksky #germany literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

Love and Class Consciousness | literatur.review

Sugar from sour apple rings stuck to her fingers: Ruth Maria Thomas’s "Die zweitgrößte Liebe" tells the story of Michelle, of counting and of class – in a voice more original than that of Didier Eribo...

literatur.review

“We carry culture in our bodies.” Iranian writer and artist Saharnaz Omran speaks with Mbizo Chirasha about war, censorship, artistic freedom, and the memories and rituals that shape cultural identity. #booksky #iran #CulturalMemory literatur.review/en/interview...

"We Carry Culture in Our Bodies" | literatur.review

Zimbabwean writer Mbizo Chirasha talks to Tehran-based writer and artist Saharnaz Omran about writing, loss, political violence, unstable memory and life under the Islamic Republic

literatur.review

Can love overcome religious boundaries? In Hafwah, a Jewish woman and a Muslim man confront faith, tradition, and social constraints in early 20th-century Yemen. Mohammed Al-Mekhlafi on Bassam Shams Al-Deen’s remarkable novel. #booksky #yemen #islam #jewish literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

When Love Crosses the Line of Faith | literatur.review

The Conflict Between Religion and Love in Bassam Shams Al-Deen's "Hafwah", a Novel About Yemen's Jews

literatur.review

First love, family secrets, and the weight of silence. In The South, Tash Aw transforms a coming-of-age story into a subtle portrait of Malaysian society in crisis. Christiane Bock on a masterfully crafted novel... #booksky #malaysia #queer literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

On the Futility of Words | literatur.review

Tash Aws’s masterfully crafted novel "The South" tells the story of Jay, 16, who spends his holiday on his family’s farm in Malaysia. What begins as a coming-of-age story ultimately departs deliberate...

literatur.review

Finally available in English: Michel Jean’s 'Ninan – Tiohtiá, Montreal'. A moving novel about Indigenous homelessness, exclusion, and the power of friendship and trust. #booksky #canada literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

The Lives of Indigenous People in Montreal | literatur.review

In “Ninan – Tiohtiá:ke, Montreal,” Michel Jean tells the story of an outcast homeless man’s arduous journey back into society, and shows how the role of those who trust you unconditionally is so cruci...

literatur.review

Who gets to imagine the future? Afro-Cuban writer Maielis González Fernández challenges the exclusions of science fiction. In Nuclear, failed utopias, migration and Black Caribbean identity converge... #booksky #cuba #future literatur.review/en/portrait/...

An Afro-Cuban voice that envisions new horizons | literatur.review

Maielis González Fernández places the Black and Caribbean experience at the heart of a work of science fiction that challenges decades of exclusion and reimagines the future

literatur.review

Twenty years after his death, Naguib Mahfouz’s voice still resonates. From Cairo’s alleys to universal questions of freedom, justice and conscience, his literature transcends borders. Abil Hasanov on the Nobel laureate’s enduring legacy. #booksky literatur.review/en/column/vi...

The Voice of the Arab Renaissance | literatur.review

Even twenty years after his death, Nagib Mahfouz’s literary and philosophical legacy has lost none of its relevance

literatur.review

Three years after October 7, amid immense suffering in Israel and Gaza, Palestinian Hamza Abu Howidy offers a courageous voice for peace. Christoph Nick reviews Seashells on the Beach of Gaza, a moving memoir of oppression, resistance and reconciliation... #booksky literatur.review/en/reviews/n...

Here I stand, and I cannot do otherwise | literatur.review

Hamza Abu Howidy, a Palestinian, is committed to peace between Israel and Palestine. His book "Muscheln am Strand von Gaza" (Shells on the beach in Gaza) describes his life under Hamas’s reign of terr...

literatur.review

What happens when you jump into a well to end your life – and discover the water only reaches your knees? Melara Mvogdobo’s new story is dark, funny, painful & fiercely alive. Her previous story with us is currently shortlisted for the Caine Prize... #booksky literatur.review/en/literatur...

