Beyond the Door of No Return

http://smragan.com/2007/11/ David Diop. New York: FSG, 2023. The first 112 pages are very good but the 131 pages after that are the best fiction I’ve read in recent memory. Like nothing since Chatwin’s Viceroy of Ouidah and I’m in endless admiration of the author’s accomplishment. In gorgeous translation. A new book. I don’t sell new books […]

Garatas de Papel – Paper Girls

The Livros de Sacanagem of Carlos Zéfiro. “The sun, the scanty clothing, the mixing of races, the taste of sin, all have contributed to making Brazil the most erotic land on the planet.  here we show how carnival, TV, newspapers, writers, composers, and fleshy girls are all together in a conspiracy against the citizen who […]

“My body may be here but my mind’s long gone with the Igbo.”

quote by Paule Marshall 2 of 7 books I love. This is my Igbo father inscribing a benediction in his book on our subject 9 days before mine, Life Turns Man Up and Down, was published. We hadn’t met until I’d written but not yet published and I blame editorial incompetence for LTMUAD’s not benefiting […]