of French literary prizes, has remained little known in English. His Small Lives (1984) is one of the few undisputed masterpieces of modern French literature. A series of sketches of the inhabitants of a village, distantly reminiscent of the rural sketches of Ivan Turgenev or William Faulkner, yet hemmed by a style both precise and elaborate, the pieces in Small Lives address the forging of an artistic consciousness in a rural milieu. This tension returns in the more concise prose of The Eleven, awarded the Prize of the French Academy on its publication in 2009, and now published in English by Archipelago.

Review by Lesley Wheeler
When Farah Field announced the opening of Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop (Field and Jared White’s pop-up shop the only all-poetry bookshop in New Yorkand aspiring actress who has much in common with Plath’s protagonist. We’ve fast-forwarded forty years to New York in the early 90’s’; like Esther before her, Lizzie has come from the provinces to make a name for herself in the Big Apple and she, too, grieves for a lost parent, her mother who died when she was a young girl. These personal losses, coupled with the mounting disillusionments over career and relationship failures, drive both women to the mental ward. There, the similarities end.

Review by Alta Ifland
You can tell that Viola di Grado has a unique voice from the first line of her novel, 70% Acrylic 30% Wool: “One day it was still December.” If this line seems a little puzzling, the next one puts things in (ironic)