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Last week I sent out a brief message to our indie bookseller mailing list (which all booksellers can easily join by e-mailing me at chad.post [at] rochester.edu) about the Best Translated Book Award Finalists and how we’d be willing to run pictures of any displays that the stores put together for the award. (To be honest, this is mainly a means to gushing about the bookstores I love . . .)
The first to come back with pics was McNally Jackson, which one of my interns refers to as her “favorite bookstore in the world.” (I think one of the reasons she so loves McNally Jackson is because of the high propensity of Open Letter titles on display there. And really, who doesn’t love that? But seriously, it’s really cool for an intern to see something she worked on out on display in the “real world.” I’m still saving my over-the-top thrill for my subway moment: when I see someone on the subway reading one of our books, I’ll feel like we’ve really made it.) There are so many cool things about McNally Jackson that I made a list:
- unique book selection and display, thanks to buyer John Turner and a staff of engaged, insatiable readers;
- all the fiction is organized by country/region;
- thanks to Javier Molea, the Spanish language section is the best in New York (which, I believe according to the rules of East Coast bias makes it the Best In The World);
- the fact that Sarah McNally is simply awesome;
- beautifully lit and designed store;
- excellent events (I was at the McNally event for the announcement of the NBCC finalists back when Voices from Chernobyl won—one of the high points of my publishing life);
- connection to Canada;
- did I mention that McNally is one of the top 3 stores in terms of sales of Open Letter books?
Anyway, here’s their BTBA display with the randomly fantastic sign advertising the University of Rochester:
Reviewed by Rachael Daum
The Urdu word basti refers to any space, intimate to worldly, and is often translated as “common place” or “a gathering place.” This book by Intizar Husain, who is widely regarded as one of the most important living Pakistani writers,. . .
Reviewed by Vincent Francone
The Whispering Muse, one of three books by Icelandic writer Sjón just published in North America, is nothing if not inventive. Stories within stories, shifting narration, leaps in time, and characters who transform from men to birds and back again—you’ve. . .
Reviewed by Camila Santos
Luis Negrón’s debut collection Mundo Cruel is a journey through Puerto Rico’s gay world. Published in 2010, the book is already in its fifth Spanish edition. Here in the U.S., the collection has been published by Seven Stories Press and. . .
Reviewed by Grant Barber
“South”
To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars
from the bank of shadow to have watched
the scattered lights
my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations
to have heard the ring of. . .
Reviewed by Larissa Kyzer
When Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason first published LoveStar, his darkly comic parable of corporate power and media influence run amok, the world was in a very different place. (This was back before both Facebook and Twitter, if you can. . .
Reviewed by Tiffany Nichols
When starting Hi, This Is Conchita and Other Stories, Santiago Roncagliolo’s second work to be translated into English, I was expecting Roncagliolo to explore the line between evil and religion that was front and center in Red April. Admittedly, I. . .
Reviewed by Josh Billings
Christa Wolf’s newly-translated City of Angels is a novel of atonement, and in this way the work of art that it resembles most to me is not another book, but the 2003 Sophia Coppola film Lost in Translation. Like that. . .
Reviewed by Grant Barber
French author—philosopher, poet, novelist—de Roblès writes something approaching the Great (Latin) American Novel, about Brazilian characters, one of whom is steeped in the life of the seventeenth century polymath (but almost always erroneous) Jesuit Athanasius Kircher. Eleazard von Wogau, a. . .
Reviewed by Brendan Riley
A rich, beautifully written, consistently surprising satire, Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses boasts an elaborate, engrossing plot with disarming twists and compelling characters both challenged and challenging. It leads the reader on a strange pilgrimage—often melancholy but certainly rewarding—through a China. . .
Reviewed by Emily Davis
Maybe I’ve been watching too much Doctor Who lately, and I’m therefore liable to see everything through science-fiction-colored glasses. But when the pages of The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira refer to “the totality of the present and of eternity”. . .
Three Percent is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.
