Summer 2010 Open Letter Catalog
Only seems appropriate that just before Christmas we should announce our summer list of titles . . . You can click here to download a pdf version of the new catalog (which contains excerpts from all the books), or, for those of you who are anti-pdf, the list below has the basic information for the next five Open Letter titles.
All of these titles will be available through better bookstores everywhere and through the Additionally, you can and receive a year’s worth of books (10 in total) for $100 (free shipping!). Or get a six-month subscription (5 books) for only $60 (again, with free shipping).
Here are the titles from one of our best lists yet:
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translated from the Catalan by Mary Ann Newman
For the first time in his life, Heribert Juli谩 is unable to paint. On the eve of an important gallery exhibition, for which he鈥檚 created nothing, he鈥檚 bored with life: he falls asleep while making love with his mistress, wanders from bar to bar, drinking whatever comes to his attention first, and meets the evidence of his wife Helena鈥檚 infidelity with complete indifference. Humbert Herrera, an up-and-coming artist who can鈥檛 stop creating, picks up the threads of Heribert鈥檚 life, taking his wife, replacing him at the gallery, and pursuing his former mistress. Heribert is finally undone by a massive sculpture, while Humbert is planning the sculpture to end sculpture, the poem to end poetry, and the film to end film, all while mounting three simultaneous shows.
A fun-house mirror through which he examines the creative process, the life and loves of artists, and the New York art scene, Gasoline confirms Quim Monz贸 as the foremost Catalan writer of his generation.
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translated from the Polish by David Frick
A comic gem, Jerzy Pilch鈥檚 A Thousand Peaceful Cities takes place in 1963, in the latter days of the Polish post-Stalinist 鈥渢haw.鈥 The narrator, Jerzyk (鈥渓ittle Jerzy鈥), is a teenager who is keenly interested in his father, a retired postal administrator, and his father鈥檚 closest friend, Mr. Traba, a failed Lutheran clergyman, alcoholic, would-be Polish insurrectionist, and one of the wildest literary characters since Laurence Sterne鈥檚 Uncle Toby. One drunken afternoon, Mr. Traba and the narrator鈥檚 nameless father decide to take charge of their lives and do one final good turn for humanity: travel to distant Warsaw and assassinate the de facto Polish head of state, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers鈥 Party, W艂adys艂aw Gomu艂ka鈥攁ssassinating Mao Tse-tung, after all, would be impractical. And they decide to involve Jerzyk in their scheme . . .
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translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
The Private Lives of Trees tells the story of a single night: a young professor of literature named Juli谩n is reading to his step-daughter Daniela and nervously waiting for his wife Ver贸nica to return from her art class. Each night, Juli谩n has been improvising a story about trees to tell Daniela before she goes to sleep鈥攁nd each Sunday he works on a novel about a man tending to his bonsai鈥攂ut something about this night is different. As Juli谩n becomes increasing concerned that Ver贸nica won鈥檛 return, he reflects on their life together in minute detail, and imagines what Daniela鈥攁t twenty, at twenty-five, at thirty years old, without a mother鈥攚ill think of his novel.
Perhaps even more daring and dizzying than Zambra鈥檚 magical Bonsai, The Private Lives of Trees demands to be read in a single sitting, and it casts a spell that will bring you back to it again and again.
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translated from the German by Kenneth Northcott
Nobody knows exactly what happened in the small town of Klausen, or rather, everyone knows: a bomb went off on the autobahn, or at a shack near the autobahn, or someone was shooting at the town from a bridge; it all stems from a fight over measuring noise pollution on the town square, or it was the work of eco-terrorists, or Italians. And while nobody knows who or what to blame鈥攁lthough they鈥檙e certainly uneasy about the Moroccan and Albanian immigrants who are squatting in an abandoned castle鈥攖hey all suspect that Josef Gasser, who spent several years away from Klausen, in Berlin, is behind it all. Only one thing is clear: Klausen was now a crime scene.
In Klausen, Andreas Maier has taken Thomas Bernhard鈥檚 method鈥攖he nested indirect speech, the repetition, the endless paragraph鈥攁nd pointed it at an entire town. A town where one confusion leads to the next, where everyone is living in a fog of rumor, but where everyone claims to know exactly what鈥檚 going on, even if they鈥檝e changed their story several times.
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translated from the Afrikaans by Elsa Silke
Two scientists, Reitz Steyn and Ben Maritz, find themselves in a 鈥渢ransit camp for those temporarily and permanently unfit for battle鈥 during the Boer War. Captured on suspicion of desertion and treason鈥攄uring a trek across an unchanging desert of bushes, rocks, and ant hills to help transport a fellow-soldier, who has suffered debilitating shell-shock, to his mother鈥攖hey are forced to await the judgment of a General Bergh, unsure whether they are to be conscripted into Bergh鈥檚 commando, allowed to continue their mission, or executed for treason. As the weeks pass, and the men鈥檚 despair at ever returning to their families reaches its peak, they are sent on a bizarre mission . . .
A South African Heart of Darkness, Ingrid Winterbach鈥檚 To Hell with Cronj茅 is a poetic exploration of friendship and camaraderie, an eerie reflection on the futility of war, and a thought-provoking re-examination of the founding moments of the South African nation.
As a special preview, coming up in the fall 2010 are: Mathias 脡nard’s Zone, Juan Jos茅 Saer’s Glosa, Bragi 脫lafsson’s The Ambassadors, and a couple more titles we’re still working on. More information as soon as we have it . . .
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