Read more arrogantly recommended reviews at: i arrogantly recommend…<\/a><\/p>\n In Albania and other rural areas of the Balkans is a cultural practice established during the Middle Ages, called the Kanun of Lek\u00eb Dukagjini. In addition to providing guidelines for general social behavior, the Kanun also allows women to avoid marriage and instead transform themselves into men, as defined by dress, mannerisms, speech, and work, as well as the rights accorded to men, such the right to bear arms and drink in bars. \u201cSworn virgins\u201d are women who have publicly taken an oath to follow the edicts of the Kanun, which includes a promise to remain chaste. (In rural areas, everybody knows everybody else\u2019s business, and no one is willing to look the other way.) The Kanun, in fact, may be looked at as a type of culturally generated transgender identification, but one requiring celibacy. Rene Karabash\u2019s She Who Remains<\/strong> examines this practice and its effects on a single family\u2014a patriarchal, conservative father for whom the letter of the Kanun is everything and who only wants a son; a butch daughter who has all the qualities of a male child the father could want, except for the vagina; a spindly, effeminate son who detests rough, \u201cmanly\u201d activities; and a mother whose agency seems limited to crying and cooking.<\/p>\n When the novel begins, the family is not part of a blood feud. By the time the novel ends, the Kanun\u2019s adherents make sure to leave a trail of bodies.<\/p>\n This is the third novel I\u2019ve read about the Kanun, blood feuds, and sworn virgins, the other two being Broken April<\/strong> by Ismail Kadare and Sworn Virgin<\/strong> by Elvira Dones. Karabash\u2019s novel is the first of these three to insert the issue of homosexual love as a factor complicating an already horrible set of cultural practices. Izidore Angel\u2019s supple translation\u2014vivid and poetic\u2014makes parts of the story almost unbearably sad but not enough to overwhelm the redemptive ending.<\/p>\n Dead<\/strong> consists of Slovakian writer Balla\u2019s stories about people at loose ends in their lives, given over to whims, cynicism, and apathy regarding relationships and careers. Involved in pyramid schemes, sleeping with bosses who fire them, and indulging in low-grade corruption related to work and government duties, Balla\u2019s characters only half-believe in themselves, rationalize their actions, and insist on maintaining their delusions, with the result that they achieve a lower-middle-class level of ne\u2019er-do-well existence (often to comic effect).<\/p>\n Balla\u2019s people are steeped in distrust of others, fear betrayal, fear being jilted if suddenly unemployed, or being expected to return favors because that\u2019s what friends, lovers, and family do. The entire culture seems infused with spite, loneliness, anomie, and disconnection. Here\u2019s a passage about a certain disliked co-worker:<\/p>\n Rumour had it that she colluded with the ruling party. Admittedly, everyone in the office colluded with the ruling party, but in Dianka\u2019s case such collusion interfered with the collusion of the others, because Dianka was shameless in her collusion and didn\u2019t think of such collusion as collusion: her attitude to the ruling party was sincere. Others who colluded did so because they were self-seeking bloody timeservers. But she loved the government. . . Her fondest dream was to become the prime minister\u2019s secretary, with all the duties, worries and consolations that went with the job, including twiddling grains of wheat between her fingers in some field at harvest time.<\/p>\n Many of this collection\u2019s stories are micro-fictions of a page or less; even those of the \u201cproper\u201d short story length run only six or seven pages, only a few stories run longer. Some stories have the same titles, others the same protagonist. Ideal length for readers who take their despair on the go.<\/p>\n Yau Ching lives in Hong Kong making documentary films, writing poetry, and organizing queer community events. Given her pro-democracy stance and desire for Hong Kong\u2019s independence, her experimental artwork and her uninhibited public stance as a lesbian, her days of public pronouncements are surely numbered once Beijing finally absorbs Hong Kong.<\/p>\n No surprise that Yau\u2019s poetry encompasses the political and personal, viewing democratic freedoms as a form of oxygen. She throws down the gauntlet with her opening poem, \u201cThe Temptations of Eden\u201d:<\/p>\n We are orphans But whether contemplating love, human rights, friendships, death, and ruminations on life in general, Yau affirms the universal need to explore the conditions that allow us the greatest freedom to know ourselves and guide our lives.<\/p>\n Art is like a lame act of charity in the face of life\u2019s cruelty. When someone sets himself ablaze with gasoline, just to illuminate his sabotage home, it naturally eclipses the impact of any work of art. . . . Until we have secured our rights, we cannot practice art, cannot live with art, cannot think artistically or observe this world with an artistic eye.<\/em> \u2014Yang Licai<\/p>\n Born in 1971 in northeastern China, Yang Licai is a poet, experimental musician, and sound artist. Living in a country with few to no civil rights and whose government has little tolerance for disturbances in the status quo it established, and no tolerance for direct challenges to its authority, Yang sees a nation of stifled individuals subservient to the whims of its overlords. The phrase \u201cPee Poems,\u201d then, suggests a primeval naturalness and process that tends to be politely overlooked and passed by for discussion: \u201cWe\u2019ve never sensibly dealt with garbage \/ All our genius goes into its production.