The Watchlist: December 2020
From Tilted Axis Press |
Strange Beasts of Chinaby Yan Ge, translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang | Fiction | 320 pages | ISBN 9781911284444 | UK£9.99
What the publisher says: “In the city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures with their greenish stomachs or gills or strange birthmarks live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness, some with ancient forbears, others engineered as artificial breeds.”
What
The Skinny says: “The narrator’s stories begin as serialized accounts of magical realist encounters, an academically motivated exploration of the intersection between anthropology and cryptozoology. Yet the further we delve into this world, the more the narrator discovers the eerie ways in which these beasts’ lives are entangled with her own past.”
Caught between the fascism frying pan and the Nazi fire
Marco Balzano’s new novel, I’m Staying Here, now translated into English by Jill Foulston, vividly illustrates that competing ideologies and nationalisms may be all very well on a global stage, but it’s often the people on the ground who have to pay the price. December 13, 2020 / 07:39 AM IST
An obelisk to Benito Mussolini, also known as Dux, a controversial figure in the history of Italy, stands in Rome, Italy.
Among the most haunting views of Alpine landscapes in Italy’s South Tyrol are those of a half-submerged bell tower rising from the waters of Lake Resia. Though the bells themselves were removed decades ago, some locals whisper that on winter nights you can still hear them ringing out over the area.