Here are three literary gems that I’ve enjoyed immensely over the past few weeks: two slender books and a slender 80-minute film. But don’t let their size fool you. These texts offer more than many much heftier tomes.

First is The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse by Iván Repila, trans. Sophie Hughes, published by Pushkin Press. I’m in awe of this story: two brothers trapped in a pit. Such a glorious book! I forced myself to parcel it out over four days so I could properly think through it. This book begs to be performed, either onstage or animated. It will serve as the most apt metaphor of life in the twenty-first century for a long time. That is, if humans manage to continue to exist for a long time. It’s Beckett, it’s Pinter; it’s Sartre and Camus and Kafka and the Brothers Grimm. Ultimately, it’s a story of liberation, both personal and political, and it should be required reading. I can’t recommend it enough.

Written and directed by Blitz Bazawule, The Burial of Kojo is a magical realist film from Ghana that deftly maneuvers the grim, tattered edges of allegory and reality. Written in a visual language that is both stark and sumptuous, it too revolves around a man in a pit, and the daughter who travels the necessary distance to set him free. This is great film-making and even greater storytelling and precisely what Hollywood can never seem to master. A feast for the eyes and the heart. In the US you can currently catch it on Netflix.

Tristan Foster’s Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father (Transmission Press) is a tightly coiled viper of a book. Some of the stories are mere whispers in the dark under weighted blankets with all the lights turned off. There are tales of memory and how memory can track you down. There are tales of the devil and how he is always willing to offer a finger to a crying child. There are lost loves, lost family members, and loves that have finally walked out and moved on. There are the dead who people our dreams and the literary, artistic geniuses who teach us how to see in the dark. This collection is easily one of my favorite contemporary books of fiction this year.