by Kamel Daoud, translated from the French by John Cullen (Algeria, Other Press)

This year’s longlist is very strong, but I have no problem making the claim that The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud deserves to be at the head of the list. No other book on this longlist will force you to reexamine your reading of one of the Western world’s most studied novels like Daoud’s novel will. On top of that, this novel will expose your unconscious reading bias and, if you’re like me, make you feel pretty guilty in the process. If I were an English professor, The Meursault Investigation would go on my syllabus next semester.

In this novel, Daoud takes on Albert Camus’s The Stranger (sometimes translated as The Other or The Outsider) and dares to tell the other side of the story. For those few of you who escaped having The Stranger as assigned reading in school, it is widely regarded as the classic existential (or, some say, absurdist) novel. Camus wrote it in French and first published it in 1942. To summarize, in the first half of the novel, the protagonist Meursault ends up shooting an “Arab” on a hot sunny beach out of either boredom/ennui or heatstroke (the critics disagree) and, in the second half, he languishes in his jail cell waiting for death while questioning the meaning of life. Meursault eventually concludes, “Nothing, nothing mattered . . .” The story is told in the first person in unadorned, almost acetic, prose.

Daoud comes at this same story from a different angle. His protagonist Harun is the surviving brother of Musa, the “Arab” murdered by Meursault in Camus’s novel. In Harun’s world, The Stranger is a kind of memoir by Meursault, describing his crime and its aftermath. The Meursault Investigation is Harun’s first-person response to Meursault’s narrative, albeit fifty years after the crime. For Harun, Meursault murders Musa first by calling him what he is not (Arab), second, by refusing to call him what he is (Musa), and third, by shooting him five times. All three are inexcusable, and as readers of The Stranger, most of us were complicit in the first two murders, only recognizing the five bullets as wrong.

Unlike many readers of The Stranger, Harun refuses to accept the label of “Arab” for his brother:

Arab. I never felt Arab, you know. Arab-ness is like Negro-ness, which only exists in the white man’s eyes. In our neighborhood, in our world, we were Muslims, we had given names, faces, and habits. Period. The others were “the strangers,” the roumis God brought here to put us to the test . . .

Meursault also neglects to give Musa a name or even a body. Without a body, there’s “a weird funeral” and an “empty grave,” and, understandably, Harun is angry about this:

Just think, we’re talking about one of the most-read books in the world. My brother might have been famous if your author had merely deigned to give him a name. H’med or Kaddour or Hammou, just a name, damn it! . . . But no, he didn’t name him, because if he had, my brother would have caused the murderer a problem with his conscience: You can’t easily kill a man when he has a given name.

The brilliance of Daoud’s work here is that many of his readers will be recognizing these gaps in the classic story for the first time. When I read The Stranger in ninth grade (I think), all of the focus was on Meursault’s motivations in shooting “the Arab” and his resulting struggle to define the meaning of his life. I don’t recall thinking much about the Arab whose death animates Meursault’s famous philosophizing. This is where the guilt comes in. Why didn’t we think about the murdered man and his family when we read The Stranger? And when we didn’t, why weren’t we taught that we should?

I don’t have space here to unpack all the masterful ways in which Daoud engages with Camus’s novel except to say that the resonances are multilayered and reward close reading. One point of contrast, however, is notable. Both novels were written originally in French, but where Camus writes with spare efficiency, Daoud employs a lush, descriptive language. John Cullen’s translation of Daoud captures the warmth and sensuousness of the language as well as Harun’s conversational tone. The stark difference in linguistic style between the novels highlights the different worlds inhabited by these two protagonists, even though they walk on the same streets.

The Meursault Investigation is uncomfortably thought-provoking in the best way. It deserves to be read and studied alongside its classic companion. Even with only a passing familiarity with Camus’s The Stranger, Daoud’s novel is a rewarding read. The Meursault Investigation’s brilliance, however, becomes most obvious when read right after reading (or rereading) Camus’s classic. It is then that its complex interactions with the classic are best appreciated.

