The International Rivers Interview Series was born of two unrelated events. The first was a Roni Horn exhibit I saw some years back in New York featuring the work Still Water (The River Thames, For Example). Horn framed multiple close-up shots of the Thames passing through central London and approached the river with a number of questions. I remember Horn asking, ‘What is the color of water?’ and the elegant simplicity of that question struck me. One answer is that it has no color, that water is a body that either reflects its surroundings by throwing back a visual reply or absorbing organic matter. Water is, Horn later said, “a master chameleon. Or the ultimate mime.” Could rivers like the Thames, I wondered, reflect more than mud, trees and bridges, but history and culture too?

They’ll be interviewing four writers: Sasa Stanisic, György Dragomán, Dumitru Tsepeneag, and our own . The first interview, with György Dragomán, .

An idea that’s definitely worth keeping up with.

• Voice Over by Céline Curiol (trans. Sam Richard)
• A Blessed Child by Linn Ullman (trans. Sarah Death)
• The Blue Fox by Sjon (trans. Victoria Cribb)
• Friendly Fire by A.B. Yehoshua (trans. Stuart Schoffman)
• My Father’s Wives by José Eduardo Agualusa (trans. Daniel Hahn)
• The White King by Gyorgy Dragoman (trans. Paul Olchvary)
• The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (trans. Anne McLeane)
• Homesick by Eshkol Nevo (trans. Sondra Silverstein)
• Beijing Coma by Ma Jian (trans. Flora Drew)
• The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa (trans Stephen Snyder)
• Novel 11, Book 18 by Dag Solstad (trans. Sverre Lyngstad)
• The Director by Alexander Ahndoril (trans. Sarah Death)
• The Armies by Euelio Rosero (trans. Anne McLean)
• How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić‘ (trans. Anthea Bell)
• The Siege by Ismail Kadare (trans. David Bellos, from the French of Jusuf Vrioni)
• Night Work by Thomas Glavinic (trans. John Brownjohn)

There’s only two points of contact with the Best Translated Book Award longlist, Celine Curiol’s Voice Over (which made our shortlist) and perennial Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlister, and sometime prizewinner, José Eduardo Agualusa, whose Book of Chameleons we nominated—My Father’s Wives has yet to find an American publisher, I think.

Overall, it’s a strong list, and if you want more info we have reviews of a few of the books from the longlist:

• The Blue Fox
• The Diving Pool

Only two! Looks like we have some work to do.