I wanted to write a book about such big and vague issues that I felt I needed to locate them in a place that could be contained,” she adds. “I write about love and death, and how they are connected – it doesn’t get more diffuse than that.” Philip Oltermann The optician had a mind especially adept in this. You could name two things that had absolutely nothing to do with each other, and right off the bat he would explain how they were closely related. And yet it was the optician of all people assuring us this latest okapi dream most certainly would not cause anyone’s death, that death and Selma’s dream were completely and absolutely not connected. But we knew that the optician, like us, believed they were. The optician more than anyone.

A] whimsical love story . . . peopled by eccentric-but-endearing characters . . . There is enough candor and humor, along with a handful of bracingly moody characters, to make Leky's vision of perpetual love compelling." Luisa, Selma's ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Though they claim not to be superstitious, each of her neighbors newly grapples with buried secrets and deferred decisions that have become urgent in the face of death.Ito’s career as a journalist prevented her from staying silent, she says; if she couldn’t face the truth of what had happened to her, how could she continue her work? “It has been difficult, but rape is visible now. We see more cases in the media, we’ve had demonstrations in Tokyo and in many other cities. I have no regrets.” David McNeill Maybe your father will be the one, I thought, but naturally didn’t say it out loud, because fathers aren’t supposed to die, no matter how bad they are. Martin put me down and exhaled.

As Chinese society evolved, however, so did Shen Yang’s destiny. Now 35, she’s married to an Italian designer and has been living in Shanghai for the past few years. Her childhood trauma of being an illegal “extra” is still there, but writing has been a process of reconciliation with her past. Vincent Ni On finishing What You Can See from Here, I was bereft. I dare you to try to read this book slowly. Central to the story is the idea of how much of the world to let into our lives, how much each of us can actually manage. Well, I implore you to let this book into your life. It’s a wonder you won’t forget.”As in life, What You Can See from Here reveals its significant players and their startling joys and losses, in patient, unexpected ways. The cumulative effect of this wise storytelling is colossal. A profound and beautiful novel.” The city is brimming with surreal and incredible stories, he adds. “You could go to a funeral and think you’re going to get an interesting story for your writing. You will leave with so many that your publisher will say, ‘Please! Not so much.’ Luanda writes far better than you can write.” On a beautiful spring day, a small village wakes up to an omen: Selma has dreamed of an okapi. Someone is about to die. Obviously you’re still going to school today,” said Selma, who always knew what I was thinking as if my thoughts hung in garlands of letters over my head, “You’re not going to let a random dream stop you from doing anything.” A small treasure. This is no ordinary novel. . . [with] highly poetic yet unpretentious language. . . and affectionately depicted, peculiar characters. The final chapter did, in fact, bring tears to my eyes. I strongly recommend this novel to anyone interested in literature.”

I loved this novel truly, madly, deeply. It has been a real darling of a book in Germany for readers across generations. I am jealous of all the new readers who will have the chance to discover Mariana Leky's exciting new voice and the joy of meeting the fabulous ensemble she has conjured in What You Can See from Here." Let us pray for him, and for all the ships out at sea,” writes Sandro Veronesi, in both the opening and closing chapters of his novel The Hummingbird. Bookended like a call to prayer, Veronesi’s most acclaimed work, recently published in English, is a reflective and hopeful contemporary take on the Italian family saga, following Marco Carrera, a middle-class family man who manages to hover over the chaos of his life as winds of change threaten to blow him off course. That’s how Farmer Häubel imagined it. He stood up one more time because he’d forgotten to open the roof hatch so his soul could fly right out. It’s about asking who are the transparent ones in a country, and who makes them transparent,” he says. “Who are the transparent people in Syria right now, in Palestine, the US? Why do politicians not see specific groups of people?” While we waited for the train, Martin practiced lifting me. Martin had been training to be a weight lifter since kindergarten, and I was the only weight that was always at hand and never objected to being lifted. The twins from the upper village only let him lift them if he paid twenty pfennig each, grown-ups and calves were still too heavy for him, and everything else that might have been an adequate challenge—saplings, half-grown pigs—was either firmly rooted to the spot or would run away.On a beautiful spring day, a small tranquil village in the Westerwald wakes up to hear that Selma (Corinna Harfouch, Downfall, Deutschland89) has had a premonition: she dreamt of a rare animal again - an okapi. This means that someone is about to die and the eccentric villagers know it. Selma's granddaughter, 11-year-old Luise, and her best friend Martin look on as fears of being the victim of the prophecy throw the village into a frenzy of confusion. Luise doesn't want to lose anyone, but when the premonition comes true, the young girl’s world is suddenly turned upside down. It's impossible to escape [Mariana Leky's] spell . . . Infectious . . . generous and funny . . . We leave [her] world knowing that every ordinary day holds the potential for something wonderful." How does the current Russian government’s response compare? “In 1939, with the help of the NKVD, the epidemic was avoided. In 2020, it failed,” she says. “But we do not know which is more dangerous for humankind: the plague or the secret police.” Matthew Janney Martin and I were the same height. He would crouch down, grab me by the hips, and lift. He was at the point where he could hold me in the air for almost a minute. I only touched the ground if I stretched my toes down as far as I could. When Martin lifted me a second time, I said, “Last night my grandmother dreamed about an okapi.”