“The Nocilla Trilogy” by Agustín Fernández Mallo
The Nocilla Trilogy by Agustín Fernández Mallo Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead pb | 9780374222789 | $30.00 FSG Review by Vincent Francone Most reviews of The Nocilla Trilogy (written by Agustín Fernández Mallo, recently translated into English by Thomas Bunstead, beautifully packaged by ...
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The Five Tools, Part I: Authors [Let’s Praise My Friends]
One of the most entertaining parts of my past three weeks of travel was the discovery that Norwegians refer to first-time authors as “debutants.” Which, OK, at first, is weird. The first time someone said it aloud, “she’s a debutant author,” I too had the urge to correct them. But then, like any great joke that's ...
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“Radio: Wireless Poem in Thirteen Messages” by Kyn Taniya
Radio: Wireless Poem in Thirteen Messages by Kyn Taniya Translated from the Spanish by David Shook 66 pgs. | pb | 978-0-9906601-5-6 | $14.99 Cardboard House Press Reviewed by Vincent Francone Prose translators will likely disagree, but I believe translating poetry requires a significant level of talent, a ...
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The Subsidiary
The Subsidiary by Matías Celedón translated from the French by Samuel Rutter 208 pgs. | pb | 9781612195445 | $21.95 Mellville House Publishing Reviewed by Vincent Francone The biggest issues with books like The Subsidiary often have to do with their underpinnings—when we learn that Georges Perec wrote La ...
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Latest Review: "Intervenir/Intervene" by Dolores Dorantes and Rodrigo Flores Sánchez
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Intervenir/Intervene by Dolores Dorantes and Rodrigo Flores Sánchez, published by Ugly Duckling Presse. It’s been slow on the review and post end this summer, while we’ve been busy around the offices here and elsewhere, but we hope ...
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Latest Review: "The Seven Good Years" by Etgar Keret
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on The Seven Good Years by Etgar Kerert, on the edition published by Granta Books. Here’s the beginning of Vince’s review: It’s a rare and wonderful book that begins and ends with violence and humor. At the start of Etgar Keret’s The ...
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Latest Review: "Berlin" by Aleš Šteger
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Berlin by Aleš Šteger, translated by Brian Henry, Forrest Gander & Aljaž Kovac and published by Counterpath Press. Vince has brought up a lot of interesting points in this “review,” and questions the relationship of the reader’s ...
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Latest Review: "Rambling Jack" by Micheál Ó Conghaile
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Rambling Jack by Micheál Ó Conghaile, translated by Katherine Duffy, and published by Dalkey Archive Press. Vince went for a non-standard review format for this bilingual edition, favoring a flowing dialogue-style, and it’s pretty awesome. ...
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Latest Review: "Morse, My Deaf Friend" by Miloš Djurdjević
The latest addition to our Reviews section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Miloš Djurdjević’s Morse, My Deaf Friend, translated by the author and published by Ugly Duckling Presse. The chapbook itself is short—clocking in at 32 pages—and is yet another beautiful work of print done by Ugly Duckling. ...
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Latest Review: "Vano and Niko" by Erlom Akhvlediani
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Vano and Niko by Erlom Akhvlediani, translated by Mikheil Kakabadze and published by Dalkey Archive earlier this year. I know everyone is still reeling from not being able to correctly guess all the finalists for the 2015 BTBA fiction and poetry shortlists ...
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Latest Review: "Iraqi Nights" by Dunya Mikhail
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Iraqi Nights by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and published by New Directions. Here’s the beginning of Vince’s review: In a culture that privileges prose, reviewing poetry is fairly pointless. And I’ve long since ...
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Latest Review: "Return to Killybegs" by Sorj Chalandon
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Return to Killybegs by Sorj Chalandon, translated by Ursula Meany Scott and published by The Lilliput Press. All I have to say before we get to Vince’s review is that “Killybegs” sounds like something one might yell after a pint too many ...
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Latest Review: "A Musical Hell" by Alejandra Pizarnik
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on A Musical Hell by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated by Yvette Siegert and published by New Directions as part of their Poetry Pamphlet series. Here’s the beginning of Vince’s review: The best way to review Alejandra Pizarnik’s slim ...
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Latest Review: "Flowers & Mishima’s Illustrated Biography" by Mario Bellatin
The latest addition to our Reviews section is by Vincent Francone on Flower & Mishima’s Illustrated Biography by Mario Bellatin, translated by Kolin Jordan, and out from 7Vientos. Since the site is about a week behind in posting reviews, I thought we’d start back in with a short and sweet one by Vince. We were ...
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Latest Review: "Kopenhaga" by Grzegorz Wróblewski
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Kopenhaga by Grzegorz Wróblewski, translated by Piotr Gwiazda, from Zephyr Press. Chad had previously mentioned this book of poetry in a Poland-Love post; his enthusiasm wasn’t misplaced. Wróblewski has a delightfully and “casually ...
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Latest Review: "My Poems Won't Change the World" by Patrizia Cavalli
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Patrizia Cavalli’s My Poems Won’t Change the World, out from FSG. Vincent is a regular contributor here, and I can guarantee that his review will give you some great poet-poetry insight and a few laughs for this chilly Monday morning ...
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Every Good Heart is a Telescope
Poetry always has the feel of mysticism and mystery, or maybe this feeling is a stereotype left over from high school literature class. It is generally the result of confusion, lack of time committed to consuming the poetry, and the general difficulty poetry imposes on the reader. In Víctor Rodríguez Núñez’s ...
