{"id":299806,"date":"2014-10-29T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2014\/10\/29\/daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:23","slug":"daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2014\/10\/29\/daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"DANIEL MEDIN\u2019S BTBA FAVORITES: FALL 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Medin teaches at the American University of Paris<\/a>, where he helps direct the Center for Writers and Translators<\/a> and is Associate Series Editor of <\/i>The Cahiers Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Can Xue: The Last Lover<\/i><\/a>, trans. from Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, Yale\/Margellos<\/p>\n

The strangest and by far most original work I read this summer was Can Xue\u2019s The Last Lover<\/em>. How refreshing it is to encounter fiction that so resolutely disregards conventions of character and plot! The protagonists of this book do not develop\u2014they transform, as do their relationships to one another, from one scene to the next. And they do so unpredictably, in ways that surprise and delight. As in much of Can Xue\u2019s fiction, the prose is comic and disturbing at one and the same time. John Darnielle had Vertical Motion<\/i><\/a> in mind when he pointed to the \u201cgrammar of dreams\u201d that underpins that volume of stories: \u201csituations in which a general meowing sound throughout a hospital provokes not the question \u2018what’s going on?\u2019 but instead \u2018where are the catmen hiding?\u2019\u201d A similar grammar is present in The Last Lover<\/em>, her most ambitious\u2014and perhaps most radical\u2014novel to date.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Faris al-Shidyaq: Leg over Leg volume 3<\/i><\/a>, trans. from Arabic by Humphrey Davies, NYU<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote about the charms of this novel last winter, when the first two volumes were eligible for the prize. It should come as no surprise that the other two are now contenders as well. This chapter from volume three appeared in the 2014 translation issue of London\u2019s The White Review<\/i><\/a>. It\u2019s preceded by a concise introduction by Humphrey Davies, whose translation of Shidyaq remains among the most gymnastic and resourceful amongst this year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Elena Ferrante: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay<\/i><\/a>, trans. from Italian by Ann Goldstein, Europa<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying the force of Ferrante\u2019s writing. I discovered volume 2 of the Neapolitan Novels last spring when it made our longlist. (Such are the privileges of judging for BTBA<\/span>;<\/a> you have to read the 25 titles selected to this list, and thereby profit directly from the enthusiasms of others.) I devoured it whole, then did the same to The Story of a New Name<\/i><\/a>. Ferrante inspires that rare thing, rarer still among contemporary writers: the compulsion to read everything she\u2019s ever published. Like its predecessors, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay<\/em> bristles with intelligence and is executed with startling clarity. And like the other books in this series, it is all-absorbing. Here\u2019s Ariel Starling in a recent review for The Quarterly Conversation:<\/i><\/a> \u201cSubtle as the plot may be, it would do the work a grave disservice not to note that Ferrante is, in her own way, a master of suspense. Reading these novels, one becomes so immersed in the world of the characters that even an offhand comment from a minor acquaintance can (and often does) carry the force of revelation\u2014the books are nearly impossible to put down.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hilda Hilst: With My Dog Eyes<\/i><\/a>, trans. from Portuguese by Adam Morris, Melville House <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already posted on Letters from a Seducer<\/i><\/a> which had been scheduled for 2013 release but entered the world on the wrong side of January 1. Goes without saying that this title and its extraordinary translation by John Keene has not weakened in the slightest since my initial encounter. Hilst deserves to be in the mix when winter arrives and we begin to draft lists. The question then is likely to be: which horse to back? The answer\u2019s not immediately obvious, to the great credit of Hilst\u2019s translators and editors. With My Dog Eyes<\/em> was as exhilarating to read as the Letter<\/em> and The Obscene Madame D<\/i><\/a>. Hilst has been blessed with a generation of astute translators who are now introducing her work to an Anglophone readership. With My Dog Eyes<\/em> struck me as the most aphoristic of the three novels. It begins unforgettably: \u201cGod? A surface of ice anchored to laughter.\u201d Adam Levy wrote a canny essay for Music & Literature<\/i> about this year\u2019s eligible Hilst titles; read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve little doubt concerning the importance of the above works for their respective languages. Those without Chinese or Italian or Portuguese have Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, Ann Goldstein, and Adam Morris to thank for ensuring that their greatness has been preserved in the face of formidable challenges. I\u2019d like to mention briefly the names of a few more translators whose work has impressed over these first few months of reading. They succeed at communicating the vitality of the voices translated, but also for their accomplished prose in English. They are, in no particular order, Jason Grunebaum from the Hindi of The Walls of Delhi<\/i><\/a> by Uday Prakash; Daniel Hahn from the Portuguese (Brazil) of Nowhere People<\/i><\/a> by Paolo Scott; Chris Andrews from the Spanish (Guatemala) of Severina<\/i><\/a> by Rodrigo Rey Rosa; and Karen Emmerich from the Greek of Why I Killed My Best Friend<\/i><\/a> by Amanda Michalopoulou, whose passages about the bewilderments of adolescent sexuality rank\u2014alongside volume three of My Struggle<\/i><\/a> by Karl Ove Knausgaard\u2014among the funniest things I\u2019ve encountered so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Medin teaches at the American University of Paris, where he helps direct the Center for Writers and Translators and is Associate Series Editor of The Cahiers Series. Can Xue: The Last Lover, trans. from Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, Yale\/Margellos The strangest and by far most original work I read this summer was Can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[58676,12946,57356,58256,19366,32616,12416,58656,50116,30256,58686,52766,1646,58646,46406,57526,46396,58666],"class_list":["post-299806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-adam-morris","tag-ann-goldstein","tag-annelise-finegan-wasmoen","tag-btba2015","tag-can-xue","tag-daniel-medin","tag-elena-ferrante","tag-faris-al-shiydaq","tag-hilda-hilst","tag-humphrey-davies","tag-ja","tag-leg-over-leg","tag-review","tag-the-last-lover","tag-the-walls-of-delhi","tag-those-who-leave-and-those-who-stay","tag-uday-prakash","tag-with-my-dog-eyes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299806","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\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317116,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299806\/revisions\/317116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}