In 2026 Book*hug had the privilege of publishing new work by multiple returning authors, so today we are looking back at the books that first brought these authors into our orbit. We love working with authors over many years, watching them hone their craft and grow as artists!
In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from the Russian by Sacha Dugdale
2021
Winner of the 2023 Berman Literature Prize, and Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, this work by an exciting contemporary Russian writer explores terra incognita: the still-living margins of history.
Following the death of her aunt, the narrator of In Memory of Memory is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands, these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and repressions of the last century.
In 2026 Book*hug published Stepanova’s latest novel The Disappearing Act, also translated by Sacha Dugdale!
Smells Like Stars by D. Nandi Odhiambo
2018
Winner of the 2018 Elliot Cades Award for Literature for an Established Writer, this groundbreaking novel by D. Nandi Odhimabo follows the story of journalist Kerstin Ostheim and freelance photographer P.J. Banner, who have been together for six months after meeting on a dating website. As their wedding fast approaches, they question their compatibility while investigating a series of mysterious horse killings taking place in Ogweyo’s Cove, the Pacific tourist haven where they live. In the meantime, Schuld Ostheim, Kerstin’s transgender daughter from her first marriage, is preparing for an art exhibit after being hospitalized for a physical assault, while her boyfriend, Woloff, an Olympic medalist in the 1500m, comes to terms with a career-ending knee injury. As Kerstin and P.J. get closer to the truth about the dead horses, they also begin to see each other more clearly. Simultaneously, Schuld’s and Woloff’s pasts come back to haunt them, jeopardizing their sense of a possible future.
In 2026 Book*hug published Odhiambo’s latest novel Amapiano Eyes!
Beautiful Children With Pet Foxes by Jennifer LoveGrove
2017
Beautiful Children With Pet Foxes by Giller Prize-longlisted author Jennifer LoveGrove bears witness to moments of extreme crisis that will take you on an odyssey through a terrain of startling dreamscapes. These are poems haunted by the ghosts of alienation, trauma, delusion, and fear that the past decade has instilled in us. Here you will encounter a whole host of personas, both tame and wild—from humans, to foxes, moose, deer and crows, slugs, fish, beetles, mosquitos, earthworms, and more—who give voice to the things we can’t express in our daily lives.
In 2026 Book*hug published Jennifer’s latest poetry collection The Tinder Sonnets.
Phantompains by Therese Estacion
2021
Finalist for the 2022 Firecracker Award for Poetry
Therese Estacion survived a rare infection that nearly killed her, but not without losing both her legs below the knees, several fingers, and reproductive organs. Phantompains is a visceral, imaginative collection exploring disability, grief and life by interweaving stark memories with dreamlike surrealism.
Taking inspiration from Filipino horror and folk tales, Estacion incorporates some Visayan language into her work, telling stories of mermen, gnomes, and ogres that haunt childhood stories of the Philippines and, then, imaginings in her hospital room, where she spent months recovering after her operations.
In 2026 Book*hug published Therese’s debut essay collection Jelly, Baby: Essays on Disability and Vulnerability.
The Singularity by Balsam Karam, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel
2024
Shortlisted for the 2021 European Union Prize for Literature
Lyrical and devastating, The Singularity is a breathtaking study of grief, migration, and motherhood from one of Sweden’s most exciting contemporary novelists. In an unnamed coastal city filled with refugees, the mother of a displaced family calls out her daughter’s name as she wanders the cliffside road where the child once worked. The mother searches and searches until, spent from grief, she throws herself into the sea, leaving her other children behind. Bearing witness to the suicide is another woman—on a business trip, with a swollen belly that later gives birth to a stillborn baby. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses—of a language, a country, an identity—when once, her family fled a distant war.
In 2026 Book*hug published Event Horizon (also translated by Saskia Vogel), which is the second book in Balsam’s loose trilogy of books!
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Thanks to Book*hug Press for sharing these backlist beauties with us. You can order any of these books through All Lit Up, or click the “Shop Local” button on the book listings to discover them at your local indie bookstore.
