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2021 Series

Introducing our 2021 series: Metamorphoses.

Nordic Fauna by Andrea Lundgren, translated from the Swedish by John Litell 

Sent December 2020 , published February 2021

In these six short stories, Andrea Lundgren explores a liminal space where the town meets the wilderness and human consciousness meets something more animalistic. A train stops on the track in the middle of the night and a lone woman steps out of the open doors, following a call from deep in the forest. A father is haunted by the nocturnal visits of an elusive bird, and a young girl finds escape through the occult. From foxes to whales to angels, the creatures that roam through this collection spark a desire for something more in their human counterparts: a longing for transformation.

Yesterday by Juan Emar, translated by Megan McDowell 

Sent in April 2021, Published in June 2021

Juan Emar is the pen name of Álvaro Yáñez Bianchi (1893-1964). The son of an influential politician, he lived in both Santiago and Paris, where he was involved with the Dada and Surrealist movements. Yesterday is the first of his works to be translated into English. On a day unlike any other, we follow Emar on a surrealist odyssey through the fictional city of San Agustín de Tango; encountering dog-headed monkeys, lion-eating ostriches, an artist intent on capturing every greenish hue in existence, before we are sucked into the void of a man’s belly button and almost lost for good.

Winter Flowers by Angélique Villeneuve, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter

Sent July 2021, published in October 2021

On a cold October night in 1918, Toussaint Caillet returns to his family in their meagre apartment in the rundownBelleville district of Paris. His wife, Jeanne, and their young daughter Léonie have been awaiting his return; but the man who arrives at their door is unrecognisable from the one who left four years earlier. Shrouded in silence, his unfamiliar presence in their home becomes almost unbearable. After years spent focusing on survival, with the promise of peace now in sight, the family must attempt to stitch a new life from the tatters of what they had before.