New Directions

Finding Ourselves in Naguib Mahfouz’s Last Dreams: An Interview with Hisham and Diana Matar - Chicago Review of Books When awarding the acclaimed Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz [1911-2006] the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, the Swedish Academy noted how “through works rich in nuance—now clear-sightedly realistic,...

Read @recycledgiraffe.bsky.social’s marvelous interview of translator Hisham Matar and photographer Diana Matar, who worked together on Naguib Mahfouz’s dream book I FOUND MYSELF, in @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social
chireviewofbooks.com/2025/07/25/f...

Day #1144, #1167, #1403 Fiction

Read an excerpt of Solvej Balle's On The Calculation of Volume Book III (out November 18) in @thedrift-mag.bsky.social:

www.thedriftmag.com/day1144-1167...

"The poetry of Bernadette Mayer is as whimsical and difficult as raising children, one of her main subjects... Mayer’s avant-garde, fragmentary language echoes the cacophony of a full house"

Read The @newyorker.com's review of The Golden Book of Words, out now!

link.newyorker.com/view/5be9fdf...

"Voetmann ends his trilogy of historical lives on a high note with this hallucinatory chronicle of a Benedictine monk’s deathbed visions. A Boschian vision quest—this masterpiece of morbidity is not to be missed." —Publishers Weekly

www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8112-2...

Join Elizabeth Willis next Friday, May 23rd, at McNally Jackson Seaport while she reads alongside other brilliant minds from NYC's poetry scene.

6:30pm ET. RSVP required. www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/small-...

TOMORROW @Center4Fiction at 7 pm, join us for the release of THE JAMAICA KOLLECTION by Marcia Douglas. There will be special musical guest Keisha Martin, Jamaican snacks, and free ND totes with a surprise gift. 🎁 Can't wait to see you there... RSVP below

centerforfiction.org/event/the-ce...

YouTube video by Keisha Martin KEISHA MARTIN - "Rocksteady" (NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2020)

Check out Keisha Martin's grooves:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziuh...

Join us Wednesday at The Center for Fiction for The JAMAICA KOLLECTION OF THE SHANTE DREAM ARKIVE book launch and party! Marcia Douglas will be in conversation with Ken Chen, with special musical guest Keisha Martin.

centerforfiction.org/event/the-ce...

Polly Barton presents The Place of Shells in conversation with Liza St. James, TONIGHT @mcnallyjackson seaport, 6:30pm. See you there!
RSVP:
www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/polly-...

Tomorrow 4/24: THE PLACE OF SHELLS by Mai Ishizawa NYC Launch 🌀
Translator Polly Barton in conversation with Liza St. James @mcnallyjackson Seaport

RSVP via the link:
www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/polly-...

Join us at the Poetry Project tomorrow April 23 at 8pm to celebrate LOVE IS A DANGEROUS WORD by Essex Hemphill (1957–1995). John Keene, Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Pamela Sneed, and more will be reading. Come at 7:30 to toast to Hemphill before the reading!
🥂
RSVP: www.poetryproject.org/events/love-...

Polly Barton presents THE PLACE OF SHELLS
in conversation with Liza St. James at McNally Jackson Seaport on April 24th, 6:30 pm. We hope to see you there!

RSVP here:
www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/polly-...

The Thickness of Being | Los Angeles Review of Books Jorie Graham and Forrest Gander discuss each other’s recent work.

A beautiful conversation between Forrest Gander and Jorie Graham in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social—on illness, sediment, and poetry’s inefficiences lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

Covers of On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle and A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre overlaid on an aerial photo of the Meatpacking District and Hudson River in New York. The cover of On the Calculation of Volume is bright green with an multicolored orb at its center, ringed by the title and author and translator names. The cover of A Leopard-Skin hat is patterned like the skin of a leopard; some of the spots resemble the profile of a woman.

We are thrilled that A LEOPARD-SKIN HAT and ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME are finalists for the International Booker Prize. Congratulations to Anne Serre, Mark Hutchinson, Solvej Balle, and Barbara Haveland! thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

See you tonight at Rizzoli Bookstore for a conversation with translator Katrina Dodson and Merve Emre on COVERT JOY, a selection of the most glittering gems of Clarice Lispector’s short fiction. There will be books for sale, and a signing!

