Wall is also a significant book because it was tirelessly arranged and edited by the always-great , who have put together several excellent

So, what’s new with Wall? Well:

-Over at the there’s a newly posted excerpt from the book. This excerpt is part Paul Wilson’s fascinating essay “Tower of Song: How the Plastic People Helped Shape the Velvet Revolution.”

-Also, the Harvard Crimson has already run an early .

-Finally, the books official pub. date is on Nov. 9 (the twenty-year anniversary of the wall of the Berlin Wall), but it’s freshly in from the printer, and it looks very cool.

Our final Reading the World Conversation Series event of the fall is already upon us. Next week, four international writers and translators—all in residence at Ledig House International Writers Residency—are visiting the URochester.

Here are all the details:

Nov. 5, 2009
6:00 p.m.
Gowen Room, Wilson Commons
Ģ����ý
(free and open to the public)

Ledig House International Writers Residency is one of the only residences of its type in the United States. Since its creation in 1992, Ledig House has hosted hundreds of writers and translators from roughly 50 countries around the world. The colony’s strong international emphasis reflects the spirit of cultural exchange that is part of Ledig’s enduring legacy.

At this event, Chad Post (Director of Open Letter at the URochester) will lead a panel of writers and translators from around the world—all of whom are currently in residence at Ledig House. The panel will include readings and discussion from:

Kathrin Aehnlich (Germany): Her first novel, published 2007, became a bestseller in Germany.

Tom Dreyer (South Africa): His second novel received the Eugene Marais Prize. His third was shortlisted for the M-Net Prize.

Linda Gaboriau (Canada): She is an award-winning translator of Quebec’s most prominent playwrights.

Pravda Miteva (Bulgaria): She has worked as a literary translator since 1994, and owns a small publishing house.

(This event is hosted by Open Letter and Ģ����ý Arts & Sciences. It is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.)

A hilarious blend of absurdist, futurist and surrealist sensibilities, this new (and only complete) translation of Ilf and Petrov’s novel . . . is a highly animated tale of a con artist’s journey through the cities and hinterlands of Soviet Russia. . . . It’s an invigorating journey through innumerable paradoxes, dreams and burlesque routines, and though it’s intensely chaotic (at times to dizzying effect), this is a finely translated edition of a triumphant literary experiment.

Check out the (about halfway down the page), and, as always, you can the book now . . .

Here’s the skinny on the event:
Oct. 20, 2009 – Jorge Volpi—author of international bestseller In Search of Klingsor, and a founder of the “Crack” group—reads from his latest novel, and discusses the new generation of Mexican writers.

Season of Ash puts a human face on the earth-shaking events of the late twentieth century: the Chernobyl disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Soviet communism and the rise of the Russian oligarchs, the cascading collapse of developing economies, and the near-miraculous scientific advances of the Human Genome Project. Praised throughout the world for his inventive story telling and stylistic ambition, Jorge Volpi has become one of the leading innovators of twenty-first-century world literature.

After reading from Season of Ash, Jorge Volpi is joined in conversation by Alfred Mac Adam—professor of Latin American literature at Barnard College-Columbia University since 1983 and translator of novels by Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Donoso, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Julio Cortázar, as well as Season of Ash.

(This event is hosted by Open Letter and Ģ����ý Arts & Sciences. It is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.)

Choose any 2 books for $22 flat, and you’re automatically entered to win a free subscription for a full year of Open Letter titles (or, if you’re already a subscriber, you could get your current subscription extended for an additional free year). That’s a potential of 12 books for $22, which has an original retail value of $$$.

Ģ����ý the event:
Oct. 6 2009 – The French translator of Balzac, Proust, Flaubert, and others reads from her new translation of Mathias Énard’s Zone (forthcoming from Open Letter) and takes questions about literary translation. Zone has already been called “The novel of the decade, if not of the century” (Christophe Claro). In short, it is a 517-page, one-sentence novel about a spy, a train ride, a briefcase, and the pervasive violence of the twentieth century.

Charlotte Mandell is one of the great French-to-English translators, and has translated such prominent works as: The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac, The Book to Come by Maurice Blanchot, A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert, The Horla by Guy de Maupassant, Listening by Jean-Luc Nancy, and The Lemoine Affair by Marcel Proust.

(This event is hosted by Open Letter and Ģ����ý Arts & Sciences. It is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.)

OCT. 20, 2009
6:30 p.m.
Plutzik Library (in Rush Rhees Library)
Ģ����ý
(free and open to the public)

Jorge Volpi—author of international bestseller In Search of Klingsor, and a founder of the “Crack” group—reads from his latest novel, Season of Ash, and discusses the new generation of Mexican writers.

Alfred Mac Adam is the acclaimed Spanish translator of Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes, among others.

Jorge Volpi’s new international bestseller Season of Ash puts a human face on the earth-shaking events of the late twentieth century: the Cher­nobyl disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Soviet communism and the rise of the Russian oligarchs, the cascading collapse of developing economies, and the near-miraculous scientific advances of the Human Genome Project. Praised throughout the world for his inventive story­telling and stylistic am­bition, Jorge Volpi has become one of the leading innovators of twenty-first-century world literature.

After reading from Season of Ash, Jorge Volpi will be joined in conversation by Alfred Mac Adam—professor of Latin American literature at Barnard College-Columbia University since 1983 and translator of novels by Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Donoso, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Julio Cortázar, as well as Season of Ash.

(This event is hosted by Open Letter and Ģ����ý Arts & Sciences. It is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.)

Here’s the .

Or just click on the flyer below to get all the primary details.

OCT. 6, 2009
5:00 p.m.
Sloan Auditorium (in Goergen Hall)
Ģ����ý
(free and open to the public)

Charlotte Mandell—the French translator of Balzac, Proust, Flaubert, and others—reads from her new translation of Mathias Énard’s Zone (forthcoming from Open Letter) and takes questions about literary translation.

Zone has already been called “The novel of the decade, if not of the century” (Christophe Claro). In short, it is a 517-page, one-sentence novel about a spy, a train ride, a briefcase, and the pervasive violence of the twentieth century.

Charlotte Mandell is one of the great French-to-English translators, and has translated such prominent works as:

• The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac
• The Book to Come by Maurice Blanchot
• A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert
• The Horla by Guy de Maupassant
• Listening by Jean-Luc Nancy
• The Lemoine Affair by Marcel Proust

(This event is hosted by Open Letter and Ģ����ý Arts & Sciences. It is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.)