A new translation of the Guatemalan author whom Roberto Bolaño called “the most rigorous writer of my generation, the most transparent…the most luminous of all.” “Right from the start I picked her for a thief, although that day she didn’t take anything. . . . I knew she’d be back,” the narrator/bookseller of Severina recalls in this novel’s opening pages. Imagine a dark-haired book thief as alluring as she is dangerous. Imagine the mesmerized bookseller secretly tracking the volumes she steals, hoping for insight into her character, her motives, her love life. In Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s hands, this tale of obsessive love is told with almost breathless precision and economy. The bookstore owner is soon entangled in Severina’s mystery: seductive and peripatetic, of uncertain nationality, she steals books to actually read them and to share with her purported grandfather, Señor Blanco. In this unsettling exploration of the alienating and simultaneously liberating power of love, the bookseller’s monotonous existence is rocked by the enigmatic Severina. As in a dream, the disoriented man finds that the thin border between rational and irrational is no longer reliable. Severina confirms Rey Rosa’s privileged place in contemporary world literature.

Of the twelve Augustae who lived during the fifty years of the so-called “military anarchy” (235-284 A.D.), Ulpia Severina, wife of the “Illyrian” emperor Aurelian (270-275 AD), is certainly one of the most enigmatic and less known. The book focuses on Ulpia Severina, who, even though never mentioned by name in literary sources, has been studied almost exclusively from the perspective of the numerous coins issued in her name and is the subject of many interesting honorific inscriptions that had not been thoroughly examined or adequately valued until this study. This exceptional situation, represented by the sole presence of Ulpia Severina on the throne of Rome, deserves more attention than it has received. The pages of the university history textbooks dedicated to the reconstruction of a fifty-year phase of Roman-imperial history must be, if not rewritten, at least integrated in order to give the deserved space to this empress and, therefore, to the so-called “interregnum,” which lasted at least two months, between the death of Aurelian and the advent of emperor Tacitus.

This hilarious novel is a feminist spoof on the mostly-male magical realists of the "Boom" generation.

In the heat and dust of the Roman arena, a woman stands alone. The crowd cheers for Leda, the famed gladiatrix. Watching isthe man who loved then left her—Marcus Flavius Donatus. Leda used to be Lelia, beloved daughter of a Roman senator. Exiled from the riches of her birth, she sold herself into gladiatorialslavery. Donatus is determined to right the wrong he did herand reclaim his bride! Now Leda faces the ultimate choice—independence and thedanger of the arena, or an uncertain future with the manshe once adored…

AD 63 Leonidas’s former trainer, Aemil, asks him to look into the disappearances of gladiators from his ludus. Leonidas and Cassia investigate, and soon uncover gruesome murders involving some of the wealthiest citizens of Rome. Leonidas pits his skills against an unknown killer who hunts gladiators from the back lanes of the Subura to prestigious villas atop Rome’s hills. He and Cassia must succeed in uncovering the murderer’s identity before Nero grows impatient and makes Leonidas pay for the chaos the killer has rained down upon his city.

Claiming the runaway! Two years ago former gladiatrix Severina had no choice but to flee from ex-soldier Livius Lucan. Their relationship was fuelled by fiery passion, but secrets from her past threatened his safety—a risk she couldn’t take. Now she needs this noble Roman’s help. But his solution is one she’s unprepared for—marriage! Lucan is determined to conquer and seduce this runaway woman—and claim the wedding night he never had!

Turbo-folk music is the most controversial form of popular culture in the new states of former Yugoslavia. Theoretically ambitious and innovative, this book is a new account of popular music that has been at the centre of national, political and cultural debates for over two decades. Beginning with 1970s Socialist Yugoslavia, Uroš Čvoro explores the cultural and political paradoxes of turbo-folk: described as ’backward’ music, whose misogynist and Serb nationalist iconography represents a threat to cosmopolitanism, turbo-folk’s iconography is also perceived as a ’genuinely Balkan’ form of resistance to the threat of neo-liberalism. Taking as its starting point turbo-folk’s popularity across national borders, Čvoro analyses key songs and performers in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia. The book also examines the effects of turbo on the broader cultural sphere - including art, film, sculpture and architecture - twenty years after its inception and popularization. What is proposed is a new way of reading the relationship of contemporary popular music to processes of cultural, political and social change - and a new understanding of how fundamental turbo-folk is to the recent history of former Yugoslavia and its successor states.

Uncompromising and fierce, Commissar Severina Raine has always served the Imperium with the utmost distinction but only by embracing her duty and staying true to her belief in the Imperium and the commissar’s creed can she hope to survive this crucible, but even then will that be enough? Uncompromising and fierce, Commissar Severina Raine has always served the Imperium with the utmost distinction. Attached to the Eleventh Antari Rifles, she instills order and courage in the face of utter horror. But horror take smany forms, and Rains's unshakeable faith is about to be put to the ultimate test. As the Chaos cult known as the Sighted sweeps through the Bale Stars and a shadow falls across its benighted worlds. In answer, a great campaign, led by the vaunted hero Lord-General Militant Alar Serek is under way to free the system from tyranny and enslavement, and the price of victory must be paid in blood. As Raine and the Antari become embroiled in the conflict, dark secrets are unearthed... Secrets that might cast a light onto Raine's own troubled past. Only by embracing her duty and staying true to her belief in the Imperium and the commissar’s creed can she hope to survive this crucible, but even then, will that be enough?