Given the opera’s relative rarity, Musica Viva’s recent production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s La finta giardiniera must surely have been a premiere of some sort.
In Kerry Brown’s several decades of working in and observing China, he has developed a reputation as one of the more sober and thoughtful observers of the country. For those who value logic and epistemology over rhetoric, Brown’s latest (brief) book won’t disappoint.
Shah Hussain was a 16th-century Punjabi Sufi poet based in Lahore. His kafis, (mostly) short rhymed poetry with refrains, referring to the relationship between God and devotee with metaphors of lover and Beloved, or Murshid (literally, the master but also a metaphor for God as well) and mureed (disciple), are sung and relished even today as rhapsodic expressions of love, longing, and devotion. Considered scandalous by clerics as well as by people in general for his relationship with Madho, a Brahmin boy who became his devotee, he is today venerated as Madho Lal Hussain at his dargah (tomb) in Lahore with Madho buried by his side. Sarbpreet Singh’s new novel The Sufi’s Nightingale turns to this mystic and his strange love story that challenges gender and religious boundaries erected by the people of his time while redefining what it means to be in love.
At the end of Yiyun Li’s newest book, Wednesday’s Child, she explains that she wrote the stories in this collection—most of which originally appeared in The New Yorker—over the last fourteen years. It was also during this time that she lost her father, teenage son, mentor, and close friend. “They live among these pages now,” she explains.
The characters in Nishanth Injam’s The Best Possible Experience, his debut short story collection, are like many in India or in Indian communities in the United States: Working hard and enduring hardships to try to get a better life for themselves. They don’t always succeed—and even those that do lose something along the way.
Filipino-American bounty hunter Domingo has made a career of catching criminal undocumented immigrants. He’s the best in the business—and it isn’t lost on him that he’s so good because of his similarities to his targets. Despite Domingo’s claims that he is unsympathetic to their plight, yet spends his spare moments on stakeouts and in between jobs writing a book of advice for aspiring immigrants. Brash, funny, and candid, he compiles the names of all the people he’s apprehended, documenting the hazards of his profession, and imparting advice to foreigners who dare to dream of life in America.
A compilation of reviews in the past twelve months for Women in Translation month (August 2023), including non-fiction and poetry and well as novels and short stories. These list not just women authors who have been translated, but also women who are translators.