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Obviously, two-time, back-to-back winner László Krasznahorkai has made the biggest splash at the Best Translated Book Award in recent years, but several other authors have also proven to be more than one-hit wonders. So, for example, former winner (2011, for ) Tove Jansson features on this year���Ĵ�ý�s longlist, as do shortlisted authors from recent years such as Elena Ferrante (2014), Edouard Levé (2013), and Jean Echenoz (2012). One more name that keeps cropping up is that of Éric Chevillard: his was longlisted in 2012, and a year later was shortlisted. So is 2015 the year Chevillard goes all the way, on the back of Jordan Stump���Ĵ�ý�s translation of his novel, ?

A book-length rant by a character who is served cauliflower gratin rather than the trout amandine he was expecting ���Ĵ�ý� okay, perhaps it doesn���Ĵ�ý�t sound like the most promising material. And yet ���Ĵ�ý� what more could one ask for?

Sure, the author admits, in a footnote well into the book, that maybe he���Ĵ�ý�s taking things a bit far:

(R)eally, a whole book against cauliflower gratin, what a ridiculous conceit, it���Ĵ�ý�s not credible, not for a second

He suggests, too:

No, the reader will surely prefer to see all this as an allegory, and will struggle to decipher it: that cauliflower gratin can only be a metaphor for the good old-fashioned novel still stewing in the kitchens of our literature.

Certainly, one can ���Ĵ�ý� and probably does well to ���Ĵ�ý� read this and more into the protagonist���Ĵ�ý�s arguments. But as in any good allegory, The Author and Me (and the cauliflower/trout debate) functions well on multiple levels: regardless of how deep or shallow the meaning, this is some fine raging on offer here.

Yet there���Ĵ�ý�s more to The Author and Me, too: as the title suggests, this is a novel that also plays some games with questions of the relationship between author and subject. In his Foreword, Chevillard insists he���Ĵ�ý�s out to prove his autonomy-as-author ���Ĵ�ý� to show that he���Ĵ�ý�s the one in charge and differentiate himself from a protagonist who, he insists, isn���Ĵ�ý�t just a mouthpiece-cum-alter ego. Just to make things clear, he intrudes in the story-proper ���Ĵ�ý� in footnotes explaining his position. Wanting to assert autonomy, and authorial authority ���Ĵ�ý� and to show he���Ĵ�ý�s the better man (���Ĵ�ý�The author���Ĵ�ý�s mind is more spirited, bolder, and even more sensitive���Ĵ�ý�, he claims, for example, just to be clear ���Ĵ�ý�) ���Ĵ�ý� he struggles to differentiate himself from his character. Eventually, he feels he has to put his foot(note) down more firmly, asserting himself in a secondary story (suggested title: My Ant) ���Ĵ�ý� a forty-page excursion (all in that single footnote) following ���Ĵ�ý� an ant. (No worries, the cauliflower gratin/trout amandine mix-up hasn���Ĵ�ý�t been forgotten: it crops up here as well.)

Oh, and for those who prefer their novels with a bit of a more conventional arc of drama and suspense, The Author and Me also offers ���Ĵ�ý� murder! (Some readers may, indeed, wonder, as the narrator rants and rants endlessly along, at what point the Mademoiselle who is his silent, long-suffering audience reaches the breaking point and reaches across the table to start throttling him ���Ĵ�ý� or perhaps suspect Chevillard-as-author will assert final authority by doing in his wordy creation himself ���Ĵ�ý� but Chevillard follows convention only so far (not very; not very, at all) so there���Ĵ�ý�s some surprise here, too. (Indeed, as he hopefully notes in his final footnote: ���Ĵ�ý�He trusts that this twist will leave his reader agape, and, why not, stammering �³����Ĵ�ý�w�����Ĵ�ý����Ĵ�ý�.)

The Author and Me is a fairly slim (146-page) albeit occasionally dense (certainly literally so, in that footnote-story-section, some forty pages of fine print ���Ĵ�ý�) novel that builds a tour de force on its simple premises ���Ĵ�ý� cauliflower vs. trout; author vs. protagonist. Chevillard has considerable fun while he���Ĵ�ý�s at it ���Ĵ�ý� and so then does the reader ���Ĵ�ý� and shows incredible dexterity in what he does with his story. It���Ĵ�ý�s challenging ���Ĵ�ý� in no small part because Chevillard refuses to give in to convention(s) ���Ĵ�ý� to put up with cauliflower gratin! ���Ĵ�ý� but rewardingly so.

has been engaged with Éric Chevillard���Ĵ�ý�s writing for many years: the first of Chevillard���Ĵ�ý�s books he translated was , in 1997; The Author and Me is the fourth. With its stylistic range and playfulness, Chevillard���Ĵ�ý�s writing, more than most, is surely not something either translator or reader can easily get comfortable with ���Ĵ�ý� a 1997 reviewThe Crab Nebula, in The New York Times Book Review by Liam Callanan noting: