Where: 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco<\/p>\n
Co-Sponsored by PEN<\/span> West and the Center for the Art of Translation<\/p>\n REX<\/span> is a sophisticated literary game rife with allusions to Proust and Borges, set in a world of wealthy Russian expats and mafiosos in western Europe. It is the final volume in a trilogy of novels that includes the acclaimed NOCTURNAL<\/span> BUTTERFLIES<\/span> OF THE<\/span> RUSSIAN<\/span> EMPIRE<\/span>. NPR<\/span> says, “Part Russian mafia thriller, part postmodern reflecting pool of sentence fragments and literary allusions, Jose Manuel Prieto’s confounding, glimmering REX<\/span> celebrates the aesthetic and spiritual power of writing.” Read the rest of the review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Considered one of today’s most important Spanish-language authors, JOSE<\/span> MANUEL<\/span> PRIETO<\/span> was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1962. He has lived and worked in Russia, Mexico, and the United States. In addition to several novels, his works include translations into Spanish of many Russian and Russian expatriate writers, among them Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Nabokov, and Joseph Brodsky. He is currently a visiting professor and distinguished lecturer at Princeton University.<\/p>\n ESTHER<\/span> ALLEN<\/span>, the translator of REX<\/span>, is an assistant professor at Baruch College, CUNY<\/span>. She is also a 2009-2010 fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, where she is editing and annotating Argentine author Adolfo Bioy Casares’s writings about his best friend Jorge Luis Borges. Her previous translations include works by Borges, Jose Marti, and Alma Guillermoprieto.<\/p>\n