Mystical, erudite, sad, self-effacing, wise — Fernando Pessoa's "confession" is all those things.

Danilo Kiš, a Balkan Jorge Luis Borges, traded in superstition and arcana.

Hjalmer Söderberg's sinister story is an early and superb example of psychoanalytic literature.

In 1925, Mikhail Bulgakov riffed off a botched operation to slice into communism.

Rachel Kusher's Italy-obsessed novel doesn't pass the verismilitude test.

"Red Harvest," Dashiell Hammett's first Continental Op novel, is a bloody homage to gangland America.

Austrian Stefan Zweig used chess to write a memorable parable about Europe's collapse.

James Purdy's remarkable Vietnam-era novel shivers timbers decades later.

It doesn't get bleaker (or better) than this — Malcolm Lowry's Mexican masterpiece.

Capote's famed Holly Golightly is in fact little more than a once-over-lightly.