See, this isn’t a completed list; it’s a work in progress. The list, curated by two authors and experienced book reviewers, will be updated twice monthly until the end of the year. That’s an interesting way to do it actually. The list includes some titles I expected and some I didn’t—including several I may check out myself. One downside of this method, though, is that it runs long. We’re talking 68 books already. I like a good Best Of list as much as the next gal, but I prefer mine a bit more concise than that, I think.
Author Christine Estima Brings a Long-Overlooked Literary Figure Into the Light
The name Milena Jesenská is not well known outside of the Czech Republic, but it should be. Jesenská, who at only twenty-four years old was committed to an insane asylum by her father for her ongoing relationship with a Jewish man, whom she married promptly upon her escape from the institution, and who went on to become Franz Kafka’s first translator and, briefly, lover, was a brilliant and remarkable woman. She actively fought the rise of fascism in Europe and helped many people (including her ex-husband) escape before she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she died in 1944.
Christine Estima’s novel, Letters to Kafka, isn’t just a love letter to Milena Jesenská, it’s a reclaiming of her legacy. It’s the story of a woman who deserves to be remembered—and celebrated—for her own achievements, not just through the memories of the men she touched.
Author Beatriz Williams Is “More Comfortable in the Past than in the Present Day.”
In this interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Beatriz Williams, the author of numerous historical fiction novels including The Glass Ocean and Husbands & Lovers discusses her newest book, Under the Stars, as well as some details about her other upcoming projects, including one that features pirates and buried treasure set against the backdrop of the Great Snow in eighteenth-century New England.
If you enjoy author interviews and historical fiction about niche, forgotten history, might I recommend this piece on a banned 1920s book, a Nazi-era filmmaker, and the erasure of trans people in Nazi Germany?