At 7pm at (52 Prince St.) we’ll be joined by María Cristina Hall of the Ramon Llull Insitut to go over the final section of Rodoreda’s amazing last novel.

After the formal conversation—which will be as varied and fun as the normal episodes, but also with questions from the audience—we will have some Spanish wine to drink while you do your holiday shopping.

See you next week!

To be more specific, David will be talking at McNally Jackson (52 Prince Street, between Lafayette & Mulberry) on Thursday, October 13th at 7pm.

Here’s some info from website:

“Forget the fish—it’s David Bellos you want in your ear when the talk is about translation. Bellos dispels many of the gloomy truisms of the trade and reminds us what an infinitely flexible instrument the English language (or any language) is. Sparkling, independent-minded analysis of everything from Nabokov’s insecurities to Google Translate’s felicities fuels a tender—even romantic—account of our relationship with words.”
—Natasha Wimmer, translator of Roberto Bolaño’s Savage Detectives and 2666

“In the guise of a book about translation this is a richly original cultural history . . . A book for anyone interested in words, language and cultural anthropology. Mr Bellos’s fascination with his subject is itself endlessly fascinating.”
—The Economist

Funny and surprising on every page, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? offers readers new insight into the mystery of how we come to know what someone else means—whether we wish to understand Astérix cartoons or a foreign head of state. Using translation as his lens, David Bellos shows how much we can learn about ourselves by exploring the ways we use translation, from the historical roots of written language to the stylistic choices of Ingmar Bergman, from the United Nations General Assembly to the significance of James Cameron’s Avatar. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across human experience to describe why translation sits deep within us all, and why we need it in so many situations, from the spread of religion to our appreciation of literature; indeed, Bellos claims that all writers are by definition translators. Written with joie de vivre, reveling both in misunderstanding and communication, littered with wonderful asides, it promises any reader new eyes through which to understand the world.

Definitely go check this out—I can guarantee that it will be fascinating, fun, and interesting.

We just brought out My Two Worlds, the first of three Chejfec books that we’re planning on publishing. Here’s the jacket copy:

Approaching his fiftieth birthday, the narrator in My Two Worlds is wandering in an unfamiliar Brazilian city, in search of a park. A walker by inclination and habit, he has decided to explore the city after attending a literary conference—he was invited following the publication of his most recent novel, although, as he has been informed via anonymous e-mail, the novel is not receiving good reviews. Initially thwarted by his inability to transpose the two-dimensional information of the map onto the impassable roads and dead-ends of the three-dimensional city, once he finds the park the narrator begins to see his own thoughts, reflections, and memories mirrored in the landscape of the park and its inhabitants.

Chejfec’s My Two Worlds, an extraordinary meditation on experience, writing, and space, is at once descriptively inventive and preternaturally familiar, a novel that challenges the limitations of the genre.

We also included this in so you can read an extended preview

Sergio, Margaret, and E.J. are all very brilliant and entertaining, so be sure to come out to this Thursday at 7 to hear them discuss the making of this fantastic novel.

And while you’re there, be sure to buy a copy along with some other book. That bit of support makes these events possible and keeps beautiful stores like McNally Jackson chugging along. And if you can’t make it, well, then you should just take out an

Bill Martin and Sal Robinson are both involved in this, which guarantees (to me and everyone who knows them) that the series will be of the highest quality.

The first event is at McNally Jackson at 7pm, and features Edith Grossman (Why Translation Matters, translator of Don Quixote and dozens of other books) and Steve Dolph (translator of The Sixty-Five Years of Washington).

Click for all the details. And we’ll give better advance warning on all the future events . . . .

This year’s festival is called “Haunting the Present,” and here’s a brief intro from the site:

Today’s Europe is a fascinating convergence of old and new, with high speed trains roaring past thousand-year-old towns. The past and present are never far away from each other, and this year’s New Literature from Europe festival explores this proximity by presenting some of the most powerful recent works of fiction by eight of the most important contemporary European authors. In Haunting the Present, the festival’s seventh annual series, the overriding theme is the continued sway of history on contemporary life. Readers will witness the changes over a century in one house in Bucharest and in another house on a lake outside Berlin as its residents flee each successive regime. They will be transported from the mythical Polish village of Primeval to a small, bucolic French town shortly after World War II, and beyond.

In this year’s New Literature from Europe, eight cultural institutes have teamed up to present a series of discussions and readings featuring eight critically acclaimed European writers: Philippe Claudel (France), Kirmen Uribe (Spain), Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany), Gerhard Roth (Austria), Radka Denemarková (Czech Republic), Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Gabriela Adameşteanu (Romania), and Antonia Arslan (Italy). Moderators will include distinguished writer André Aciman, chair of Comparative Literature and director of the Writers’ Institute at the CUNY Graduate Center and Susan Bernofsky, Guest Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College (CUNY).

That’s a pretty sweet lineup of authors and translators, and the four events that make up this festival all sound well-crafted and interesting. Here’s a bit of info on all the goings on:

Tuesday, November 16th, 7pm

Wednesday, November 17th, 3-5pm

Wednesday, November 17th, 6:30 pm & 7:45 pm

Thursday, November 18th, 7pm

The first to come back with pics was which one of my interns refers to as her “favorite bookstore in the world.” (I think one of the reasons she so loves McNally Jackson is because of the high propensity of Open Letter titles on display there. And really, who doesn’t love that? But seriously, it’s really cool for an intern to see something she worked on out on display in the “real world.” I’m still saving my over-the-top thrill for my subway moment: when I see someone on the subway reading one of our books, I’ll feel like we’ve really made it.) There are so many cool things about McNally Jackson that I made a list:

• unique book selection and display, thanks to buyer John Turner and a staff of engaged, insatiable readers;

• all the fiction is organized by country/region;

• thanks to Javier Molea, the Spanish language section is the best in New York (which, I believe according to the rules of East Coast bias makes it the Best In The World);

• the fact that Sarah McNally is simply awesome;

• beautifully lit and designed store;

• excellent events (I was at the McNally event for the announcement of the NBCC finalists back when Voices from Chernobyl won—one of the high points of my publishing life);

• connection to Canada;

• did I mention that McNally is one of the top 3 stores in terms of sales of Open Letter books?

Anyway, here’s their BTBA display with the randomly fantastic sign advertising the Ģ����ý: