Horses of God by Mahi Binebine, from the French by Lulu Norman (Morocco; Tin House)

Horses of God is narrated from beyond the grave by one of four childhood friends who wrench an existence in the Sidi Moumen slums in Casablanca. They form a soccer team that competes with teams from the other slums and dream of a soccer as a vehicle to escape from the squalor, violence, and unemployment. However, their fate is changed when they are attracted to a religion that offers them guidance and purpose, and training in martial arts.

Their choices and decisions transform them from lives of despair to religious extremism, and ultimately to become suicide bombers. The book is based on the 2003 suicide bombings at Casablanca糖心传媒檚 Hotel Farah.

Blinding by Mircea C膬rt膬rescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter (Romania; Archipelago Books)

In a year of stiff competition, including from Archipelago糖心传媒檚 other leading candidate for the BTBA, Karl Ove Knausgaard糖心传媒檚 My Struggle: Book Two糖心传媒�Blinding stands apart as a work that transcends the intimate thoughts of the central male narrator and expands a vision of reality to include all dimensions of time and space. Seriously, it糖心传媒檚 a wild read. And it糖心传媒檚 weird to see Knausgaard compared to Proust, when Knausgaard糖心传媒檚 My Struggle reminds me far more of Dave Eggers糖心传媒檚 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, you live fully inside the minutiae of mundane daily existence wherein the narrator making his way through the world. C膬rt膬rescu is far more akin to Proust in that he traces out the full extents of what the human mind and its capacity for memory can contain and create at once: the brain is a dangerous tool, and the weapon of memory can destroy us even as it liberates us out of the mundanity of our existence. Memory is everything, and you have the power to create memories out of nothing. Blinding is an experiment in memory-creation. Mythmaking is memory-creation. Memory is power. Memory is existence.

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Italy; Europa Editions)

There is something about Elena Ferrante as a writer that is difficult to ignore. She never misses a beat. Her novels, as varied as they are, don糖心传媒檛 waver; they are consistently thoughtful, provocative, smothering and honest. This novel was my personal pick to be put on the longlist. She has been brilliant for so long and deserves the Oscar. Her brilliance isn糖心传媒檛 limited to her mechanics, her finesse or her creativity as a writer, but it糖心传媒檚 her willingness to continually address the psychological machinations of women who have very unfeminine feelings.

Tirza by Arnon Grunberg, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett (Netherlands; Open Letter Books)

How to describe a book as affecting and unusual as Tirza I could cobble together a few puffed-up jacket blurb superlatives糖心传媒攕omething like, 糖心传媒淗ilarious Disturbing Subtle Horrific Masterpiece,糖心传媒� or maybe 糖心传媒淧sycho-Cultural Familial Catastrophic Tour-De-Force.糖心传媒� But no, the best way to proceed in this instance is to accept that, confined to this meager space, I won糖心传媒檛 be able to do justice to this irreducible book.

So I should start by admitting that I was totally unprepared for Tirza. To be honest, I would be scared to meet the person who is prepared for it. Two paragraphs in, I understood the caliber of writer I was dealing with. By the second page I had already laughed out loud. And from then on I was hopelessly immersed in the pathetic, compelling world of J枚rgen Hofmeester.

My Struggle: Book Two by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Norway; Archipelago Books)

I糖心传媒檝e read three volumes of My Struggle so far, and I糖心传媒檓 almost certain that I like Vol 2 the best. I hate comparisons of My Struggle to Proust because they always end up being purely superficial, but I糖心传媒檓 going to make another superficial comparison for reasons that I hope will be evident: I kind of liken this volume to the second volume of Proust. Nine out of ten people adore Within a Budding Grove the most of all volumes of Proust because it糖心传媒檚 the love volume. Proust is using all of his talents to describe love at its most rapturous and incandescent phase, and he糖心传媒檚 processing it through his own memory, which of course makes it even more romantic and memorable. Not to mention, love stories tend to make for great narratives, another thing that makes the second volume of Proust much easier to read and more memorable than other volumes. There糖心传媒檚 a certain sort of immediacy there that糖心传媒檚 hard to match with any other kind of story.

