A user-friendly reference for English-language readers who are eager to explore contemporary fiction from around the world. Profiling hundreds of titles and authors from 1945 to today, with an emphasis on fiction published in the past two decades, this guide introduces the styles, trends, and genres of the world's literatures, from Scandinavian crime thrillers and cutting-edge Chinese works to Latin American narco-fiction and award-winning French novels. The book's critical selection of titles defines the arc of a country's literary development. Entries illuminate the fiction of individual nations, cultures, and peoples, while concise biographies sketch the careers of noteworthy authors. Compiled by M. A. Orthofer, an avid book reviewer and the founder of the literary review site the Complete Review, this reference is perfect for readers who wish to expand their reading choices and knowledge of contemporary world fiction. “A bird's-eye view of titles and authors from everywhere―a book overfull with reminders of why we love to read international fiction. Keep it close by.”—Robert Con Davis-Udiano, executive director, World Literature Today “M. A. Orthofer has done more to bring literature in translation to America than perhaps any other individual. [This book] will introduce more new worlds to you than any other book on the market.”—Tyler Cowen, George Mason University “A relaxed, riverine guide through the main currents of international writing, with sections for more than a hundred countries on six continents.”—Karan Mahajan, Page-Turner blog, The New Yorker

In a world where boundaries are blurred and cultures clash, Contemporary Global Fiction opens a doorway into the complex experiences and stories of our time. With tales that traverse continents and cultures, this anthology captures the turbulent realities facing individuals worldwide. From shifting family structures and rising social inequities to the challenges of migration and identity, the stories delve into the universal struggles that shape modern life. This collection explores issues of migration and cultural dissonance with sensitivity, such as in Ravinder Singh Sodhi’s "Why Did Philip Flip," which contrasts Eastern and Western cultural perspectives, and Avtar S. Sangha’s incisive "Keerti, Kalicharan and Karla," which examines the tensions migration brings to both individuals and communities. Each story reflects a vital conversation on coexistence and understanding in a globalized world. The book also sheds light on movements for social justice, with narratives addressing themes like disability, caregiving, and gender inequality. "Davina" by Achingliu Kamei and "May, the Month of May" by Molly Joseph depict the emotional journey of parents of differently-abled children, while O. P. Arora and Harmanjot Kaur explore gender and caste inequities, questioning deep-rooted social norms and heralding hope for change. With loneliness now labeled a potential global epidemic, this volume also reflects on isolation in the digital age. Someeta Das’s "Ashray, The Refuge" offers a compelling story of resilience, turning loneliness into a source of strength and inspiration. The anthology’s young writers add fresh perspectives, such as Soumee Bhaumik’s gripping depiction of addiction in "Ordinary People" and Sargun Singh’s "A Change in Perspective," which confronts the harsh reality of war. Edited with care by Dr. Sushmindar Jeet Kaur, Contemporary Global Fiction is an insightful anthology that captures the heartbeat of our times. This powerful collection provides readers not only a retreat into fiction but also a poignant reflection of the world, illuminating its challenges and its beauty, one story at a time.

"Illuminating." - The New York Times Book Review Named one of "Ten Books to Read this April" by the BBC What is the future of fiction in an age of globalization? In The Global Novel, acclaimed literary critic Adam Kirsch explores some of the 21st century's best-known writers--including Orhan Pamuk, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mohsin Hamid, Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, Roberto Bolano, Elena Ferrante, and Michel Houellebecq. They are employing a way of imagining the world that sees different places and peoples as intimately connected. From climate change and sex trafficking to religious fundamentalism and genetic engineering, today's novelists use 21st-century subjects to address the perennial concerns of fiction, like morality, society, and love. The global novel is not the bland, deracinated, commercial product that many critics of world literature have accused it of being, but rather finds a way to renew the writer's ancient privilege of examining what it means to be human.

What people in North America learn about other cultures and countries is often filtered through Western perspectives and sensibilities. One way to get beyond that sometimes-one-dimensional view is to sample stories of other countries and cultures as told by people who live in those lands and speak their languages.

This groundbreaking volume may well be the poetry anthology for the global village. As selected by J.D. McClatchy, this collection includes masterpieces from four continents and more than two dozen languages in translations by such distinguished poets as Elizabeth Bishop, W.S. Merwin, Ted Hughes, and Seamus Heaney. Among the countries and writers represented are: Bangladesh--Taslima Nasrin Chile--Pablo Neruda China--Bei Dao, Shu Ting El Salvador--Claribel Alegria France--Yves Bonnefoy Greece--Odysseus Elytis, Yannis Ritsos India--A.K. Ramanujan Israel--Yehuda Amichai Japan--Shuntaro Tanikawa Mexico--Octavio Paz Nicaragua--Ernesto Cardenal Nigeria--Wole Soyinka Norway--Tomas Transtromer Palestine--Mahmoud Darwish Poland--Zbigniew Herbert, Czeslaw Milosz Russia--Joseph Brodsky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko Senegal--Leopold Sedar Senghor South Africa--Breyten Breytenbach St. Lucia, West Indies--Derek Walcott

The future of fiction is neither global nor national. Instead, Matthew Hart argues, it is trending extraterritorial. Extraterritorial spaces fall outside of national borders but enhance state power. They cut across geography and history but do not point the way to a borderless new world. They range from the United Nations headquarters and international waters to CIA black sites and the departure zones at international airports. The political geography of the present, Hart shows, has come to resemble a patchwork of such spaces. Hart reveals extraterritoriality’s centrality to twenty-first-century art and fiction. He shows how extraterritorial fictions expose the way states construct “global” space in their own interests. Extraterritorial novels teach us not to mistake cracks or gradations in political geography for a crisis of the state. Hart demonstrates how the unstable character of many twenty-first-century aesthetic forms can be traced to the increasingly extraterritorial nature of contemporary political geography. Discussing writers such as Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Amitav Ghosh, Chang-rae Lee, Hilary Mantel, and China Miéville, as well as artists like Hito Steyerl and Mark Wallinger, Hart combines lively critical readings of contemporary novels with historical and theoretical discussions about sovereignty, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonialism. Extraterritorial presents a new theory of literature that explains what happens when dreams of an open, connected world confront the reality of mobile, elastic, and tenacious borders.

An “exhilirating” novel of domestic terrorism in the gritty streets of 1980s New York from the National Book Award–finalist and author of Straight Cut (The New Yorker). As a staff photographer at Bellevue hospital in Manhattan, Clarence Dmitri Larkin is exposed to the fraying underbelly of New York City. Drawn in by the stories of the sick, the lost, and the insane, Larkin’s own dark impulses lead him through the streets of Brooklyn’s shadowy warehouse district. Increasingly isolated from the world around him, Larkin falls in with a disturbed cell of outcasts. Their ringleader, empowered by confused visions of grandeur and revolution, launches an outlandish scheme to plant an atomic bomb in the catacombs under Times Square. Narrated with unsettling plausibility, Bell’s debut novel demonstrates the remarkable literary skill celebrated in his later novels, such as Soldier’s Joy and The Year of Silence. With “real brilliance . . . full of fire . . . Bell provides promise: promise of his own talent and promise that young American writers are not all retreating from ‘big’ subjects” (The New York Times). “Every sentence [Bell] writes is a joy. His power is exhilarating.” —The New Yorker