Publishing people love to complain about everything. The Javitz Center sucks. (This is a fact! Stupid glass warehouse. Looks like something from Cleveland.) The BEA is too expensive. No booksellers or critics come anymore. People only want free books. Books don’t sell. Stupid Grumpy Cat is clogging up the aisles. A coffee costs $17. This fair is loaded with crap thanks to you Random Harper House and the Algonquins of mediocrity. Why more Mitch Albom? I thought he was in heaven? Writing us letters? It’ll only be more unbearable in Chicago. And on the weekend they’re actually letting in regular readers. This is the worst.

It’s kind of great! Four days of being around my people, all rant-receptive, all cloaking their belief in the power of books behind a shell of unremitting misery . . . So good! I need this in my life at least once a year—it helps me feel human.

The best post-BEA storyline to me was about the Big Publisher reaction to “BookCon,” the weekend part of the show when readers flood the aisles searching for John Green and buying books (although maybe not the books by the presses whose books I usually buy). Here’s the initial reaction, as reported in

Not only are many New York City-based publishers concerned about staffing for next year’s BookCon, they’re also worried that the change in venue [Ed. Note: BEA is in Chicago next summer] will mark a return to the show’s first year, when attendance was lower and the event itself was more chaotic.

Then, a week later, also in

Heather Fain, senior v-p and director of marketing strategy at Hachette Book Group, said she’s looking forward to meeting readers from other parts of the country: “Readers don’t just live in New York. If Reed puts together the programming with big names, I think they could get a crowd to come out in any major market. And I like the idea of interacting with readers outside the Tristate Area.”

Wait, there are readers outside of New York City? I CALL BULLSHIT. I’ve said it a million times, but publishers are amazingly good at distancing themselves from their readers. Just wait—next May there will be a slew of articles about how crappy Chicago BookCon is going to be, then in June, publishers will be all “we sold a lot of books! It was great! But next year when it’s in Los Angeles . . . Well, I’m just not sure . . .”

When publishers finally realize that the main reason they exist is thanks to the passion of readers willing to pay money to come to an awful part of NYC just to meet publishers, there will be a sea change in this show. Granted, there won’t be swarms of tween girls bum rushing the Coach House booth in search of conceptual poetry, but still. I see this in my daughter who, to this day (literally), talks about how excited she was to meet Jón Gnarr and how The Indian is her favorite book. I told her about BEA and to her it sounded like paradise. Not for free stuff, but to see so many books and so many cool people (since cool people are people who work with books) in one place at one time. To her, it was like ComicCon but with fewer costumes.

Steve Rosato, who runs BEA, told me that NY ComicCon—which I am going to go to—draws TEN TIMES as many attendees as BookCon/BEA. This is insane to me. 150,000 people are at NYCC at any moment in time. People who paid $50 to get into a show to buy more stuff. We all love superhero movies more than experimental prose, but still, the great benefit of the various book festivals around the country—the LA Times Festival of Books, Printers Row, Miami Book Fair, now BookCon—is that there’s an opportunity to interact with these people. Instead of only interacting with fellow publishing people drowning their misery with alcohol and hate. (Although alcohol and hate are both wonderful.)

Anyway, my favorite BEA moment? Walking the aisles and finding this at the Overdrive Booth (Overdrive being a service working with libraries to allow patrons to check out audiobooks and ebooks—it’s my favorite app):

Yep, that’s an Open Letter book right next to Dan Brown, and under Gone Girl and Wimpy Kid. We made it!

Not only was on this oft-repeating mosaic of major works, but they used it as the feature book (along with The Girl on the Train, the number one best-selling book in the country) on this background image inside their booth:

I’ve always dreamt of seeing someone randomly reading one of our books on the subway, but although that hasn’t happened, this is a good runner-up dream.

and by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Tom Bunstead and Anne McLean (New Directions)

Vila-Matas is one of my favorites—especially Montano’s Malady—for all the formal games he plays with point of view and narrative, which he uses to upend your expectations time and again, shifting his books from half-essays into strange beasts that aren’t what we usually think of as “novels.” This is important and wonderful. And a book about a secret society of people called “the Shandies,” obsessed with “portable literature”? Yes, all the yes.

