Now is the time for dystopia, and Swedish author Karin Tidbeck offers a surrealist, distinctly European addition to the genre with her debut novel, Amatka. The novel is based on a now-common science fictional premise in the age of climate crisis: when Earth becomes unlivable for reasons not fully explained, some find a way to escape and settle on a hostile alien planet. From this basic premise, Tidbeck launches a unique narrative that unsettles the social structures and ideologies underpinning European democratic socialism, in particular liberal humanism.
Millions of Sacks’s books have been printed around the world, and he once spoke of receiving 200 letters a week from admirers. For those thousands of correspondents, The River of Consciousness will feel like a reprieve – we get to spend time again with Sacks the botanist, the historian of science, the marine biologist and, of course, the neurologist.
Green created Aza, endowing her with his own wit, heart, and terrors, and perhaps in her dreams she appeals to him just as Molly pleaded with Joyce for escape. He told her story, but he never forgets that she is also telling his.