December 2025

"Even if you look for a hundred years, you won't find me anymore…"

Two poems from Tajikistan

In "Soul Lanterns", Shaw Kuzki shows how memories are passed down through generations and change over time. Her young adult novel combines historical truth, poetic concision and the quiet rituals of a restless city

"Finding yourself without losing yourself"

Halldór Laxness spent his life searching for literary and political identity. His novels on colonialism, poverty and nature now read like early voices of the Global South. An interview with his biographer Halldór Guðmundsson.

Literature Needs Space. We Keep It Open.

Why Literatur.Review needs support now – and why independent literary criticism is not a luxury.

Only the most populous country in the world?

With "Vishwa Shastra - India and the World", Dhruva Jaishankar has written an introduction to Indian history for the youth of his country. It focuses on India's relations with the world and the future of the subcontinent

African theatre versus Western classics

Between resistance and creative appropriation: how African artists are transforming the Western theatrical canon to create cultural self-determination and new forms of expression

Hard land, blind heart

Lavie Tidhar's "Adama" is a stark portrait of Israeli history, exploring violence, hope and self-destruction. An unusual thriller that demonstrates how no ideal remains unscathed when people have to live with it.

The scene of horror and tenderness

Halim Youssef's "Liebe im Schatten der dunklen Flaggen" is a poetic masterpiece about surviving in the darkness on the Iraqi-Syrian border

A future that slips through the fingers

In "Theft", Abdulrazak Gurnah traces the fine cracks that run through friendship, love and origins when a society is set in motion. A quiet novel that unfolds its greatest power precisely in its omissions