‘Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop’ By Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan

Bloomsbury, February 2024, 320 pp. Like all first signs, it was easy to dismiss. Even more so since it came from an English teenage model. I was hanging out with her godmother during Paris fashion week about five years ago. As we left an event and passed a scrum on

VOLUME 2: ISSUE 4
WINTER 2024

VERSO, APRIL 2023, 288 PP. THIS NEWLY TRANSLATED collection of Izumi Suzuki’s short stories first published more than forty years ago is jaunty, odd, violent, femme-centric, funny—but what strikes me most is its freshness. A few charming period details (the presence of a Walkman, cassette tapes, a rotary phone, the

VOLUME 2: ISSUE 2
SUMMER 2023