Suicide isn't for Africans | literatur.review

A Story from Cameroon

literatur.review

What does a plate of food tell us? María Alejandra Zambrano explores Afro-Ecuadorian kitchens as living archives – where food preserves memory, identity and resistance, and cooking becomes a way of imagining other possible futures. #booksky #ecuador literatur.review/en/essay/wha...

What does a plate of food tell us? | literatur.review

Gastronarratives of the Afro-Ecuadorian Coast: Food, Relationality, and the Reimagining of the Republic

literatur.review

What happens when a wall enters a children’s story? Loaay Wattad explores walls and borders in Palestinian and Israeli children’s literature – and a literary space in which Hebrew and Arabic stories can still speak to one another... #booksky #arabic #hebrew literatur.review/en/essay/whe...

When a Wall Enters a Children’s Story | literatur.review

Reality and Imagination in Palestinian and Israeli Children’s Literature

literatur.review

Born in an Addis Ababa prison in 1979, Donica Merhazion tells her parents’ story in “Born at the End of the World” – from the open, cosmopolitan Asmara of the 1960s to resistance and the terror following the 1974 military coup. #booksky #eritrea #ethiopia literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

"Then you'll have to write it yourself." | literatur.review

Donica Merhazion was born in 1979 in a prison in Addis Ababa. In "Born at the End of the World", she tells the story of her parents and of Asmara – from the open-minded city of the 1960s to the terror...

literatur.review

Those who remain unseen are allowed to stay: In the graphic novel Schattenleben (Shadow Life), Lisa Frühbeis and Jonas Seufert Tell the stories of four undocumented people in Germany – lives shaped by the necessity of remaining invisible. #booksky #migration literatur.review/en/reviews/c...

Anyone who isn’t seen is allowed to stay | literatur.review

In "Schattenleben" (Shadow Life), Lisa Frühbeis and Jonas Seufert give four undocumented people a face and a name – names they are not actually allowed to have.

literatur.review

How did decades of U.S.–Iranian rivalry culminate in a war neither side seems able to end? Christoph Nick reads Vali Nasr’s Iran’s Grand Strategy against a Middle East being violently reordered... #booksky #iran #usa #middleeast #valinasr #politicalhistory literatur.review/en/reviews/n...

U.S./Iran: A Power Struggle to the Bitter End | literatur.review

Like Alexander the Great, the U.S. president wanted to sever the Gordian knot of power dynamics in the Middle East. His sword was not sharp enough. Vali Nasr’s "Iran’s Grand Strategy" explains the bac...

literatur.review

Between a neonatal ICU, dating apps and the threat of war: Leh-Wei Liao’s debut 'Glaszeit' explores migration, motherhood, queer desire – and the precarious normality of contemporary Taiwan. #booksky #taiwan #migration literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

The limits of the body | literatur.review

Set against the backdrop of a neonatal intensive care unit, dating apps, and the threat of war, Leh-Wei Liao’s 'Glaszeit' (The Age of Glass) tells the story of bodies and life paths that defy their su...

literatur.review

Ethnocide begins in the way we see the Other. Colombian philosopher and lawyeBruno Elías Maduro moves from Kant to the defence of a Kogui girl in Colombia — showing how philosophy can become ethical action in everyday life. #booksky #philosophy #colombia literatur.review/en/column/um...

Ethnocide | literatur.review

From recognising others to defending a Kogui girl, it is clear how ethnocide originates in ways of thinking and how it can be prevented through action.

literatur.review

Cynical, intelligent and painfully funny: Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection (Fiasko in German) dissects rejection, incel resentment, millennial loneliness and identities shaped by the internet. Tina Rausch on a brilliantly bitter collection. #booksky #millenial literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

Radical Online Identities | literatur.review

Cynical to the point of being unbearable: In Tony Tulathimutte’s multi-award-winning collection of short stories, "Rejection", the outsiders among the millennials raise their (literary) voices

literatur.review

What can literature capture that law cannot? Ugandan lawyer and poet Awadifo Olga Norah talks to Mbizo Chirasha about violence, memory, reconciliation, women as builders of peace – and writing as ethical inquiry. #booksky #uganda #africa #law literatur.review/en/interview...

