"There's a vague, deliberately unexamined idea that the goodness of art and literature will transcend the complicity of the structures art 'has to' use to reach people. And sometimes they can transcend; sometimes they can destabilize culture generatively, even using corporate-owned pathways. But more often, of course, challenging work is not going to make it through those pathways. It's going to be excluded, and readers are not going to encounter it and be changed by it. This is a political problem." From Small Press Economies: A Dialogue by Hilary Plum and Matvei Yankelevich.

Bonus content: a roundup of 28 of just such challenging books from small presses (previously): Akmaral by Judith Lindbergh (Regal House Publishing, 7 May 2024): Drawn from legends of Amazon women warriors from ancient Greece and recent archaeological discoveries in Central Asia, Akmaral is a sweeping tale about a powerful woman who must make peace with making war. (Amazon; Bookshop) As the Andes Disappeared by Caroline Dawson, trans. Anita Anand (Book*hug Press, 14 Nov 2023): Caroline is seven years old when her family flees Pinochet's regime, leaving Chile for Montreal on Christmas Eve, 1986. An expansive coming-of-age autobiographical novel on the 2024 Adult First Novel Category Shortlist. (Amazon; Bookshop) Atlas of an Ancient World by Violeta Orozco (Black Lawrence Press, Apr 2024): A poetry collection that embodies the threshold between Mesoamerican and Chicanx mythologies, the book rewrites the sacred relationship brown and black folks have fostered with nature and land in the Americas.This is a world haunted by diaspora, the violence and beauty of cities and borderlands. (only from the publisher) Bad Seed by Gabriel Carle, trans. Heather Houde (Feminist Press, 7 May 2024): A vibrant debut short story collection depicting the disillusionment that comes with being young and queer in Puerto Rico. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition by Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen (Haymarket Books, 2 Apr 2024): The story of the fight against fascism across the African diaspora, revealing that Black antifascism has always been vital to global freedom struggles. (Amazon; Bookshop) Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium by Erik Davis (The MIT Press, 30 Apr 2024): A richly illustrated exploration of the history, art, and design of printed LSD blotter tabs. (Amazon; Bookshop) Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action by Catherine D'Ignazio (The MIT Press, 30 Apr 2024): Why grassroots data activists in Latin America count feminicide—and how this vital social justice work challenges mainstream data science. (Amazon; Bookshop) Defund: Conversations Toward Abolition by Calvin John Smiley (Haymarket Books, 21 May 2024): A collection of illuminating interviews with leading abolitionist organizers and thinkers, reflecting on the uprisings of summer 2020, the rise of #defund, and the work ahead of bridging the divide between reform and abolition. (Amazon; Bookshop) Disobedience by Daniel Sarah Karasik (Book*hug Press, 21 May 2024): Shael lives in a vast prison camp, a monstrosity developed after centuries of warfare and environmental catastrophe. As a young transfeminine person, they risk abject violence if their identity and love affair with Coe, an insurrectionary activist, are discovered. But desire and rebellion flare, and soon Shael escapes to Riverwish, a settlement attempting to forge a new way of living that counters the camp's repression. (Amazon; Bookshop) Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee (Catapult, 12 Mar 2024): A prize-winning memoirist and nature writer turns to the lives of plants entangled in our human world to explore belonging, displacement, identity, and the truths of our shared future. (Amazon; Bookshop) Dozer by Sara Potocsny (Bull City Press, 28 May 2024): A 14 page chapbook of short stories including "Last Queer on Earth" and "Frozen Pigeon. " (only from the publisher) Grandma's Hair Is Ankle Length / El cabello de Abuela le llega hasta los tobillos by Adriana Camacho-Church, ill. Carmen Lop (Arte Público Press, 31 May 2024): This bilingual picture book highlights the loving relationship between a child and her elder and the beauty of the natural world. (Amazon; Bookshop) Also from the same press is another bilingual picture book, about divorce and extended family, It Feels Like Family / Se siente como familia by Diane de Anda, ill. Roberta Collier-Morales. (Amazon; Bookshop) Halfway Home: Thoughts from Midlife by Christina Myers (House of Anansi, 21 May 2024): Award-winning author Christina Myers navigates the uncharted territory of midlife in a time of rapid social, cultural, and environmental change. (Amazon; Bookshop) How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica (Tin House, 30 Jan 2024): Set between the United States and México, Andrés N. Ordorica's debut novel is a tender and lyrical exploration of belonging, grief, and first love—a love story for those so often written off the page. Best