RSVP:
www.eventbrite.com/e/covert-joy...

Listen to Forrest Gander discuss Mojave Ghost with
Francesca Rheannon. The two explore the book’s coalescence of ecological awareness and personal loss for @writersvoice.bsky.social.

www.writersvoice.net/2025/04/poet...

Join us at Rizzoli Bookstore this Thursday, April 10, from 6-8pm as Katrina Dodson discusses her translation of Clarice Lispector's Covert Joy with Merve Emre.

RSVP here: www.rizzolibookstore.com/covert-joy

BEHOLD! Fall ’25, featuring: Olga Ravn, Yoko Tawada, Alexis Wright, Susan Howe, Julio Cortázar, Jenny Erpenbeck, Caren Beilin, Ariana Harwicz, Solvej Balle, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. cdn.sanity.io/files/p34gzx...

We are thrilled to announce that Anne Carson’s WRONG NORMA has won the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry!

John Keene on the Life and Literary Legacy of Essex Hemphill an Early Poetic Chronicler of Black Queer Life Throughout Essex Hemphill’s poetry, what we registered was his attentiveness to craft as well as statement, to the possibilities of performance, of form, of the line, and to the expressive content,…

"He was a lyric poet to his core, and a political poet who knew that the most devastating critique could hinge on many of poetry’s numerous resources, any of which he wielded when needed."

Read John Keene in praise of Essex Hemphill over at LitHub.

lithub.com/john-keene-o...

“My First Porno, My First Dildo, My First Love.” On José Donoso’s The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria I want to be a Donoso girl Sometimes I have the unsettling feeling that my life, and as such my writing, are the product of a queer Chilean man’s fevered imagination. And that I have followed the s…

"I want to be a Donoso girl"
-Gabriela Wiener

The introduction to Megan Mcdowell's new translation of THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MARQUISE OF LORIA by José Donoso is up on LitHub! Have a read...

lithub.com/my-first-por...

March 18: Megan McDowell—The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria — PCG Studio Presented by 192 Books, Megan McDowell in conversation with Zito Madu about her translation of José Donoso’s The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria (New Directions, 2025)

See you TONIGHT at 192 Books for a conversation with Megan McDowell and Zito Madu about McDowell's new translation of THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MARQUISE OF LORIA.

paulacoopergallery-studio.com/posts/about-...

Join us next Tuesday, March 18th, for the NYC launch of José Donoso’s The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria. Conversation between translator Megan McDowell and Zito Madu!

7:00pm ET at 192 Books on 10th Ave.

Digging these short stories…
@ndbooks.bsky.social

Three of our March books, out now!

cat sitting on a chair next to a New Directions tote bag, staring into the middle distance like she’s just been reading an ND book

she is nothing if not a discerning reader @ndbooks.bsky.social

A Small Press Book We Love: Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck Small presses have had a rough year, but as the literary world continues to conglomerate, we at Literary Hub think they’re more important than ever. Which is why, every (work) day in March—wh…

March is National Small Press Month, which means every day, a Lit Hub staff member will recommend a small press book they love! Today, @emilytemple.bsky.social recommends Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by @translationista.bsky.social and published by @ndbooks.bsky.social.

The Simple Life, by Jenny Erpenbeck We've recently updated our website to make signing in easier and more secure

“The great advantage of an outhouse is that you never have to flush it and it doesn’t freeze in the winter.” —Jenny Erpenbeck

From Things That Disappear, which will be published in the fall by (@ndbooks.bsky.social). Translated from the German by Kurt Beals.

Musical Brushstrokes César Aira’s short story of love, grief, and ghosts, from a small town in Argentina.

An excerpt from César Aira’s MUSICAL BRUSHSTROKES, translated by Chris Andrews. Forthcoming in 2026 amuletmag.com/issue-001/mu...

Forrest Gander (MOJAVE GHOST) is reading at NYU on Thursday 2/27
Hope to see you there!
RSVP required
as.nyu.edu/departments/...