This week, The New Yorker will be announcing the longlists for the 2020 National Book Awards. Check back this afternoon for the list for Translated Literature.
Kingston James, the protagonist of Kacen Callender’s novel “King and the Dragonflies,” is convinced that his deceased older brother Khalid has transformed into a dragonfly, and spends every afternoon searching for him by the bayou in his Louisiana home town. What haunts King is not just the loss of his brother but a sense that Khalid died without knowing who King really was. King is gay, and terrified to share the truth with his grieving parents. The book follows him as he tries to reconcile the memory of his brother with a new understanding of himself.