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2015 Best Translated Book Award Fiction Finalists

Following on the announcement of the poetry shortlist, here’s the list of the ten titles that made this year’s shortlist. As mentioned elsewhere, the two winning books will be announced at BookExpo America at 2:30pm on Wednesday, May 27th, at the Eastside Stage in the Jacob Javitz Center. Following that, we ...

Why This Book Should Win – Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires by BTBA Judge Madeleine LaRue

Madeleine LaRue is Associate Editor and Director of Publicity of Music & Literature. Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires – Julio Cortázar, translated from the Spanish by David Kurnick Semiotext(e) It almost feels unfair to make anyone compete with Julio Cortázar. His fantastically irreverent novel ...

Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia

Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia (narrated by Julio Cortázar) is, not disappointingly, as wild a book as its title suggests. It is a half-novella half-graphic novel story about . . . what, exactly? A European tribunal, Latin American literary figures, a comic book superhero, international ...

Latest Review: "Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia"

The latest addition to our Reviews section is a piece by Cameron Rowe on Julio Cortázar’s Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia, translated by David Kurnick and published by Semiotext(e). Cameron (some of you may have met her at ALTA last fall) is a current student in the MA in Literary ...

"Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires" by Julio Cortázar [Weekend Reading]

This book literally just arrived in our office, which is perfect, since I’m taking off in 15 minutes to go camping and will definitely bring this with me. If you don’t already know Julio Cortázar’s work, run to the nearest bookstore and buy Hopscotch and 62: A Model Kit. After that, you will, like ...

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Julio Cortázar!

Julio Cortázar, one of the greatest writers ever,1 was born on August 26, 1914, and to celebrate the week of his birthday, Archipelago Books, one of the greatest presses ever, is offering a 25% discount on all three of the Cortázar books that they publish. Just insert “HOPSCOTCH13,” a code based on one of the ...

From the Observatory

It’s not like any of Cortazar’s books are easy. Hopscotch is a tricky book, even putting aside the jarring juxtapositions that arise from the strange way of reading it (if you follow the prescribed path, you read a bunch of chapters out of order). 62: A Model Kit, which applied the theory explicated in chapter 62 ...