By the way, next week, Tom and I will be recording our 100th episode of the Three Percent Podcast. We’re going to make this a “listener appreciation” podcast in which we answer any and all questions from you about publishing, sports, books, whatever. Just send them to threepercentpodcast@gmail.com.

by Kamel Daoud, translated from the French by John Cullen (Other Press)

To be honest, I’m not actually all that interested in this book. I’m sure it’s fine and competent and will reach a very wide audience (especially after the Kakutani NY Times review), all of which is great for Other Press and the book. (The set-up alone—a retelling of The Stranger from the perspective of the Arab Meursault kills—guarantees this a huge book club audience.) A lot of people I respect really like this, but I can’t imagine it blowing my mind. Nevertheless, a ton of people will be talking about this, and I’m sure that conversation will be interesting to thousands of readers.

I have to say, the older I get, the less I feel like reading books that I should read in favor of ones I want to. When I moved recently, I was reorganizing my bookshelves and kept having the thought that I was saving books that I would never possibly get to before I die. Ever. It’s an anxiety-making idea, in part because of the death aspect, but also because it makes me question why I choose to read the books I do. I have no good answer to this, but I’m pretty sure The Meursault Investigation won’t be one of the 100 titles that makes the cut for 2015. Sorry.

That said, Jeff Waxman from Other Press—and all their other staff members—is a great guy doing a lot of amazing things, especially in terms of connecting small presses with booksellers. (Like at the upcoming Small Press Night at Green Apple Books in San Francisco.) Jeff is my favorite thing about Other Press. That and the Simon Critchley book they’re bringing out later this year.

by Yoel Hoffmann, translated from the Hebrew by Peter Cole (New Directions)

It’s really too bad that FOX has the rights to the Women’s World Cup. Their soccer coverage is fine, but it just feels so buried seeking the games out on FOX Sports 1. Granted, ESPN aired most of last year’s World Cup, but everyone has ESPN. That’s like basic cable.

I was really surprised that last night’s USA-Australia game wasn’t on FOX proper. It was a perfect opportunity for FOX to remind the nation that FOX Sports 1 still exists, and to get a ton of people hooked into this competition. Instead they aired a rerun of So You Think You Can Dance. FOX sucks.

Bringing together my two great loves—translation and sports—here’s a picture of Peter Cole (translator of Yoel Hoffmann’s Moods) giving a talk in front of the Men in Blazers mug that George Carroll sent me.

by Léon Bloy, translated from the French by Erik Butler (Wakefield Press)

The that I saw during the NBA Finals, and which brought up a lot of questions.

This commercial opens with the following rhetorical question: “What do you think of when you think of the United States Postal Service? . . . . . . Exactly.”

Exactly what??? The things that come to mind when I think of the USPS are, in descending order, 1) the phrase “going postal,” and 2) nothing. It’s like thinking about electricity or garbage collection—it’s just something that’s there and works most of the time.

I feel like the commercial should go on in this way, “You know what we here at the USPS are good at? Occasionally delivering Amazon orders. We’re better than imaginary drones at that! The Postal Service. Sounds like a band name. Hell, next time you hear this commercial think of that. USPS. Band. Name.”

I’m sure that FOX has this commercial on endless loop.

by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated from the Spanish by John King (FSG)

This book sounds like such an old man book—I love it!

In the past, culture was a kind of vital consciousness that constantly rejuvenated and revivified everyday reality. Now it is largely a mechanism of distraction and entertainment. [. . .] Vargas Llosa traces a decline whose ill effects have only just begun to be felt. He mourns, in particular, the figure of the intellectual: for most of the twentieth century, men and women of letters drove political, aesthetic, and moral conversations; today they have all but disappeared from public debate.

