“The Children I Gave You, Oxalaia” by Cirilo Lemos, translated by Thamirys Gênova (Clarkesworld, September 1)
The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir; translated from the Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Nightfire, September 3)
The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that’s sure to keep you awake at night. Iðunn is in yet another doctor’s office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something’s not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven’t revealed any cause. When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same — have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?
No/Mad/Land by Francesco Verso, translated from the Italian by Sally McCorry (Flame Tree Publishing, September 10)
The Pulldogs leave Rome to embrace a new condition: leaving no trace of their passage, they shape a new challenging lifestyle: wandering around the world as neo-nomads to spread their solarpunk way of living and to engage on a never-ending mission to save endangered human cultures with nanites. But the vision of Alan and Nicolas about how the Pulldogs should live collide, and as a consequence, they split in two groups: one goes North to live in the beautiful wilderness of Siberia and Mongolia, while the other goes South to save the Dogon tribe from a possible extinction due to climate change in Central Africa. But at the end everybody – including a new generation of Pulldogs – will have to come back to Rome, where their incredible transformation started many years before. Sequel to the celebrated The Roamers.
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez, translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Megan McDowell (Hogarth, September 17)
In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.
Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror 2024, edited and translated by Xueting Christine Ni (Solaris, September 24)
Fourteen dazzling horror stories delve deep into the psyche of modern China in this new anthology curated by acclaimed writer and essayist Xueting C. Ni, editor and translator of the British Fantasy Award-winning Sinopticon. From the menacing vision of a red umbrella, to the ominous atmosphere of the Laughing Mountain; from the waking dream of virtual working to the sinister games of the locked room… this is a fascinating insight into the spine-chilling voices working within China today – a long way from the traditional expectations of hopping vampires and hanging ghosts. This ground-breaking collection features both well-known names and bold upcoming writers, including: Hong Niangzi, Fan Zhou, Chu Xidao, She Cong Ge, Chuan Ge, Goodnight, Xiaoqing, Zhou Dedong, Nanpai Sanshu, Yimei Tangguo, Chi Hui, Zhou Haohui, Su Min, Cai Jun, and Gu Shi.