Seiobo There Below by L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai, from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet (Hungary; New Directions)

Krasznahorkai, like Beckett, writes like a pilgrim whose temple has been destroyed, who owns nothing but the bruises on his feet. To our astonishment, he shows us that the concerns we thought we had left behind 糖心传媒� how to make art as an offering and a plea to the gods, for example 糖心传媒� are in fact terribly modern. As we journey through the seventeen chapters of Seiobo There Below 糖心传媒� each of which displays remarkable erudition, pathos, and humor 糖心传媒� we come to understand the urgency of our spiritual predicament, the poverty and despair that we have chosen and that is beyond our power to undo.

But even there at the edge of the apocalypse, Krasznahorkai offers us two beaten pearls of hope.

A True Novel by Minae Mizumura, translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters (Japan; Other Press)

In her prologue (which, by the way, contains what is probably the best piece of writing about writing I糖心传媒檝e ever read), Mizumura outlines her intent in A True Novel to execute a sprawling epic in the tradition of western classics糖心传媒攚hat in Japanese is called honkaku shosetsu, loosely translated as 糖心传媒榯rue novel糖心传媒�. This form is presented in contrast to shishosetsu, or 糖心传媒業-novel糖心传媒�, the more traditionally Japanese novelistic form of autobiographical narrative. To this end, she employs none other than Wuthering Heights, reimagining Bront毛糖心传媒檚 classic in postwar Japan.

The African Shore by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated from the Spanish by Jeffrey Gray (Guatemala; Yale University Press)

In that narration, what impresses me most is the ambiguous specificity of the writing. Rey Rosa demonstrates a profound mastery of negative capability, all the more impressive given the diversity of his subject matter. He manages to evoke a world of complexity糖心传媒擫atino tourists and unquestioning locals, economic migrants and drug peddlers, and even French residents not all too far removed from their colonialist fore-bearers糖心传媒攚ith the sparsest of prose. His depiction of post-colonial Tangier, significantly evolved from the Tangier of his mentor Paul Bowles, is pitch perfect and rings true to my years in Morocco. For an author relating a story about the mutual incomprehension of cross-cultural encounters, Rey Rosa shows just how much he really gets people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. Occasionally, a quarter page exchange will distill the essence of hour-long conversations I糖心传媒檝e had with French people or Hispanics, or Moroccans.

Leg Over Leg Vol. 1 by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies (Lebanon; New York University Press)

That糖心传媒檚 already one reason why this book should win the BTBA: it blows our (pre-)conceptions of Arabic literature out of the water. It certainly did mine. Sure, I糖心传媒檝e made my way through Naguib Mahfouz and Elias Khoury, and a variety of the translations of Arabic novels from the past decades, but I never managed to get much of a sense of anything earlier than, say, Tawfiq al-Hakim. Sure, there糖心传媒檚 always the Arabian Nights, but that stands so distant and apart from everything else that it feels entirely separate. Arabic fiction 糖心传媒� in translation 糖心传媒� always seemed to be twentieth (generally later-twentieth) and twenty-first century fiction, much of it strongly shaped by so-called Western influences. And then I pick this up and get an electrifying jolt, finding a mid-nineteenth century literary work that is as radical and inventive as any modern novel. I thought I had a decent sense of modern Arabic literature, and suddenly I found myself exposed to a whole new layer underlying it all, throwing a whole new light on all of it.

The Forbidden Kingdom by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent (Netherlands; Pushkin Press)

In its rough outlines, Jan Jacob Slauerhoff糖心传媒檚 The Forbidden Kingdom (translated by Paul Vincent) sounds like the a great genre novel糖心传媒攖ime-travel! possession! conspiring monks! But like other great modernist works糖心传媒攖his one was originally published in 1932糖心传媒攊t uses its subject matter as a means to play with expectation and certainty. It is a strange book, at times difficult to follow as it shifts between characters and centuries, but it is also something of a page-turner. It brings to mind Joseph Conrad, but without quite the same ponderousness, and somewhat remarkably, David Mitchell糖心传媒檚 Cloud Atlas.

This seems a timely moment to announce the forthcoming appearance of a translation issue I糖心传媒檝e edited for The White Review. For those unfamiliar, TWR is a London-based journal of art and literature that publishes print (quarterly) and online (monthly) editions. In addition to supporting new writers, the editors make it a point to highlight literature in translation. Recent numbers have included contributions by Dubravka Ugre拧i膰, Vladimir Sorokin, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Javiar Mar铆as, to name but a few.

