FICTION

Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids

by Leyna Krow

Penguin Books

Published on January 28, 2025

The Uncertainty of Our Times in “Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids”

BY LEAH RACHEL VON ESSEN

JANUARY 30, 2025

The world is unraveling at the seams. We all know it. From the devastating 2024 flooding of the Carolinas to the wildfires in California just this January, climate change is breaking apart our lives and forcing us to make tough decisions about what we will and won’t do in the face of multiplying disasters. Leyna Krow’s stories in Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids explore this moment through near-future sci-fi and struggling characters.

 

FICTION
No Place to Bury the Dead
By Karina Sainz Borgo; Translated by Elizabeth Bryer
Harpervia
Published December 10, 2024

Lost in the Violence of the Borderlands: “No Place to Bury the Dead”

BY LEAH RACHEL VON ESSEN

Karina Sainz Borgo’s No Place to Bury the Dead, translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer, is an unnerving, violent tale of the borderlands. Drawing from real accounts of the migrant crisis, from the dangers of border crossings, to the cruelties desperate people will inflict on themselves or each other to survive, to the dozens of horrific ways that power-hungry criminals take advantage of their desperation, the novel tells the story of a purgatory where no one wants to stay but no one can leave, where disorder and violence is inevitable, where just burying your loved ones is considered a privilege.