Noteworthy Titles

China Miéville latest collection of stories turns the known world upside down to terrifying effect.

Junichiro Tanizaki's short fiction is a walk on the odd side, featuring a cat, a student dictator and a foot fetishist.

Vila-Matas' latest translated novel is a voyage into self, art and literature with a gimpy happy ending.

Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud beats incredible odds in re-imagining Camus' "The Stranger."

Aleksandar Hemon takes a sincere crack at screwball comedy, but he swings and misses.

Regina Ullmann's stories, finally translated into English, are creations of other-worldly grace.

British journalist Clare Pedrick's charming Italian memoir is a love affair with country, house and man.

The Raymond Chandler of the final Philip Marlowe book is more brilliant than ever, but also burned out.

Alberto Moravia's tales of blue-collar Rome men in the postwar help explain neorealism.

Dino Buzzati's overlooked 1963 masterpiece is a perfect companion to La Dolce Vita.

David Malouf's all-but-forgotten collection of autobiographical essays is an exceptional pleasure.

Dying Max Blecher had time and will enough provide a remarkable "fictional" chronicle of his decline.

Jenny Erpenbeck denies death repeatedly to give a character a full 20th-century life.

Young Irish writer Colin Barrett's first book of short stories is an out-of-nowhere knockout.

Max Blecher's musing about the terrors of life, and youth, is a near-perfect voyage into sadness.