I can’t believe September is almost over . . . Although I’m sort of glad—October brings the Frankfurt Book Fair, a study trip to France (more on that in another post), and another playoff appearance for the St. Louis Cardinals. (Next year, Cubs fans. Next. Year.) <\/p>\n
October also brings some interesting translations, a few of which are listed below: <\/p>\n
The Museum of Innocence<\/em><\/a> by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely (Knopf):<\/b> Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/a> gave Nobel Prize recipient Pamuk’s latest a starred review, calling it “a soaring, detailed and laborious mausoleum of love.” And in summary, “though its incantatory middle suffers from too many indistinguishable quotidian encounters, this is a masterful work.”<\/p>\n Dream of Reason<\/em><\/a> by Rosa Chacel, translated from Spanish by Carol Maier (University of Nebraska):<\/b> a massive, 656-page “masterpiece of modernist fiction” (Lev Grossman, you are fairly warned!)<\/a> centers around a self-absorbed chemist and his relationships with three women around the time of the Spanish Civil War. According to Javier Marias, Dream of Reason<\/em> “is one of the best, most original, and most daring novels of twentieth-century Spanish literature.”<\/p>\n The Last Reader<\/em><\/a> by David Toscana, translated from Spanish by Asa Zatz (Texas Tech University Press):<\/b> the first title to come out in Irene Vilar’s revitalized The Americas series,<\/a> which was formerly housed at the University of Wisconsin Press and is now at Texas Tech, sounds pretty intriguing (see above link for full description).<\/p>\n Blind Sunflowers<\/em><\/a> by Alberto Mendez, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor (Arcadia):<\/b> an import from UK-based Arcadia, a section of this book—which features four connected stories—was excerpted in The New Yorker<\/em><\/a> back in 2006. <\/p>\n There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Fairy Tales<\/em><\/a> by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, translated from the Russian by Keith Gessen (Penguin):<\/b> awesome title, translation by Keith Gessen, creepy jacket cover, and another New Yorker<\/em> excerpt.<\/a><\/p>\n Brazil: A Traveler’s Literary Companion<\/em>,<\/a> edited by Alexis Levitin, translated from the Portuguese by several translators (Whereabouts Press):<\/b>these Traveler Literary Companions<\/a> are great books, and with Alexis guiding this one, it’s sure to feature some interesting authors and sharp translations.<\/p>\n Jerusalem<\/em><\/a> by Goncalo Tavares, translated by Anna Kushner (Dalkey Archive):<\/b> Tavares is an interesting writer, although his series of Neighbourhood books<\/a> (short, playful texts named and modeled after famous authors such as “Mister Calvino” and “Mister Walser”) might be even more inventive and interesting. Excellent that there is a full-length novel of his available in English though.<\/p>\n Rien ne va plus<\/em><\/a> by Margarita Karapanou, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich (Clockroot):<\/b> a strange and disturbing book featuring two versions of a failed marriage. One in which the husband takes a male lover on his wedding night and emotionally abuses his wife before killing himself. And another in which the wife is the sexually promiscuous one, and writes a story in which she depicts their failed relationship in an inverted way, making the husband the one who destroys their marriage. This is one of two Karapanou books Clockroot<\/a> — a new line within Interlink<\/a> — is bringing out this fall. They’re also doing Landscape with Dog<\/em> by Ersi Sotiropoulos, another Greek book translated by Karen Emmerich. I think Clockroot just effectively cornered the market on contemporary Greek translations . . . <\/p>\n