Hope in New Beginnings

8 WLT JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2015 new books Hope in New Beginnings by Danielle Harden For most, the new year often brings nostalgic reflection, a wish for progress, or those dreaded (and regularly broken) resolutions. If you need inspiration, the characters in these new books have survived difficult circumstances and offer deep insights into hope, regret, survival, and, ultimately, starting over. notebook Guys Like Me Dominique Fabre Howard Curtis, tr. A divorced and directionless middle-aged office worker seeks a new beginning to his miserable life with his equally aimless boyhood friends. With qualities typical of all human beings, this everyman longs for love and a relationship with his estranged son in this atypically unglamorous depiction of the streets of Paris. Signs Preceding the End of the World Yuri Herrera Lisa Dillman, tr. Forthcoming in March, Herrera’s young and resilient heroine, Makina, understands survival, having endured macho brutality in her old life in Mexico. Through Makina’s new life in the US, the novel explores her tenacity in this harrowing portrayal of an America often experienced by the underprivileged . A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz Göran Rosenberg Sarah Death, tr. In this groundbreaking memoir about survival , a young man starts his new life in a small, industrial Swedish town. Having lived through Auschwitz and other camps in the last moments of Nazi Germany, he must now survive a dismal world ravaged by war and human cruelty. All Days Are Night Peter Stamm Michael Hofmann, tr. A beautiful TV host wakes up in the hospital after a car accident that killed her husband . Now disfigured and alone, she must build a new life. This slim and haunting novel tells the story of the reconstruction of her life. Danielle Harden is a WLT intern

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Criminology · Cruelty · Depiction · Literature · Memoir · Nazism · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Psychology · Religion, Society, and Development