In the last of the four quarterfinal match ups, BiH, represented by Sa\u0161a Stani\u0161i\u0107’s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone<\/em>, goes up against one of the World Cup of Literature favorites, Germany and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz.<\/em><\/p>\n Stani\u0161ic made it here first by bribing a judge and beating Iran’s represntative, The Colonel<\/em> by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi 1-0<\/a> and then by upsetting Honduras and Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Senselessness<\/em> by a score of 5-3.<\/a><\/p>\n Sebald wrecked Ghana and Kojo Laing’s Search Sweet Country<\/em> 5-1,<\/a> then got by Algeria and Le\u00efla Marouane’s The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris<\/em> by a score of 1-0.<\/a><\/p>\n This one is going to be close . . . <\/p>\n Hal Hlavinka: Germany<\/b><\/p>\n Sa\u0161a’s payment pending, the ghost of Sebald runs ragged.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stephen Sparks: Germany<\/b><\/p>\n Although the exuberance of How the Soldier<\/em> fared well against Senselessness<\/em>, the methodical, evenly paced tenor of Austerlitz<\/em> won the day for me here in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n James Crossley: Germany<\/b><\/p>\n How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone<\/em> has a lot to recommend it where the World Cup of Literature is concerned: quirky chapter titles, some actual soccer content, and a flukish celebrity appearance on the hardcover dust jacket. (The designer used a stock photo—man playing accordion on the beach—without realizing that the subject was author\/musician Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket.) Sorry about the tough draw, Stani\u0161i\u0107, but that’s not enough. Literary landmark Austerlitz<\/em> for the win.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hannah Chute: Bosnia<\/b><\/p>\n How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone<\/em> is what Catch-22<\/em> would be if Yossarian were an eleven-year-old Bosnian kid. It’s funny, touching, and all-around brilliant. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nick During: Bosnia<\/b><\/p>\n Books, like soccer matches, often hinge on the unexpected. The depth and knowledge and verve of a truly great team can be defeated by the rare moment of creative brilliance at just the right time. Don’t get me wrong, Austerlitz<\/em> is a truly great book, a Sebald classic that makes the reader search for hidden memories and mysteries in the buildings that surround us, but in the flexible paragraphs and sentences of How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone<\/em> lies the imagination that has gives the reader another look at the past, and in a different way that can free them from the weight of official history.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Florian Duijsens: Bosnia<\/b><\/p>\n Every Cup needs at least one slightly partial ref and, having taken both books out into a park today (the closest I could think of coming to the championship field), I will gladly to give my vote to Bosnia, and not just because Sa\u0161a and I follow each other on Instagram. Where Austerlitz<\/em> smartly and digressively peers into the past and its oblivion, How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone<\/em> brings a version of the not all that distant past to vivid life through the child narrator\u2019s unobstructed observations, which manage to surprise as often as they stun with sudden bursts of painful truth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chris Schaefer: Germany<\/b><\/p>\n Sa\u0161a Stani\u0161i\u0107\u2019s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone<\/em> and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz<\/em> are both haunting novels about savage twentieth-century European conflicts. Stani\u0161i\u0107’s novel elicited more laughter from me than anything else I’ve read recently, but its creative tragicomedy could not compete with Sebald’s innovative and weighty erudition. The known quantity Sebald defends his reputation against the upstart Stani\u0161i\u0107, but we can expect great things from the young Bosnian in the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And there you have it—the semifinals are set. On one side we have Chile (Bola\u00f1o’s By Night in Chile<\/em>) going up against Germany (Sebald’s Austerlitz<\/em>), and on the other we have Mexico (Luiselli’s Faces in the Crowd<\/em>) taking on the USA<\/span> (DFW<\/span>’s The Pale King<\/em>).<\/p>\n See you tomorrow for the first of these matches! <\/p>\n ——<\/p>\n In the last of the four quarterfinal match ups, BiH, represented by Sa\u0161a Stani\u0161i\u0107’s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, goes up against one of the World Cup of Literature favorites, Germany and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. Stani\u0161ic made it here first by bribing a judge and beating Iran’s represntative, The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi 1-0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[23296,56736,10726,10716,1066,56386],"class_list":["post-298596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-anthea-bell","tag-austerlitz","tag-how-the-soldier-repairs-the-gramophone","tag-sasa-stanisic","tag-w-g-sebald","tag-world-cup-of-literature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337526,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298596\/revisions\/337526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}