to a confession of existing on the margins of life itself. The recurring references to the abyss, swamps, nightmares, darkness, and the overt emphasis on torture engage readers in modern philosophical questions of corporeality and the posthuman. This uneasy relationship with life is perhaps best depicted by the narrator in “The Stone Building: The Beginning,” who defines the weight of living for those whose history has transformed into a chronicle of pain. In the narrator’s words, “Life, as I write it, belongs to those who can snatch it, with a deep sigh, not a breath.” The stories “Wooden Birds” and “The Prisoner” show Erdoğan’s obvious instinct for capturing women’s voices. With its memorable dialogue, the former is a traditional story about six intersecting lives in a medical institution in Germany. With their ailing bodies and fragile psyches, these six women heal their wounds with a Dionysian escapade they call the “Amazon Express.” The latter story is about a pregnant mother who wanders the streets of what seems to be Istanbul, observing other women’s cyclical fates, and, in a panic, attempts to escape hers. Erdoğan shows particular sensitivity to women in her stories and weaves their stories with what she reveals to be her most identifiable literary subject, the wounded human being. The writer, at once compassionate to their wounds, which she portrays as an inescapable and universal condition of existence, renders visible the stone walls that entrap humanity. The refugee camps, dark rooms, foreign lands, labyrinths, prisons, and medical clinics in her stories sketch out the borders and limitations of freedom. The perpetual failure of words, as we hear Erdoğan’s voice in the epilogue, and the state of being “off-key” in her mimetic desire reveal the challenge of narrating trauma. Erdoğan’s real strength as a writer in The Stone Building and Other Places is her reconciliatory relationship with psychological struggle. Despite the writer’s limitations with stylistic distinction and imagery, the labyrinths and forking paths of stories that hide spatiotemporal coordination but nevertheless reveal the repressive elements —be it the unconscious or political —occupy much of Erdoğan’s writing in this collection. The translation is also worth mentioning here since little gets lost in translation, and much of the author’s original tone is preserved by Sevinç Türkkan . (Editorial note: Turn to page 10 to read an interview with Erdoğan.) Iclal Vanwesenbeeck SUNY Fredonia Achy Obejas. The Tower of the Antilles. Brooklyn. Akashic Books. 2017. 158 pages. Achy Obejas’s new book, The Tower of the Antilles, amply fulfills the promise of the author’s earlier work. These stories are about borders—physical and emotional, geographical and linguistic—and about the symbols of borders: passports, visas, pain disguised in absurdity. Her protagonists are from an island where the greatest achievement, as Obejas says in one of the stories, is leaving. One threatens suicide, the ultimate act of departure . Another collects boats that have been cast adrift and displays them in his neighborhood . For another, the strange twists of a relationship embody every sort of border. In “Kimberle,” the author deftly mixes three-partner sex with prized cellophanewrapped first editions that go missing mysteriously . A young woman who threatens suicide is taken in by the protagonist, who works in a smokehouse. A serial murderer is on the loose. The tale, like all in the collection , unfolds in perfect sync. In another story, there are lovers, exlovers , and lots of sounds: a radiator hissing , a mob shouting, a teapot whistling, Miguel de Cervantes Exemplary Novels Trans. Edith Grossman Yale University Press Exemplary Novels contains twelve of Cervantes’s novellas that span across most of the author’s career, newly translated by Edith Grossman. Grossman masters the nuances and artistic vision of Cervantes, having produced a critically acclaimed translation of Don Quixote. This collection is a fresh take on the intricate plots and vivid characters that Cervantes is known for. Michelle Cahill The Herring Lass Arc In The Herring Lass, Australian poet Michelle Cahill’s lyrical writing and vast purview cover the creatures, coves, and distant cries of many places. With one eye on the specters of colonization that...
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May 7, 2024
Jane Pritchard + 1
Open Access
