Two Lines Press Winter / Spring ’23 Preview!
Introducing the Winter / Spring ’23 season at Two Lines Press, featuring translations from Dutch, Swahili, Finnish, German, and Chinese.
“You have to open doors, and then you have to close them. You have to make sure to close the doors behind you. You have to make sure to breathe. This is how you leave your home: Close the kitchen window. Make sure the burners have been turned off. Take a moment to breathe. Pick up the bus ticket that’s fallen to the living room floor. Go into the bedroom, where the double bed you no longer need has been carried out to the moving van. There, on the floor where the bed used to be, notice the cat’s blood. Remember to breathe. Turn off the lights. Close the door.”
—Pirkko Saisio, author of The Red Book of Farewells, translated from Finnish by Mia Spangenberg
Today we are very excited to share what Two Lines Press has in store for the first half of 2023. Next year is particularly exciting for us, with a few projects that have long been in the works finally coming to glorious fruition. Most notable is the stunning No Edges, the first collection of Swahili short fiction widely available in English translation. Yes, you read that correctly. You’re in for a treat.
No Edges: Swahili Stories, the latest in our Calico Series, collects short fiction from eight different East African writers, including a translation of Mwas Mahugu from the Kenyan writer (and recent Caine Prize recipient) Idza Luhumyo. With stories of chaotic cross-country bus rides, mystical broken pots, and spaceships that blast prisoners into eternity, No Edges is equal parts slice-of-life and Africanfuturist-style speculation. It’s a long overdue spectacle of shimmering talent from “one of the most beautiful storytelling traditions in the world” (Nanjala Nyabola, author of Travelling While Black).
“An absorbing sampler of the literary feast available in Africa’s most widely-spoken language, No Edges should leave readers eager to discover more Swahili writers.”
—Shailja Patel, author of Migritude
We’ll also publish the English-language debut of Pirkko Saisio, who, it has been said, “might be the best Finnish writer alive” (Aamulehti). The Red Book of Farewells, an autobiographical novel concerning the author’s life as an artist, student activist, and mother, is a must-read for fans of Tove Ditlevsen, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?
“A beautifully rendered portrait of a strikingly queer life—Saisio troubles any distinction we might try to draw between the personal and the political, the remembered and the invented.”
—Morgan Thomas, author of Manywhere
Speaking of English-language debuts, Astrid Roemer’s devastating On a Woman’s Madness is due in February. The first ever Surinamese winner of the Dutch Literature Prize, Roemer is a powerhouse with prose. Her long overdue appearance among American letters will shock, inspire, and renew. Where has this spiritual peer of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker been all this time? We’re truly in debt to Lucy Scott for her translation of this one, a novel that “refuses to be one thing or another, but lives in the rich realm that lies between binaries, where awe and astonishment thrive.” (Kent Wascom, author of The New Inheritors).
Dorothee Elmiger’s breakout novel, the mesmerizing Out of the Sugar Factory, is a kind of staring contest with History: an effort to map the connections, resonances, and frictions introduced to the world by the sugar industry. But can any writing project contain such devastation? Stunning, challenging stuff, this one—perfect for fans of Gerald Munane, Kate Zambreno, and Maria Stepanova’s In Memory of Memory.
“Among the most promising young novelists writing in German today.”
—Jessi Jezewska Stevens, Bookforum
We conclude on the rooftops of suburban China. We first published Xu Zechen, one of China’s most feted writers, back in 2013. His Running Through Beijing introduced readers to the Beijing underground: a world of illicit DVD sales, ever-more-distant dreams, and constant struggle. Zechen returns to this fertile subject with Beijing Sprawl, a collection of nine interconnected short stories that focus on a group of young men as they attempt to navigate a world of empty promises and diminishing returns. At least they have each other!
“[Xu Zechen’s] silent toiling has given voice to the equally silent social classes struggling on the boundaries of the country’s urban landscape.”
—China Daily
Eager to learn more about our upcoming books? View the complete catalog here. Please feel free to reach out to me at chad@twolinespress.com with your interest in events, galleys, coverage—anything at all! Thanks for your support.
Before joining the Center, Chad Felix worked in independent bookselling and publishing. A self taught designer, he received his MA in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research.
