Tout ce qu'on ne te dira pas, Mongo by Dany Laferrière

of Ukrainians when the Soviets confiscated their crops; and wholesale murders of Ukrainians by their fellow countrymen who were co-opted by the German-controlled local police force. Khemlin’s story allows us to feel the ways in which these tragedies cast a permanent shadow on the place and reverberate in the psyche of its people. Misha is a midlevel police officer in the town of Chernigov (also Khemlin’s hometown ) investigating the apparent murder of Lilia V., a single woman in her mid-thirties. Lilia’s murder and the later suicide of Misha’s best friend turn out to be linked, and Misha shuttles back and forth between Chernigov and its neighboring villages in search of clues and a cache of gold that seems somehow connected to the murder. All the while a nosy neighbor of Lilia V.’s, Laevskaya, manages to constantly be in Misha’s way and even finds the presumed murder weapon, exposing Misha to her relentless ridicule of his shoddy investigative work. The novel’s irrational tone and twisty plot owe a debt to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karmazov in featuring a cast of high-strung villagers whose absurd actions and exaggerated reactions obfuscate resolution of the murder. Khemlin’s Misha is a memorable character, distasteful in his anti-Semitism, sexism, and misplaced arrogance but playfully drawn to reveal aspects of his humanity and warmth. In fact, the majority of characters in The Investigator are imbued with moral ambiguity not only regarding possible connections to Lilia V.’s murder but also their families’ roles in Ukraine’s recent past, a blurring of the distinctions between perpetrators and victims . Misha gives his account of the murder investigation in a resigned voice punctuated with sardonic wit. It is a sensibility that feels authentically Ukrainian, and we all are poorer for prematurely losing such a fun and gifted storyteller as Khemlin. Lori Feathers Dallas, Texas Dany Laferrière. Tout ce qu’on ne te dira pas, Mongo. Montreal. Mémoire d’encrier. 2015. 299 pages. Tout ce qu’on ne te dira pas, Mongo (Everything they won’t tell you, Mongo) is Dany Laferrière’s first new book since his induction into the Académie Française. An immigrant to Montreal born in Haiti, Laferrière is the only writer in history from either of these countries to have joined the Immortals. In keeping with his now-consecrated place in francophone literature and with the tone of his last two books, Laferrière’s alter-ego narrator in Mongo is no longer the enfant terrible of his earlier works but a jaded sage dispensing advice to the younger generation. Here the narrator (which in classic Laferrière style both is and is not the author himself) bestows his knowledge and experience upon the fictitious Mongo, a recent immigrant to Montreal from Cameroon. Hodgepodge in structure, the first half of Mongo intersperses observations from the narrator’s notebook, transcripts from his Sunday-morning cultural commentary radio program, and scenes from café life in which he chats with Mongo and his Li Ang The Lost Garden Trans. Sylvia Li-chun Lin & Howard Goldblatt Columbia University Press Spanning generations of political struggles in Taiwan, a place that has seen much strife and political uncertainty, The Lost Garden recounts this history as related to one family and the complicated love story between Zhu Yingyong from an old, established family and Lin Xigeng, who has made his own fortune. The lush, descriptive narrative immerses the reader in the humid garden of the title that sits at the core of the novel, standing for history, desire, and family. Jonathan Levi Septimania The Overlook Press Jonathan Levi takes us on a rollicking journey through European and Near Eastern culture with this dizzying story of an organ tuner who discovers an unexpected heritage while searching for his lost love. This novel, Levi’s second in nearly twenty-five years, stretches the boundaries of the possible while never losing its focus on the frailties and triumphs of the human heart. Nota Bene WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 95 white Quebecoise girlfriend. While the café scenes bring Laferrière closer to the fiction he used to write, the majority...

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