{"id":295386,"date":"2013-10-23T10:48:19","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T10:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2013\/10\/23\/ineligible-books\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:56:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:56:31","slug":"ineligible-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2013\/10\/23\/ineligible-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Ineligible Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Sparks is a buyer at Green Apple Books<\/a>. He lives in San Francisco and blogs at Invisible Stories<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fine print attached to the Best Translated Book Award<\/a> states that in order to be eligible, a work cannot have been previously translated. I don\u2019t disagree with the rule, especially as we already over 350 books to consider, but worry that because of this stipulation we may miss out on notable books that we, as a jury, should in some way recognize. It\u2019s with this concern in mind that I offer here a handful of new translations\/reprints not eligible for the BTBA<\/span> but nonetheless worthy of some attention.<\/p>\n

The Woman of Porto Pim<\/i><\/a>, by Antonio Tabucchi (Archipelago), trans. Tim Parks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tabucchi is one of the great post-War Italian novelists and despite his place in the pantheon of European letters, he seems little appreciated in the U.S. The Women of Porto Pim<\/i> is an ideal introduction: it\u2019s as much a travelogue as a collection of tales about the remote volcanic outcrop of the Azores. Broken into two sections (with the evocative and impossible to resist titles, \u201cShipwrecks, Flotsam, Crossings, Distances\u201d and \u201cOf Whales and Whalemen\u201d), this slim work, previously published along with The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico<\/i> in the early 90s, is a gorgeous, sometimes oblique portrait of a fascinating culture. <\/p>\n

The Smell<\/i><\/a>, by Sonallah Ibrahim (New Directions), trans. Robyn Creswell<\/strong><\/p>\n

In flat, unaffected prose that works more through what\u2019s left unsaid, or what, for political reasons can\u2019t be said, Ibrahim\u2019s 1966 novel provides insight into Egypt that\u2019s still relevant today. Written as a diary of an ex-prisoner finding his footing after his release, That Smell is a stark and haunting chronicle of life on constant threat of lock and key. <\/p>\n

Happily, New Directions is publishing another of Ibrahim\u2019s novels next spring, Stealth<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The Transylvanian Trilogy (or the Writing on the Wall trilogy)<\/i><\/a>, by Miklos Banffy (Everyman\u2019s Library), trans. Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Banffy-Jelen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Comprised of They Were Counted<\/i>, They Were Found Wanting<\/i>, and They Were Divided<\/i>, Banffy\u2019s epic masterpiece is the Transylvanian (Romanian) equivalent of the great 19th century Russian novels. Set in the years leading up to WWI<\/span>, the trilogy concerns itself with an enlightened landowner, Balint, who watches helplessly as his country slides into disaster. It\u2019s an old story\u2014that of the idle rich unconcerned with the sad and soon unavoidable state of the world\u2014but Banffy, who like his protagonist was a politician who tried to get his countrymen to see the writing on the wall, handles the whole thing with grace and humor, though his story is bleak.<\/p>\n

Read more about the trilogy at The Neglected Books Page<\/a> and Writers No One Reads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Winter Journeys<\/i><\/a>, by Georges Perec and the Oulipo (Atlas Press), trans. Ian White, John Sturrock, and Harry Mathews<\/strong><\/p>\n

Georges Perec\u2019s \u201cThe Winter Journey\u201d is a story about a man who discovers a book, also called The Winter Journey<\/i>, containing a secret that overturns everything we know about modern French literature. Unfortunately, this fictional discovery occurs in 1939 and with the outbreak of WW2, the book is lost and all attempts to track it down prove fruitless. Winter Journeys<\/i> collects what turned out to be Perec\u2019s prompt and twenty successive tales, each in some way building off another. A fine, playful time is had by all.<\/p>\n

[A shameless plug: we\u2019ll be hosting Oulipians Paul Fournel, Herv\u00e9 Le Tellier, and Daniel Levin Becker for a reading of Winter Journeys<\/i> at Green Apple Books on November 8<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Black Spider<\/i><\/a>, by Jeremias Gotthelf (NYRB<\/span> Classics), trans. Susan Bernofsky<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

This is an insanely creepy (and, Happy Halloween, timely) novella full of spiders, heartless and vicious landowners, desperate weak-willed farmers, bold women, satanic strangers, more spiders, cosmic horror, and even more spiders. Written in the mid-19th century by a Swiss priest, Black Spide<\/i>r was considered by Thomas Mann as a premonition of Nazism and is considered a classic of horror. Susan Bernofsky\u2019s new translation of Gotthelf\u2019s unique dialect and High German is full of life. A chilling book. <\/p>\n

The only thing the typically spot-on NYRB<\/span> Classics got wrong was not using Edward Gorey\u2019s brilliant cover illustration from the old edition of Nineteenth Century German Tales<\/i> (via 50 Watts<\/a>), seen below.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Sparks is a buyer at Green Apple Books. He lives in San Francisco and blogs at Invisible Stories. The fine print attached to the Best Translated Book Award states that in order to be eligible, a work cannot have been previously translated. I don\u2019t disagree with the rule, especially as we already over 350 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339086,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295386\/revisions\/339086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}