The Bridge: Sergio Chejfec + Margaret Carson + E.J. Van Lanen

The next event in The Bridge Series will take place this Thursday, September 15th at 7pm at McNally Jackson, and will consist of a discussion about the writing, translation, and editing of Sergio Chejfec’s My Two Worlds.

We just brought out My Two Worlds, the first of three Chejfec books that we’re planning on publishing. Here’s the jacket copy:

Approaching his fiftieth birthday, the narrator in My Two Worlds is wandering in an unfamiliar Brazilian city, in search of a park. A walker by inclination and habit, he has decided to explore the city after attending a literary conference—he was invited following the publication of his most recent novel, although, as he has been informed via anonymous e-mail, the novel is not receiving good reviews. Initially thwarted by his inability to transpose the two-dimensional information of the map onto the impassable roads and dead-ends of the three-dimensional city, once he finds the park the narrator begins to see his own thoughts, reflections, and memories mirrored in the landscape of the park and its inhabitants.

Chejfec’s My Two Worlds, an extraordinary meditation on experience, writing, and space, is at once descriptively inventive and preternaturally familiar, a novel that challenges the limitations of the genre.

We also included this in Read This Next, so you can read an extended preview here.

Sergio, Margaret, and E.J. are all very brilliant and entertaining, so be sure to come out to McNally Jackson this Thursday at 7 to hear them discuss the making of this fantastic novel.

And while you’re there, be sure to buy a copy along with some other book. That bit of support makes these events possible and keeps beautiful stores like McNally Jackson chugging along. And if you can’t make it, well, then you should just take out an Open Letter Subscription.