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Latest Review: "The Bridge Over the Neroch & Other Works" by Leonid Tsypkin
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is from Vincent Francone on Leonid Tsypkin’s The Bridge Over the Neroch & Other Works, from New Directions. My apologies to Vincent for posting this so late—he had it ready for us almost a month ago—but it’s never too late for a Russian classic. Great Russian ...
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Latest Review: "The Art of Joy" by Goliarda Sapienza
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is by Vincent Francone on The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza, from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book is by definition and appearances a tome. At just over 700 pages (and hardcover) it’s a doorstop for a doorstop. But I will be one of the first people in line to champion ...
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Latest Review: "And the Hippies Came (Llegaron los Hippies)" by Manuel Abreu Adorno
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is by Vincent Francone on And the Hippies Came (Llegaron los Hippies) by Manuel Abreu Adorno, from 7Vientos. Vincent is a frequent reviewer for Three Percent, and recently discovered and fell in love with 7Vientos, a brand-new press based in Chicago specializing in Latin-American ...
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Latest Review: "The Whispering Muse" by Sjón
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is by Vincent Francone on The Whispering Muse by Sjón, from Farrar Straus and Giroux. The first time I saw The Whispering Muse was in a bookstore in Riga, Latvia, misplaced somewhere on the D-F shelf. Taking this as a sign of meant-to-be, I bought it, and promptly placed it on my ...
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Latest Review: "Blindly" by Claudio Magris
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Claudio Magris’s Blindly, which is translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel and published by Yale University Press as part of their Margellos World Republic of Letters Series. Yale’s World Republic of Letters Series deserves a ...
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Latest Review: "The Story of My Purity" by Francesco Pacifico
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on the forthcoming novel The Story of My Purity, written by Francesco Pacifico, translated from the Italian by Stephen Twilley, and published by FSG. The Story of My Purity is the first of Pacifico’s books to make its way into English. ...
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Latest Review: "Down the Rabbit Hole" by Juan Pablo Villalobos
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Juan Pablo Villalobos’s Down the Rabbit Hole, which is translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey and available from FSG. This is a book I first heard about a while back when the innovative and amazing And Other Stories announced that ...
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Latest Review: "HHhH" by Laurent Binet
The latest review to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Laurent Binet’s HHhH, which Sam Taylor translated from the French and is available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Laurent Binet was born in Paris, France, in 1972. He is the author of La Vie professionnelle de Laurent B., a memoir of his ...
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Latest Review: "Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex" by Oksana Zabuzhko
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by regular reviewer Vincent Francone on Oksana Zabuzhko’s Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, which is translated from the Ukrainian by Halyna Hryn and available from Amazon Crossings. Here’s the opening of Vince’s not-entirely-positive review: Reading ...
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"Leeches" by David Albahari [25 Days of the BTBA]
As with years past, we’re going to spend the next two weeks highlighting the rest of the 25 titles on the BTBA fiction longlist. We’ll have a variety of guests writing these posts, all of which are centered around the question of “Why This Book Should Win.” Hopefully these are funny, accidental, ...
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Latest Review: "Of Flies and Monkeys" by Jacques Dupin
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Jacques Dupin’s Of Flies and Monkeys, which is translated from the French by John Taylor and available from Bitter Oleander Press. (Probably easiest to order this directly from SPD.) “Vincent Francone” is one of our regular ...
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Latest Review: "Empire of Dreams" by Giannini Braschi
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Giannini Braschi’s Empire of Dreams, which is available from AmazonCrossing in Tess O’Dwyer’s translation. Vincent Francone is one of our regular reviewers, and a writer, and a reader for TriQuarterly Online. AmazonCrossing ...
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Latest Review: "The Hall of the Singing Caryatids" by Victor Pelevin
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Victor Pelevin’s The Hall of the Singing Caryatids, which is just out from New Directions in Andrew Bromfield’s translation. Coincidentally, I just finished reading this last night. And I completely agree with Vince’s review: ...
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Latest Review: "Adonis Selected Poems"
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Adonis’ Selected Poems, which Yale brought out not too long ago in Khaled Mattawa’s translation. Vincent Francone has written for us a few times in the past and is a reader for TriQuarterly Online, a site that should probably be on our ...
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Latest Review: "Song for His Disappeared Love" by Raul Zurita
The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Raul Zurita’s collection Song for His Disappeared Love, which was translated from the Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky and published by Action Books. I don’t read much poetry, so I wasn’t familiar with Zurita until Vincent Francone ...
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Latest Review: Pluriverse by Ernesto Cardenal
In honor of today’s Ernesto Cardenal event in Ann Arbor, we thought we’d post a review of Pluriverse that Vincent Francone wrote for us. The collection—which came out from New Directions earlier this year—covers Cardenal’s entire career, and Vincent has nothing but positive things to say about ...
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From the Comments Section
I doubt many people revisit our posts to read the comments—although I check them religiously, so please keep posting!—so I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight some of the really interesting and informative ones that have been submitted over the past week. First off, in relation to the post on Richard ...
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My Struggle, Part I: Confusion and Value
As part of my "Deep Vellum Month" experiment, I decided to move from the toponymy—and topography—of Iceland to geography. Or rather, "geography," as in the Geography of Rebels by Maria Gabriela Llansol. Like with most of the books I've been reading of late, I knew basically nothing about this book before picking it ...
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