What Law Cannot Fully Capture | literatur.review

Ugandan lawyer, poet and human rights advocate Awadifo Olga Norah on writing as ethical inquiry, the aftermath of violence, women as builders of peace – and literature’s power to preserve memory

literatur.review

What if exile does not end with returning home? In Leila & Khaled, Nyla Matuk turns a Palestinian-Canadian woman’s journey to Palestine into a subtle exploration of diaspora, colonialism and the images through which we learn to see the world... #booksky #palestine literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

The Exile of the Gaze | literatur.review

In 'Leila & Khaled', Nyla Matuk tells not only of a return to Palestine, but also of the impossibility of escaping the images shaped by her own Western socialisation

literatur.review

Another shortlist to celebrate! 🎉 Our Arabic Literature Editor Iman Humaydan has been shortlisted for the 2026 Prix de la littérature arabe with Songs for Darkness—a novel we reviewed and later discussed with Iman in Paris. Congratulations, Iman! ❤️ #booksky #lebanon literatur.review/en/interview...

“As Long as I Dream in Arabic, I Will Write in Arabic” | literatur.review

A conversation with Lebanese writer Iman Humaydan about her latest novel, Lebanon, memory, patriarchy, migration – and why literature is stronger than a manifesto

literatur.review

Thrilled to see Melara Mvogdobo shortlisted for the 2026 Caine Prize with “Dieu Merci!” We were honoured to publish the story during our August Short Story Month last year. Congratulations, Melara! #booksky #switzerland #cameroon literatur.review/en/literatur...

How do you tell the story of Thomas Mann without turning it into a biography? In Fatherland, Paweł Pawlikowski chooses silence over spectacle. A haunting, visually stunning film—yet one that occasionally mistakes omission for depth. #booksky #thomasmann literatur.review/en/reviews/f...

Between the lines | literatur.review

With 'Fatherland', Paweł Pawlikowski responds to Colm Tóibín’s Thomas Mann novel with radical minimalism: a film of glances, pauses and empty spaces – overwhelmingly beautiful, though at times too asc...

literatur.review

We close our August Short Story Month with "The Water Knows" by Eunice Tayamika Maganga. A remarkable story of climate, motherhood, trauma, survival, and the memories that landscapes refuse to surrender. #bokksky #malawi #africa literatur.review/en/literatur...

The Water Knows | literatur.review

A short story from Malawi

literatur.review

Perhaps the most emotionally devastating story in our Short Story Month is The Two of Them by João Anzanello Carrascoza. A child remembers a home where love and violence existed side by side—and only adulthood reveals their heartbreaking complexity. #booksky #brazil literatur.review/en/literatur...

The Two of Them | literatur.review

A short story from Brazil

literatur.review

Perhaps the most lyrical story in our August Short Story Month: "A Night at the Simurgh Hotel" by Mariam Al-Attar from Iraq. A sleepless night becomes a profound meditation on exile, identity, love, and the meaning of home. literatur.review/en/literatur...

A Night at the Simurgh* Hotel | literatur.review

A short story from southern Iraq

literatur.review

Perhaps the sharpest satire in our August Short Story Month: The Martyr by Kunal Basu. A forgotten memorial, a bulldozer, and a neighborhood suddenly fighting over the past. A brilliant story about memory, politics, and who gets to write history. @booksky literatur.review/en/literatur...

The Martyr | literatur.review

A short story from Kolkata, India

literatur.review

Perhaps the most quietly beautiful story in our August Short Story Month: "Walking Home" by Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri from Ghana. A grieving husband, a pair of unworn boots, and a promise that outlives death... #booksky #ghana #africa #death #funeral literatur.review/en/literatur...

Walking Home | literatur.review

A short story from Ghana

literatur.review