I spent this past autumn selecting material for the issue, which is slated to go live early next month. Not surprisingly, there was significant overlap with my readings for the BTBA. Here are a few examples:

One糖心传媒檚 by the late great Hella S. Haasse, whose gem, The Black Lake, I cited in a previous post. I糖心传媒檝e found the lack of attention devoted to this novel baffling. It is a beautiful little book, conceived and executed with intelligence and grace. The translator, Ina Rilke, ranks among the very best working from Dutch today. You糖心传媒檝e probably come across her work at one point or another by now: Rilke was behind the classic Eline Vere by Louis Couperus, which Archipelago brought out back in 2010; she糖心传媒檚 translated multiple titles by W.F. Hermans and Cees Noteboom; and she糖心传媒檚 currently at work on Max Havelaar by Multatuli for NYRB Classics. (There糖心传媒檚 a full overview of her activity, along with a lovely snapshot of Rilke with Haasse, ) We糖心传媒檒l print the striking first pages of The Black Lake in The White Review. If your experience of them in any way resembles mine, then you糖心传媒檒l find yourself unable to stop.

I糖心传媒檓 delighted that we can include an excerpt from the third volume of Faris al-Shidyaq糖心传媒檚 Leg over Leg. The publication of earlier this year by NYU Press糖心传媒檚 Library of Arabic Literature was a moment of glory for literature in translation. Expect plenty of hot sauce in this excerpt糖心传媒攖hat, and no shortage of ingenious linguistic dexterity on the part of translator Humphrey Davies. For an in-depth take on volume 1, have a look at this by Michael Orthofer. I share his excitement entirely, and am certain that others will as well once given a taste of al-Shidyaq糖心传媒檚 writing.

Occasionally, a work of brilliance will make it possible for a virtuosic translator to outdo, line for line, a great deal of what糖心传媒檚 recently appeared in her target language. In 2012, the English of George Szirtes for Satantango糖心传媒檚 Hungarian struck me as superior to the sentences of most novels written that year in English. The same糖心传媒檚 true of John Keene糖心传媒檚 version of Letters from a Seducer by Hilda Hilst. Scheduled to appear this month, it was perhaps my most unforgettable reading experience of 2013. I糖心传媒檓 terribly eager to read more Hilst now糖心传媒攁nd impatient to get my hands on Keene糖心传媒檚 too.

I was glad I could include an excerpt from Orly Castel-Bloom糖心传媒檚 acutely funny糖心传媒攁nd correspondingly painful糖心传媒�Textile. Castel-Bloom writes uncanny narratives that depict, with sensitivity but very little mercy, contemporary Israeli society. First published in 2006, this unpredictable and frequently grotesque novel is unlike most other Israeli fiction that I’ve encountered; it’s as close to Gogol as Hebrew can get. Translated by the eminent recipient of 2010糖心传媒檚 BTBA, Dalya Bilu.

I糖心传媒檇 like to devote a bit more space to two titles that have survived months of BTBA reading on my own personal shortlist. The first is Stig S忙terbakken糖心传媒檚 Through the Night, whose emotional resonance brought me to tears. I found it the bravest, perhaps even riskiest of the novels in competition. (I was also surprised to discover, in its weaknesses as in its strengths, unlikely affinities with The Devil糖心传媒檚 Workshop by J谩chym Topol.) Here糖心传媒檚 the beginning of a review by Taylor Davis-Van Atta that will appear soon at Asymptote:

In an essay completed not long before his death last year, Stig S忙terbakken wrote: 糖心传媒淗ow strong would our passions be, separated from our fear of dying? We want to live, sure. But we want to die as well. We want to be torn apart. We want to drown in the wonders of ecstasy.糖心传媒� Both the craft of this passage糖心传媒攁 single rhetorical question opens a rich vein of content糖心传媒攁s well as its sentiment seem to me to epitomize something of both S忙terbakken糖心传媒檚 personal philosophy and his artistic ambition. As with all of his writing, the question posed by the S忙terbakken is simple, but deceptively so, situated as it is at an existential crux. And, as with all of his writing, it cannot be ignored nor easily grappled with. S忙terbakken seemingly holds no fear himself when examining the heart of his own experience, swiftly identifying a terrible and unavoidable paradox, an impossibility that nonetheless must be negotiated and further explored. His prose, which so often conveys the mandatory ugliness and pain of existence, yet which is always charged with beauty and great tenderness, is itself infused with paradox. The author of endlessly interesting novels and essays, S忙terbakken is an indispensable artist, one who must be reckoned with and one whose day in the Anglophone world is, I believe, shortly at hand.