Book of January at The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and Alta Journal. (Amazon; Bookshop) I Hate It Here, Please Vote For Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay by Matthew Ferrence (West Virginia University Press, 1 Aug 2024): When a progressive college professor runs for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in a deeply conservative rural district, he loses. That's no surprise. But the story of how Ferrence loses and, more importantly, how American political narratives refuse to recognize the existence and value of non-conservative rural Americans offers insight into the political morass of our nation. (Amazon) Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017–2023 by David Van Deusen (PM Press, 30 July 2024): Insurgent Labor tracks the trials and tribulations of bringing a formerly stagnant labor council into national relevance with an unapologetically left-wing agenda. (Amazon; Bookshop) Juice: A History of Female Ejaculation by Stephanie Haerdle, trans. Elisabeth Lauffer (The MIT Press, 23 Apr 2024): The fascinating, little-known history of female sex fluids through the millennia. (Amazon; Bookshop) Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix by Katherine Cross (LittlePuss Press, June 2024): A blistering, informed, and hilarious argument on how social media and political activism are fated never to intertwine. (Amazon) Lost in Living by Halyna Kruk, trans. Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky (Lost Horse Press, 25 May 2024): Kruk's unpublished work from the immediate "pre-invasion" years when life in Ukraine was marked by turmoil but full-scale war was not yet normalized. Part of the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Poetry Series. (Amazon; Bookshop) A Question of Belonging: Crónicas by Hebe Uhart, trans. Anna Vilner (Archipelago Books, 28 May 2024): "It was a year of great discovery for me, learning about these people and their homes, " Hebe Uhart writes in the opening story of A Question of Belonging, a collection of texts that traverse Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Spain, and beyond. Discoveries sprout and flower throughout Uhart's oeuvre, but nowhere more so than in her crónicas, Uhart's preferred method of storytelling by the end of her life. (Amazon; Bookshop) Remembering Che: My Life with Che Guevara by Aleida March, trans. Pilar Aguilar (Seven Stories Press, 25 June 2024): Che Guevara's widow remembers a great revolutionary romance tragically cut short by Che's assassination in Bolivia. (Amazon; Bookshop) The Story Game: A Memoir by Shze-Hui Tjoa (Tin House, 21 May 2024): A memoir that reenacts, in tautly novelistic fashion, the process of healing that author Shze-Hui Tjoa moved through to recover memories lost to complex PTSD and, eventually, reconstruct her sense of self. Stunning in its originality and intimacy, The Story Game is a piercing tribute to selfhood and sisterhood, a genre-shattering testament to the power of imagination, and a one-of-a-kind work of art. (Amazon; Bookshop) These Letters End In Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere (Catapult, 12 Mar 2024): Set in a country where being gay is punishable by law, this is the heart-wrenching forbidden love story of a Christian girl with a rebellious heart and a Muslim girl leading a double life. (Amazon; Bookshop) Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah (Haymarket Books, 7 May 2024): Drawing from over twenty years of activism on local and national levels, this striking book offers an organizer's perspective on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison abolition. (Amazon; Bookshop) Uncle Rabbit and the Wax Doll by Silvestre Pantaleón Esteva, trans. Jonathan D. Amith (Deep Vellum, 7 May 2024): Follow the classic tale of the trickster Brer Rabbit in a one-of-a-kind trilingual edition, featuring Nahuatl, Spanish, and English languages alongside traditional amate bark paintings. (Amazon; Bookshop) We Speak Through the Mountain by Premee Mohamed (ECW Press, 18 June 2024): The enlivening follow-up to the award-winning sensation The Annual Migration of Clouds. Traveling alone through the climate-crisis-ravaged wilds of Alberta's Rocky Mountains, 19-year-old Reid Graham battles the elements and her lifelong chronic illness to reach the utopia of Howse University. But life in one of the storied "domes" — the last remnants of pre-collapse society — isn't what she expected. (Amazon; Bookshop) What Every Radical Should Know about State Repression: A Guide for Activists by Victor Serge (Seven Stories Press, 28 May 2024): This classic 1926 manual on repression by revolutionary activist Victor Serge offers fascinating anecdotes about the tactics of police provocateurs and an analysis of the documents of the Tsarist secret police in the aftermath of the Russian revolution. (Amazon; Bookshop) I'm not aware of MeFi having an affiliate membership with Bookshop, so I've set the affiliate link to the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).