Juan Vidal
-
"The Louisville Lip" was famously as fast with his words as with his fists — years before the birth of hip hop, he was a battle rapper flipping similes and metaphors in a language all his own.
-
Alejandro Jodorowsky's hallucinatory new novel follows two women on the run — one suffering from a monstrous affliction. Though disturbing in places, it has the feel of an ancient fireside tale.
-
Returning to a book you've read before can feel like getting a drink with an old friend. But even though the book's the same, you yourself may have changed — and that's what makes rereading so rich.
-
The bard of America's Jazz Age died 75 years ago today, but his work is as popular as ever. Critic Juan Vidal remembers discovering Fitzgerald's work in a dusty secondhand bookshop.
-
Michael Bible's slim new novel follows a jaded, drunken priest and his chess-master sidekick on a cross country journey, along with a crowd of misfits and outliers who help give the book its charm.
-
Critic Juan Vidal says Kafka's classic tale of alienation — published 100 years ago this month — helped bring about a metamorphosis in his own life (though rather more positive than Gregor Samsa's).
-
Three novellas by some of Italy's best crime writers make up Judges. Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli and Giancarlo De Cataldo weave tales of idealistic judges fighting crime and corruption.
-
From Jesus on a fish stick to the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese, lots of people report seeing the faces of religious figures in their food. It turns out, our brains may be wired to work this way.
-
Joseph Roth was an Austrian reporter whose writing provided a vivid portrait of pre-WWII Europe. Critic Juan Vidal says this newly translated collection of his work shows his intelligence and humor.
-
Readers everywhere are rediscovering the work of Brazil's Clarice Lispector. Critic Juan Vidal calls Lispector a singular artist, whose newly collected stories linger in the mind like poetry.