fungus skull eye wing
When I pick up a book of poems labelled “nature poetry” I expect images of autumn leaves, sunrises and sunsets, flowers in various stages from spring through the end of summer, tracking a first person reflection on life’s challenges. Roethke, Ammons, and contemporary poets such as Patti Anne Rogers craft authentic ...
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American Literature Is "Massively Overrated" [How to Turn a Positive Article into a Rant]
This morning, the Guardian: ran an interesting piece recapping a session on the “global novel” at the Jaipur Festival—a session that got a bit heated when Xiaolu Guo called out, well, contemporary American writing1: “Our reading habit has been stolen and changed” said Guo. “For example ...
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All My Friends
For my first review for Open Letter Books, I was delighted to discover in my letterbox in the French Pyrenees a copy of Marie NDiaye’s All My Friends. Tearing open the package, I savored the look and feel of the jacket covers, as is my habit prior to dipping into a book. It was smooth, rich and velvety to the touch, black ...
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Desperately Seeking Non-Argentine Spanish Literature
This is a special post from Katherine Rucker, a MALTS student here at the University of Rochester who is doing an independent study with me on Latin American literature. As you’ll see below, she’s planning on doing sample translations—and reader’s reports—from a bunch of underrepresented Spanish ...
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Rossica Translation Prize Longlist 2014
The other day, Academica Rossica announced the longlist for its 2014 Translation Prize, and, thankfully, Mikhail Shishkin’s Maidenhair made it! Not to diminish the value of this longlist, but, to be honest, I would’ve been pissed if it hadn’t have made it, given the fact that there are forty-five books ...
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The Black Spider
In The Black Spider (Die schwarze Spinne —here newly translated by Susan Bernofsky), Jeremias Gotthelf—the pseudonym of Swiss pastor Albert Bitzius—spins a morality tale of evil in a Swiss hamlet. Originally published in 1842, The Black Spider illustrates with terrifying vividness a village tormented by deadly spiders ...
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Obituary: Juan Gelman, 83
It’s always sad to find out that one of your authors has passed away, especially someone as nice as Juan Gelman. As Kaija pointed out upon hearing about his death, the one really great thing is that he was able to finally—after post office issues, bad addresses, and a host of other nineteenth century ...
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