\u201d<\/p>\n The poems are often untitled and consist of aphoristic statements about the soul-selling he sees around him, the loneliness, the fear and betrayals made in the name of \u201cgetting by.\u201d How does a person emotionally manage him- or herself under such conditions, he wonders in \u201cSpiritual Questions for Fellow Travelers\u201d:<\/p>\n How to eat in a cesspit Beyond the rising technological tide that seems to be raising all Chinese boats is the yoke that makes it possible. Joshua Edwards and Lynn Xu are to be complimented for imbuing their translations of Yang\u2019s poetry with a vital immediacy.<\/p>\n A poor young man falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a high official and seeks to win her heart. Fortunately, he encounters obstacles, setbacks, and disappointments that will prove his worthiness and entertain audiences, and ample opportunity to sing about it. Story of the Western Wing is Dong Jieyuan\u2019s 12th-century re-telling of\u2014in epic dramatic narrative form\u2014an old story of lovers on trial that influenced countless later re-tellings in song and story in China.<\/p>\n Westerners might\u2014like me\u2014think of Story of the Western Wing<\/strong> as a proto-stage musical whose form of epic storytelling in song has parallels to (but not roots in) Homer\u2019s Iliad and Odyssey<\/strong>. In addition to the love story are the songs that tell it\u2014over 250 of them. Dong wished to more than merely re-tell an old story. He also wanted to impress his audience by writing over 250 songs following over 250 different conventions for music and lyrics\u2014a feat probably comparable today to somebody who could easily write tunes in modes ranging from Irving Berlin to Kendrick Lamarr.<\/p>\n Our hero is Zhang Junrui, an intelligent and resourceful son of a good but impoverished family. He is studying to pass China\u2019s notoriously difficult civil service exam\u2014offered once every three years, with a high failure rate. Those who pass are assigned governmental\/monarchical duties in various locations across the country, quality of assignment commensurate with score. At any rate, those who pass the exam end up well-paid with high social status and a sinecure for life.<\/p>\n Zhang chooses the Buddhist Temple for Universal Salvation as a place to stay while preparing for the exam. But his is not an innocent choice, for he has heard that a beautiful young maiden lives here with her mother, Madam Cui, during the time of mourning for Madam Cui\u2019s husband, who was a high government official. Oriole is his 17-year-old daughter non-pareil. Once Zhang glimpses Oriole, he devotes himself to wooing her and satisfying the demands of Madam Cui.<\/p>\n Falling in love is easy. Proving oneself worth another thing. Zhang shows himself clever and devoted; Madam Cui\u2014his potential mother-in-law\u2014wily and deceitful; Oriole, the definition of grace and steadfastness; and Crimson, Oriole\u2019s maid, loyal, honest, and helpful to the best interests of both Zhang and Oriole.<\/p>\n Presented in dual-language format (Chinese and English on facing pages) with extensive footnotes, introductory notes (history, context, biography), and appendices devoted to translations of versions of the love story that influenced Dong Jieyuan\u2019s telling. Readers don\u2019t need to read and refer to the apparatus to enjoy the story, but it does enrich the understanding. The translation is based on contemporary idiomatic English expression (yes, thank you) rather than mimic Mandarin syntax.<\/p>\n Mazdak was a fifth-century Zoroastrian priest, a mobed, who reasoned that, if God created the Earth, its flora and fauna for humans, then He created them for all humans to share equally. It was socialism avant la lettre by a good 1,500 years. Haven\u2019t heard of Mazdak? Fahmida Riaz\u2019s novel explains why that may be.<\/p>\n The story begins in the midst of a famine. Stores of grain from previous harvests keep the wealthy fat, but those who labor starve because the wealthy refuse to share. Mazdak convinces one of the leaders, Qobad, to share, but knowing the other leaders (who have their own armies) will object, Qobad issues orders to have the other leaders rounded up and jailed to prevent a massacre of peasants.<\/p>\n Mazdak realizes that his notion of shared equality applies not just to the distribution of food and goods but also\u2014because they are considered as little more than chattel\u2014to women: Women are to be taken and \u201cshared.\u201d A little more musing upon the topic helps Mazdak realize that his notion of rights and equality must apply to women as well as men. Furthermore, if all life comes from God and must be treated as sacred, then that holiness must apply to animals as well\u2014thus, people should become vegetarians.<\/p>\n Equality for women? An end to lamb kebabs?! How could it be that most people today have never heard of Mazdak? Reader, Fahmida Riaz will show you why. Sana Chaudhry\u2019s translation\u2014as I suspect Riaz\u2019s original does\u2014pitches the behaviors and exchanges among the characters in largely contemporary terms, rather than in stiff formal terms of court life, bringing an immediacy to the story that shows why the social injustices created by hierarchical systems remain unsolved to this day.