New Directions

BEHOLD! Fall '26, featuring: Olga Ravn, Mathias Énard, Helle Helle, Ingeborg Bachmann, Amparo Dávila, Mirabai, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Enrique Lihn, Clarice Lispector, Jorge Luis Borges, and Solvej Balle. cdn.sanity.io/files/p34gzxcg…

“Rather than glamorizing the West or sentimentalizing the East, Qian is highly attuned to the delusions and misunderstandings that impede cross-cultural understanding.”—Andrew Chan writes about Qian Zhongshu’s 1947 novel “Fortress Besieged” @NewDirections 4columns.org/chan-andrew/fo…

“What he writes both is his life and isn’t…” Read an excerpt from Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s WE ARE GREEN AND TREMBLING (@NewDirections), translated by Robin Myers, winner of the 2025 @nationalbook Award in Translated Literature: latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/2026/03/we-are…

I wrote about the reissue of José Emilio Pacheco’s poetry by @NewDirections ! Pictured here in a delightful translation by Edward Dorn and Gordon Brotherston poetryfoundation.org/articles/17967…

Please join us on May 14 at 7 pm for an evening of conversation about Copi’s CITY OF RATS. Seating is first come first serve, no RSVP needed.

'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' Broadway Revival Coming in 2027 From Tony-Winning 'Fun Home' Director Sam Gold (EXCLUSIVE) variety.com/2026/film/news…

I built this website: NDCOLLECTOR.com; it is a database of every book/edition released by New Directions going back to the beginning.

Join Joshua Cohen and Michael Hofmann in conversation about Koeppen tomorrow at Rizzoli Bookstore! rizzolibookstore.com/trilogy-failur…

theparisreview.org/blog/2026/05/0… Joshua Cohen’s introduction to DEATH IN ROME out now in @parisreview : “Koeppen’s technique bears beauty as entr’acte between the world’s recurrent slaughters.”

Wolfgang Koeppen’s “trilogy of failure,” written from 1951 to 1954, is a sprawling, polyphonic portrait of a physically and morally shattered country. newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…

Wolfgang Koeppen’s postwar works were ruthless in their condemnation of a country that was beyond reform. bit.ly/4vLEBxx

For @nytimes, I wrote about Wolfgang Koeppen’s extraordinary Trilogy of Failure. nytimes.com/2026/04/28/boo…

💡🪻We hope you’ll join us to celebrate the release of Wolfgang Koeppen’s THE HOTHOUSE and DEATH IN ROME (out May 5) in Michael Hofmann’s translations. These final two works, introduced by Joshua Cohen and Pankaj Mishra, conclude Koeppen’s masterful postwar trilogy.🐏🌷

“You can sense his double consciousness in the book’s many observations on racial difference, which encompass crude generalizations about physiognomy and gastronomical customs.”—Andrew Chan on Qian Zhongshu’s 1947 novel “Fortress Besieged” @NewDirections 4columns.org/chan-andrew/fo…

“One of the great reading experiences of my life... Taken together, The Trilogy of Failure captures a lifetime of inertia, of feckless starts and stops. Beautiful, wise, bleak and unsparing.” —Dustin Illingworth, The New York Times nytimes.com/2026/04/28/boo…

“A triumph, a gem of postwar German literature that has remained obscure in the Anglophone world for too long…ribald, irreverent, cutting, rhapsodic, and ultimately devastating portraits of German amnesia and hypocrisy.” —Becca Rothfeld, The New Yorker newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…

Two rave reviews for Wolfgang Koeppen's so-called trilogy of failure, translated by Michael Hofman. The latter two volumes, THE HOTHOUSE and DEATH IN ROME, are out next week!

Helle Helle on the @GrantaMag podcast: "Writing... I don't know what it is. Maybe that is why it works. If you know too much, it doesn't work. That's my experience." granta.com/podcast-helle-…

And here for Rizzoli Bookstore: rizzolibookstore.com/trilogy-failur…

RSVP here for Community Bookstore: eventbrite.com/e/translator-m…