New and Novel

Two Mexican novels, one dealing with highly relevant contemporary subject matter and another first translated into English 50 years after its publication that though from the same country might as well come from a different universe. Another novel receiving its belated debut in English, from the 1930s Berlin underworld and a new Finnish novel about survival.

Farabeuf by Salvador Elizondo

A ’60s Mexican cult masterpiece, Farabeuf is an enigmatic vision of the French surgeon L.H. Farabeuf’s curious existence, from his morbidly erotic obsessions to his life as an inventor of grisly surgical instruments, an amateur photographer, and possibly even a spy in occupied Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. With patience and purpose, Salvador Elizondo’s sensual prose brilliantly constructs, explores, and proceeds to annihilate the boundaries between pain and pleasure, love and lust, reality and longing—between our individual and collective identities.

Translated by John Incledon

Published by Ox And Pigeon

Read more about the book here

Read an excerpt published in B O D Y here

Blood Brothers by Ernest Haffner

Blood Brothers is the only known novel by German social worker and journalist Ernst Haffner, of whom nearly all traces were lost during the course of World War II. Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffner’s story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power, describing how these blood brothers move from one petty crime to the next, spending their nights in underground bars and makeshift hostels, struggling together to survive the harsh realities of gang life, and finding in one another the legitimacy denied them by society.

Translated by Michael Hoffmann

Published by Other Press

Read more about the book here

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera

Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there’s no going back.

Translated by Lisa Dillman

Published by And Other Stories

Read more about the book here

White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen

1867: a year of devastating famine in Finland. Marja, a farmer’s wife from the north, sets off on foot through the snow with her two young children. Their goal: St Petersburg, where people say there is bread. Others are also heading south, just as desperate to survive. Ruuni, a boy she meets, seems trustworthy. But can anyone really help?

Translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah

Published by Peirene Press

Read more about the book here