I don’t post on social media all that often—unless I’ve been drinking—but do generally try and share all of the reviews and publicity pieces that come up about Open Letter. And as with anything else, this tends to come in waves, including the onslaught of pieces from the past few days that I’ve been sharing. Here’s a rundown of recent publicity for the press and its authors:<\/p>\n
Dubravka Ugresic<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Well, first off, the new issue of World Literature Today<\/em><\/a> is dedicated to this Neustadt Laureate, and includes her acceptance speech,<\/a> Dubravka Ugresic and Contemporary European Literature<\/a> by Alison Anderson, and a piece I wrote about The American Nobel.<\/a> And available only through WLT<\/span><\/em>’s digital edition are The Scold’s Bridle<\/a> by Dubravka, Mothers and Daughters: Generational Conflict and Social Change in the Work of Dubravka Ugre\u0161i\u0107<\/a> by Emily D. Johnson, and Crafting Serious Work Out of Mass Culture: The Early Prose of Dubravka Ugre\u0161i\u0107<\/a> by Dragana Obradovi\u0107.<\/p>\n Additionally, David Williams—who translated Europe in Sepia<\/em><\/a> and part of Karaoke Culture<\/em><\/a> for Open Letter—wrote a blog post for WLT<\/span><\/em> entitled On the Untranslatability of Translation.<\/a><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t, however, just the money situation that inhibited me from ever introducing myself as a translator. It was equally that I just couldn\u2019t translate<\/em> to others what it meant to be a translator, let alone how I, a New Zealander with no Yugoslav roots, came to learn the language formerly known as Serbo-Croatian and translate the work of Ugre\u0161i\u0107, one of the great living European writers. Reduced to its essence, the backstory is both fantastic and prosaic: it involves a restless young man who sought adventures on distant shores, came unstuck in a short and sad marriage, the end of which left the no-longer-so-young man searching for meaning that for a time he found in books. In New Zealand, in particular, translating<\/em> all this to some dudes standing around a barbeque was pretty painful. Over time, I developed a series of useless analogies. I\u2019d say that a translator is like the cinematographer, the author like the director. Or that the translator is like a sound engineer or producer shaping how an author \u201csounds.\u201d When the dudes at the barbeque still looked puzzled, I\u2019d just say that a translator is like a better class of wedding singer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And finally, during the Neustadt Festival, a number of people were interviewed by the radio station KGOU<\/span>, and these pieces are starting to come out online. The first is actually with me.<\/a><\/p>\n Justine<\/em><\/a> by Iben Mondrup, translated from the Danish by Kerri A. Pierce<\/b><\/p>\n Complete Review<\/a> just posted a review of this, giving it a “B.” (Which I’ll totally take from Michael Orthofer. I’m pretty sure he would fail me in any class I took with him.) The review is mostly summary, but does get at some of the aspects of the character and setting that make this book really interesting:<\/p>\n Mondrup captures the pretentious and often obnoxious (especially the professors) art-school-scene creepily well, with more the more old-fashioned grandfather-figure and the ultimately tamer, crowd-pleasing Ane as helpful counterparts to the purely pretentious, or, for example, the philosophical Vita (a fairly successful sculptor). Justine, meanwhile, is marked especially by her uncertainty. There’s a lot of anger there, too, or frustration, and she vents successfully, and even comes up with some interesting ideas, including ultimately resuscitating her lost project, but for the most part, and for most of the novel, she is flailing. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And I mentioned this in the round up of Open Letter 2016 publications,<\/a> but it’s worth pointing out this Rumpus interview<\/a> with Iben and Kerri one more time:<\/p>\n Brian S: Iben, I\u2019ve never read de Sade\u2019s Justine, but am I correct in thinking there are some parallels between that and your novel? Or is that coincidence?<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Iben Mondrup: If there\u2019s any comparison, it\u2019s all about opposites, the polar opposites of De Sade\u2019s Justine and mine. My Justine is sexual subject, she\u2019s the one who desires, whereas De Sade\u2019s Justine is an object of desire. She (my Justine), is aggressive, she\u2019s going for what she wants as opposed to De Sade\u2019s Justine, who is the target\u2014and eventually the victim\u2014of the desires of the world. She possesses no will.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Kerri Pierce: There\u2019s a funny story, actually, about the graphic on the cover. One of my favorite parts of the book, and one of the editor, Kaija\u2019s, favorite parts as well\u2014which I also think speaks to Justine\u2019s character\u2014is when a one-night stand asks Justine if she\u2019s a lesbian (and his tone is rather dismissive\/incredulous) and she responds: \u201cWolf.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Brian S: Kerri\u2014I loved that moment in the book. That was brilliant.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Iben Mondrup: Exactly, she sees herself as a predator. A wolf, a lone she-wolf.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Gesell Dome<\/em><\/a> by Guillermo Saccomanno, translated from the Spanish by Andrea Labinger<\/b><\/p>\n Kim Fay just reviewed this for the Los Angeles Review of Books<\/em><\/a> and digs into one of the most salient and difficult aspects of the book:<\/p>\n There came a point while I was reading Gesell Dome<\/em> that I cringed whenever new characters were introduced, wondering what horrible things were going to happen to them. But I somehow knew that, even as a reader, I was not allowed to look away. As I grew weary of horror after horror, all I wanted to do was turn my head\u2014but if I did, then I would become complicit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By using a narrator who is not shocked, who does not look away from anything<\/em>, Saccomanno shines a gruesome, graphic light on what people are willing to ignore so that their comfort remains intact. He compounds this with a fearlessness when it comes to rationalization. \u201cWe\u2019re not Auschwitz,\u201d the narrator declares, and if someone sexually abuses a few kids, \u201cit\u2019s not the same as Bosnia. Give me a break. There\u2019s no comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Radiant Terminus<\/em><\/a> by Antoine Volodine, translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman<\/b><\/p>\n Radiant Terminus<\/em> comes out on February 7th (although copies will go out to subscribers<\/a> this week), but in the meantime, you can read an excerpt on EuropeNow<\/em>.<\/a> Here’s the opening paragraph from the excerpted section:<\/p>\n The captain was named Umrug. His life had started somewhat chaotically. His father, Choem Mendelssohn, was a bird, and his mother, Bagda Dolomid\u00e8s, was Yb\u00fcr.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Also worth noting this comment Brian Evenson made on Facebook when listing his favorite books of the year:<\/p>\n Pleased too that I could write the intro to Antoine Volodine’s exceptionally strong Radiant Terminus<\/em>, which is out from Open Letter in February. I’ve said before that I think American literature would be much better if more writers were reading Volodine and I still think this: he’s one of my half dozen favorite living writers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n You may also want to check out this “starred” review from Kirkus<\/em>:<\/a><\/p>\n French \u201cpost-exoticist\u201d Volodine returns with a dark view of the near future, where science fiction meets a certain kind of horror. [. . .] A landmark of modern dystopianism, portending a time to come that no one would want to live in.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n