Huong’s sixth novel in translation imagines the final days of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh in a project of Tolstoyesque landscape and character.

The Dutch author Nescio wrote little, quite rarely, and under a pseudonym that means “I don’t know” – yet he’s quite famous in Holland. In the first English translation of his major stories, a group of poor artists struggle to make sense of Amsterdam between the wars. The world is changing out from under them – sound familiar?

Popular Argentinian writer Eduardo Sacheri has said that “writing is a special way to read.” In this review of The Secret in Their Eyes, Denise Delgado explores the similarities and differences between Sacheri’s first novel and the Academy-Award winning film adaptation he helped write.

Step two: engage. Sozopol coverage continues with Molly Antopol’s conversation with Bulgarian author Miroslav Penkov and Lee Kaplan Romer’s meditation on writing as an act of defiance and grace.

Step One: Leave home. Three fellows from the Sozopol Fiction Seminar consider questions of travel, culture, and translation. Part I: John Struloeff on international diplomacy and collaboration, Jane E. Martin on finding home abroad, and Michael Hinken on how we rediscover home by leaving it. Later this week: Molly Antopol and Lee Romer Kaplan.

An invented language, off-stage heroes, searing political comedy. Katarina Matsson sits down with award-winning Swedish playwright and novelist Jonas Hassen Khemiri to discuss translation, the power-struggle of words, rats, germs, leaving home to write about it, and why hearing voices doesn’t necessarily mean you’re crazy.

What happens when a composer falls in love with a David Foster Wallace short story? Eric Moe describes the genesis of his “sit-trag /concert monodrama” Tri-Stan, his correspondence with DFW about the project, the challenges of translating a short story to a one-woman vocal piece, and why “making art is a lot more exciting when big risks are being taken.”

Jennifer Solheim examines the polyphony of both Natacha Appanah’s The Last Brother and the translation process in general. In this essay, she reveals how language structure impacts emotional resonance in the narrative—and for the reader.

Preeta Samarasan finds South African novelist Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat to be transformative. The story of an Afrikaner woman and the black servant who has worked for her for most of both their lives, Agaat examines relationships of race and power between the two women by employing a stunning combination of structural intricacy, stylistic range, and daring allegory.

Flaubert, best known for his part in fathering the modern novel, also wrote wonderful short fiction. This Saturday morning, I recommend curling up with “A Simple Heart.” A tribute to George Sand, this story was first published in 1877 as part of Flaubert’s final finished work, Three Tales; almost 100 years later it inspired [...]