At least two anthologies featuring contemporary German literature will be out this year. In discussing them, Lizzie’s Literary Life notes the “boom” in post-reunification German literature.

Berlin Tales, translated by Lyn Marven and out this month from Oxford University Press, features 17 stories, mostly by emerging writers and some by immigrants who write in German, such as Russian-born Wladimir Kaminer, whose story “Berlin City Guide” chronicles two Russian friends in their attempt to update a tourist guide.

And in November, City-lit Berlin will be released as part of a city-centric series from London-based Oxygen Books. According to LLL, the anthology will feature several stories translated by the great Katy Derbyshire. Here are some comments from her co-editor, Heather Reyes, on wrapping up the manuscript.

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Iraqi poet and novelist Fadhil Al-Azzawi’s novel The Last of the Angels, written in the 1980s in German exile, is available now from Free Press, and the first of the author’s to appear in English, with a translation from the Arabic by William Hutchins. M. Lynx Qualey’s review in The Quarterly Conversation examines the book’s dark humor.

Al-Azzawi’s story “Hameed Nylon” was included in our April 2005 issue.

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Luna Park, the lit-mag survey blog that takes its name from the Bolaño story “Vagabond in France and Belgium,” seems to have an international emphasis this month, with thoughtful coverage on the current issue of Witness, “Dismissing Africa” up now, and analysis of the current issue of Asia Literary Review forthcoming.