<\/p>\n Bedouin Poets of the Nafud Desert<\/strong> collects transcriptions of orations by three major poets of nomadic traditions: Khalaf Abu Zwayyid, \u2018Adwan al-Hirbid, and \u2018Ajlan ibn Rmal. They are all dead now, having been elderly when their stories were recorded, the last of their kind. Translator Marcel Kurpershoek\u2019s introduction to the volume\u2014which includes facing pages of Arabic and English translation\u2014provides these poems with historical context.<\/p>\n Bedouin Poets of the Nafud Desert<\/strong> reveals much about the traditions of these nomadic people, and there are layers to their culture which split largely between the periods before and after their adoption of Islam, and some pre-Islamic practices are only reluctantly given up. For instance, some poems mention in passing a time when girls and women didn\u2019t cover their faces, arms, and legs, when they could talk as freely to men as men did with each other, and flirt with men by unbuttoning their tops to let the men see their breasts. Otherwise, beloved women find themselves lauded in the same terms men use to praise fine camels.<\/p>\n In addition to poems of love and praise of fine coffee are anecdotes regarding legal claims in need of settling. Bards often served as repositories of a tribe\u2019s history, including its customs and judicial precedents, as revealed in poetic accounts of past similar situations. When disputes arose, parties would agree upon a poet to decide the matter and promised in writing to abide by his decision.<\/p>\n Common claims\u2014at least as represented in this volume\u2014dealt with stolen goods. Raiding the camels, sheep, and goats of rival tribes was common practice, with rules, for the victors, regarding dibs and booty distribution. When arguments arose that could not otherwise be settled, the call for a poet would go out.<\/p>\n Since I don\u2019t read Arabic and am unfamiliar with the forms used by these bards, I can\u2019t comment on its poetics. The translation is clear and based on contemporary idiomatic English usage, and the supplementary materials provide context and other explanations. That is all to the good. What I cannot get from my reading in terms of poetry, I can appreciate as a fellow human discovering how another culture understands and manages itself, a culture largely lost to now-dominant settled, urban ways.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/01_She-Who-copy.jpg\")
She Who Remains<\/a>
\nRene Karabash \/ Izadore Angel
\nSandorf Passage<\/p>\n
\nNot unrelated to the creation of sworn virgins as a gender type is the handling of feuds as outlined by the Kanun. These rules, for instance, require families to seek revenge for the killing of one of their men. There is no tit-for-tat in the sense that the Code of Hammurabi sets out to make both sides even (eye for an eye, etc.). Instead, the retribution continues for all time, with rules regarding when the clock starts for a family to get its revenge. (Families that decide not to seek vengeance ultimately become the targets of the entire community.) The vengeance clock stops only after all the males of a family have been killed\u2014sworn virgins are exonerated from perpetuating the feud.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/02_Dead.jpg\")
Dead<\/a><\/strong>
\nBalla \/ David Short
\nJantar<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/03_For-Now-copy.jpg\")
For now I am sitting here growing transparent<\/a><\/strong>
\nYau Ching \/ Chenxin Jiang
\nZephyr Books<\/p>\n
\nwho don\u2019t belong in Asia
\nneighborless friendless unbrothered
\nall our lives we\u2019ve been chased by monsters
\nchronically deprived of oxygen
\nbreathing in hard would kill us . . .
\nso we\u2019d hack each other to pieces
\nscorn and cling to each other
\nblast ourselves into the void . . .
\nat the speed of the fastest bullet train and wait
\nto be subjugated again
\nby our nearest neighbor
\nThis, then, is Eden
\nYau Ching can be sensual, too, as in her poem about sharing popcorn:
\nI reach my hand
\ninto the overflowing
\npopcorn you hold
\nwarm like my body,
\nfleck of
\ngold and white
\non my buttered fingertips,
\nwishing they were longer\u2014
\nI mean my fingers.
\nI place a piece in my mouth,
\nsavoring the force of each bite, as if to say
\n\u2014no, calling out\u2014
\nDear, it\u2019s only \/ popcorn.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/04_Pee-Poems-copy.jpg\")
Pee Poems<\/strong>
\nYang Licai \/ Joshua Edwards & Lynn Xu
\nCircumference Books<\/a><\/p>\n
\nHow to sleep on thorns
\nHow to bathe in a bloodbath. . . .
\nHow to pawn how off on others
\nHow to smash yourself in response.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/05_Laureate-Dong.jpg\")
Laureate Dong\u2019s Story of the Western Wing: Passion and Desire in a Buddhist Temple<\/a><\/strong>
\nDong Jieyuan \/ Stephen H. West
\nThe Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature \/ Oxford University Press<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/06_Fortress.jpg\")
Fortress of the Forgotten Ones<\/a><\/strong>
\nFahmida Riaz \/ Sana R. Chaudhry
\nOpen Letter<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/07_Bedoin-Poets.jpg\")
Bedouin Poets of the Nafud Desert<\/a><\/strong>
\nKhalaf Abu Zwayyid, \u2018Adwn al-Hirbid, and \u2018Ajlan ibn Rmal \/ Marcel Kurpershoek
\nLibrary of Arabic Literature \/ NYU Press<\/p>\n
\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/09_Alma.jpg\")
Alma<\/strong>