So many ways to sleep badly

Highly anticipated new novel from the Lambda Award finalist

Woman with guitar

A vivid portrait of one of the blues' most influential female artists, and the popular poetry of her lyrics.

Written in water

Prose poems by one of Spain's greatest poets.

Islanders

Seen through the prism of personal history, an evocative, unsettling view of a world falling apart.

Tender buttons

Centennial edition of a classic work of cubist prose poetry with over 100 never before seen corrections by Stein herself.

187 reasons mexicanos can't cross the border

The collected performance poetry from a progenitor of Chicano spoken word, spanning thirty-seven years.

Nervous device

With Nervous Device, Catherine Wagner explores the boundary the poem marks between poet and audience on the map of desire.

Departures

As usual, Isabelle Eberhardt's stormy love affair with the Algerian desert sets the physical and emotional scene in this collection of short stories. Written in French in the late 1800s and translated by Karim Hamdy and Laura Rice, her characters live, love, work, and die with passions as fierce ...

Life as we show it

Collection of writings about the influence of film on the cultural and individual imagination.

Incidents of travel in poetry

New and selected work by a major Latino poet, the best kept secret of the New York School.

Compression & purity

The fifth volume of our Spotlight poetry series, Compression & Purity is a new collection of poetry by Los Angeles–based African American surrealist Will Alexander. Known for densely textured visionary epics influenced by poets like Aimé Césaire and César Vallejo, Alexander here returns to s...

Keys to the garden

This first anthology of twentieth-century Israeli literature to feature the work of writers who were born in—or whose families originated from—the Levant, Turkey, Iran, India and Arab worlds represents twenty-four authors whose concerns with cultural identity, race, class, gender and political al...

Like a dog

A scrappy young skateboarder’s story of underground worlds and fringe existences, confusing family relationships and the struggle for intimacy.

On to the next dream

The gentrification of San Francisco, forcing out everyone from artists to middle-income families, is captured in a first-person illustrated story.

Poems retrieved

A reissue of this classic, essential companion to Frank O'Hara's Collected Poems, with a new introduction by Bill Berkson.

The cane groves of narmada river

Of the world’s ancient poetry, that of classical India was the most vividly erotic—uninhibited, tender, sad, and joyous by turns. The poems sound as if they might have been written yesterday, although the period covered ranges from roughly 200 CE until about the eleventh century. “The Cane Grove...

Deep code

Deep Code explores “side language,” as a subset of other languages, whether slang or metaphor, to both communicate and obfuscate.

The novel of the tupinamba indian

Picaresque novel of the Spanish Civil War written by one of the most important post-WW2 members of the Surrealist Movement.

A good day for seppuku

Braverman challenges mythological nuclear family roles in her memorable collection of new stories.

Stranger in town

Redolent of Weiners, Whalen, and Lamantia, Stranger in Town is the second coming of the SF Renaissance.

Superpatriotism

How hype, fear, and mindless flag-waving are supplanting informed debate, commitment to democracy, and real patriotism.

Queen cocaine

2002 winner of the city of Barcelona Prize for Best Novel of the Year

The haunted house

Novel explores how a woman's life is affected by growing up in an alcoholic family.

Insurgent muse

In the 1970's, the West Coast feminist arts movement coalesced around the Woman's Building in Los Angeles. Founded by artist Judy Chicago, the Woman's Building was conceived as a "public center for women's culture." Women from across the country were drawn there to be part of a community engaged ...

Free enterprise

A mix of myth, legend, and history evokes the vivid life of a frontier legend and abolitionist.

The last time i saw you

"A strange and wonderful first-person voice emerges from the stories of Rebecca Brown"--The NY Times

Globalize liberation

A post-9/11 look at the new radicalism that has captured the imagination of activists worldwide.

Ring of bone: collected poems

New and expanded edition of the classic go-to collection of Welch’s poetry, a must for both fans and new readers.

Kaddish and other poems

The deluxe fiftieth anniversary edition.

A long day's evening

Turkey's great experimental modernist pens a philosophical novel in three parts about desire, faith, and the psychology of prohibited love.

San francisco beat

Essential interviews with makers of the San Francisco Beat Scene by one of their own.

City of god

"City of God is an unsparing account of devastation and empowerment in the age of AIDS. From the body’s first mysterious eroticism to its final humiliation and pain, Gil Cuadros gives voice to both the beauty and sorrow of our common fate. His writing cuts like a double-edged sword—at times artfu...

Here come the warm jets

The second coming of gurlesque. Here Come the Warm Jets is the highly anticipated, swaggering debut of Alli Warren.

Loaded

A provocative, timely, and deeply-researched history of gun culture and how it reflects race and power in the United States

Gasoline

Gasoline & Vestal Lady on Brattle is volume number 8 in the City Lights Pocket Series."Open this book as you would a box of crazy toys, take in your hands a refinement of beauty out of a destructive atmosphere. These combinations are imaginary and pure, in accordance with Corso's individual (...

In memory of an angel

The first full-length collection in fifteen years from New York School prodigy and master of lyrical abstraction David Shapiro.

First world, ha, ha, ha!

Motel chronicles

My afterlife guaranteed

Full of wit and wonder, these prose poems, meditations, and narratives open onto rare and unexpected vistas of history and myth, language, and the art of writing. ". . .one of the most distinguished and enigmatic of modern Greek poets, full of Platonic wisdom. His originality of temperament is a...

Fool for love & the sad lament of pecos bill

The marx family saga

In Juan Goytisolo's surreal fiction Karl and Jenny Marx sit on their sofa in Hampstead and watch a television documentary. Albanian refugees land on a private Italian beach flourishing photocopies of dollar bills in search of paradise Dallas. Find out how Karl reacts to the demise of the systems ...

Light from a nearby window

Light from a Nearby Window introduces a new generation of poets who have become a driving force in Mexican literature today. Until quite recently, contemporary Mexican poetry has been little-known and virtually unavailable to English-speaking readers. This bilingual anthology includes twenty-one...

Laure

Love poems from spain and spanish america

Have black lives ever mattered?

A powerful indictment on the history of police violence against people of color, from slavery to today's Black Lives Matter.

Atet, a.d.

Spectacular third work in Mackey's ongoing epistolary fiction about modern jazz.

A cock-eyed comedy

A wicked satire on religion by Spain's greatest living writer

Another city

Thirty-seven LA writers map the scattered, diverse, and extremely fertile literary landscape of contemporary Los Angeles.

The beggar's knife

From one of Guatemala’s finest young writers, these twenty-six stories—at once brutal and intensely lyrical—are peopled with sorcerers, ghosts, and assassins. Springing from myth and beliefs indigenous to Central America and North America, where their action occurs, Rey Rosa’s tales give the sen...

Struggle for the land

Landmark work illustrates the history of North American indigenous resistance and the struggle for land rights.