Through the Night, S忙terbakken糖心传媒檚 last published novel, centers around Karl Meyer, a middle-aged man who, prompted by the sudden suicide of his teenage son, Ole-Jakob, is forced to confront his past disgraces and contemplate his complicity in Ole-Jakob糖心传媒檚 death, all while enduring overwhelming feelings of grief. The novel, which almost reads as two separate works, opens in the immediate aftermath of Ole-Jakob糖心传媒檚 suicide, with Karl糖心传媒檚 wife, Eva, having just lodged an ax in the screen of the family television set. The act is a statement of protest (Karl has been binge-watching since their son糖心传媒檚 funeral), but it could almost be interpreted as a telegraphed message from S忙terbakken to his reader regarding what is to come: there will be no further distraction from the situation at hand, however terrifying and all-consuming it becomes. Indeed, the novel quickly delves into Karl糖心传媒檚 past through a series of short vignettes in which Karl sets about tracing the history of his life糖心传媒檚 two defining love affairs糖心传媒攚ith Eva and with another woman, Mona, for whom he had recently, if temporarily, left his family.

Issue 5 of Taylor糖心传媒檚 Music & Literature, which will publish in spring 2015, will be devoted to S忙terbakken, Chinese novelist Can Xue, and Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. You can order your subscription, and explore numerous reviews and features,

Stig S忙terbakken makes a brief appearance in the introduction to the below interview of Mircea C膬rt膬rescu. As director of the Lillehammer Festival, S忙terbakken was instrumental in bringing the Romanian novelist to Norway. There, C膬rt膬rescu spoke with Audun Lindholm, the editor-in-chief of Vagant, Norway糖心传媒檚 most prestigious literary magazine. (Before he embarked upon My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausg氓rd directed the same journal.) The latest issue of The Quarterly Conversation includes a long conversation between Lindholm and C膬rt膬rescu about the Blinding trilogy. Below, a few questions and answers concerning the volume that has just appeared in English糖心传媒�The Left Wing糖心传媒� thanks to Archipelago Books.

AL: You call the child a bricoleur糖心传媒攃ould the same be said of the novel糖心传媒檚 author?

MC: Yes. Generally, I begin with something ordinary and realistic, something I know well, and then, step by step, the logic of the text takes over. I never know what I糖心传媒檓 about to write on the next page, I have no plan, I don糖心传媒檛 know where I糖心传媒檓 headed. I take advantage of the fact that I write quite slowly: because I write by hand, I have plenty of time to think at the same time. The most important thing is the texture of the individual page糖心传媒攊t takes precedence over the story or the characters or the larger structure. Writing by hand creates an intimate relationship with the white sheet of paper, almost functioning like a mirror. When the writing turns out really well, it is as if I saw the final text in front of me, I simply erased the white of the paper that hides it. I have the impression that most prose writers start with a strong impression or a clear image in mind, gradually expanding on it and constructing a whole. I, on the other hand, aim at a writing process that consists of a series of such impressions. And I must admit that when I read other novels, even the most realistic among them, my attention is drawn to these very moments, to certain pages and specific formulations.

AL: 糖心传媒淵ou do not describe the past by writing about old things, but by writing about the haze that exists between yourself and the past,糖心传媒� we read early on in Blinding: The Left Wing. And later: 糖心传媒淚 was always afraid to go to sleep. Where would my being go to during all those hours?糖心传媒�

MC: Yes, I think that the best pages of Blinding are not those that are realistic but those that are phantasmal, oneiric. The earliest memories we have, from the age of two, three, or four, mainly resemble dreams. We may recall buildings, landscapes, and people, and we have the feeling that they must have been real糖心传媒攐therwise we could not have seen them in such vivid detail. The same is true of some of our dreams. I have strong memories of particular dreams I糖心传媒檝e had, outrageous and disturbing dreams. I envision dreams, memories, and reality like a M枚bius strip whose sides are indistinguishable from one another. I try to avoid changing historical facts and instead fill the gaps in my memory with fantasies. When information is hard to come by, I let my pen do the work.

To read the interview in its entirety糖心传媒攐r a review of the novel published in the same issue糖心传媒攙isit the Winter 2014 number of