I think I’m going to read this over the weekend and spend hours yelling at my books to get off my lawn.

by Juan José Saer, translated from the Spanish by Roanne Kantor (Open Letter)

This is our fourth Saer book—with another coming next summer!—and the first to be translated by Roanne Kantor. (Steve Dolph has done the other three, and he’s amazing.) Roanne won the in 2009 for this book, which is how she ended up working on it for us.

Speaking of Susan Sontag, her biographer, Ben Moser, won the Internet recently for his photo of his six-year-old niece flipping out in the White House. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but if not, here’s a I get overly excited when people I know become über-famous for something that’s not what they always do. Now, hopefully 1/1,000,000 of the people who saw that photo will buy a book that Ben has translated, edited, or written.

by A Yi, translated from the Chinese by Anna Holmwood (Oneworld)

So, China was the Global Market Focus country at BEA this year, which was interesting. I only attended a couple of the main events, but saw their various displays, which took up a sizable portion of the exhibition floor.

The New Yorker ran an about China and BEA, which includes a depressing story about A Perfect Crime:

Even the Chinese delegation’s most promising soft-power weapons, the twenty-four authors, had trouble drawing crowds. On Friday, a Chinese newspaper lamented the lack of attendees at the on-site book signings. “Where Did the Readers Go?” read the headline. According to the article, during one signing featuring the crime novelist A Yi, the author grabbed a book and tried to push it on a middle-aged American man as he walked by. A Yi soon returned, dejected. “You’d better stop,” said another author, Su Tong, jokingly patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll humiliate our country.” The article went viral in China, before being deleted. (ChinaFile has a translation ) The rest of the planned book signings were cancelled as a result.

This piece also ends with an odd quote from our favorite author to troll, Jonathan Franzen, which, obviously I’m going to quote:

When I approached Franzen at the PEN rally, he told me that, after visiting China, he’d come to understand the case for censorship. “China has known so much misery, so much social instability in the last century, that there’s this deep cultural fear of it that cuts substantially across political lines,” he said. “From the point of view of the Chinese government, trying to maintain social stability, there are reasons for censorship. And that’s a point of view that has a right to be heard, in the same way that the writers we were supporting here have a right to be heard.”

by Violette Leduc, translated from the French by Sophie Lewis (Feminist Press)

Violette Leduc was one of the coolest authors ever, and it’s so good that this is finally available in its unedited version.

Also, Feminist Press rocks and you should really listen to our recent podcast in which Feminist Press editor Julia Berner-Tobin joined us to talk about Virginie Despentes’s Apocalypse Baby.

by Alan Pauls, translated from the Spanish by Ellie Robins (Melville House)

I couldn’t get into the Pauls book that Harvill brought out a few years ago, but he’s always talked about as one of the great contemporary Latin American writers, so I’m willing to give this one a chance.

Unfortunately, Melville House doesn’t send us review copies, so I went ahead and ordered this on Amazon.

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin (Dalkey Archive)

This looks really interesting: a short set of essays about the art of writing from the author of The Bathroom and Television. When he’s on, Toussaint is spectacular, and it makes me curious to see what his nonfiction is like. Also, this book is 57 pages long with a gigantic font size, so it’s one that I can definitely finish . . .

There are bunch of books I’d like to include, but don’t have the time/energy for. (In other words, I have no obvious jokes for these titles.) So here’s a short list of other things coming out in June that are worth checking out.

by Marc Auge, translated from the French by Chris Turner (Seagull Books)

by Róbert Gál, translated from the Slovak by Mark Kanak (Dalkey Archive)

by Alisa Ganieva, translated from the Russian by Carol Apollonio (Deep Vellum)

by Kati Hiekkapelto, translated from the Finnish by David Hackston (Arcadia)

Guadalupe Nettel, translated from the Spanish by J.T. Lichtenstein (Seven Stories Press)

Micheal Ó Conghaile, translated from the Irish by Katherine Duffy (Dalkey Archive)

“Like a New Sun: New Indigenous Mexican Poetry”: (Phoneme Books)