mircea cartarescu – Three Percent /College/translation/threepercent a resource for international literature at the University of Rochester Fri, 04 May 2018 15:12:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.6 Why This Book Should Win: The 10 Fiction Finalists /College/translation/threepercent/2014/04/15/why-this-book-should-win-the-10-fiction-finalists/ /College/translation/threepercent/2014/04/15/why-this-book-should-win-the-10-fiction-finalists/#respond Tue, 15 Apr 2014 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2014/04/15/why-this-book-should-win-the-10-fiction-finalists/ Now that the ten finalists for the 2014 BTBA in Fiction have been announced, it’s worth taking a look back at the reasons “why these books should win” according to the judges and other readers. Below is a list of all ten finalists, with links to their individual write ups along with a key quote from each.

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.

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2014 Best Translated Book Awards: Fiction Finalists /College/translation/threepercent/2014/04/15/2014-best-translated-book-awards-fiction-finalists/ /College/translation/threepercent/2014/04/15/2014-best-translated-book-awards-fiction-finalists/#respond Tue, 15 Apr 2014 14:00:01 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2014/04/15/2014-best-translated-book-awards-fiction-finalists/ All 25 titles on the 2014 Fiction Longlist are spectacular, so I’m sure this was a pretty brutal decision making process. Anyway, here are your final ten books:

translated from the French by Lulu Norman (Morocco; Tin House)

translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter (Romania; Archipelago Books)

translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Italy; Europa Editions)

translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett (Netherlands; Open Letter Books)

translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Norway; Archipelago Books)

translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet (Hungary; New Directions)

translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters (Japan; Other Press)

translated from the Spanish by Jeffrey Gray (Guatemala; Yale University Press)

translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies (Lebanon; New York University Press)

translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent (Netherlands; Pushkin Press)

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“Blinding” by Mircea C膬rt膬rescu [Why This Book Should Win] /College/translation/threepercent/2014/04/14/blinding-by-mircea-cartarescu-why-this-book-should-win/ /College/translation/threepercent/2014/04/14/blinding-by-mircea-cartarescu-why-this-book-should-win/#comments Mon, 14 Apr 2014 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2014/04/14/blinding-by-mircea-cartarescu-why-this-book-should-win/ And here糖心传媒檚 the final post in the 糖心传媒�Why This Book Should Win糖心传媒� series for the 2014 BTBA fiction longlist. I糖心传媒檒l post a handy guide to all of these posts later this afternoon, but for now just enjoy Bromance Will (aka Will Evans, the founder and director of ) wax enthusiastic for his favorite book from the past year.

 

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

The past is everything, the future nothing, and time has no other meaning.

I won糖心传媒檛 play games, there are no secret agendas here: Blinding by Mircea C膬rt膬rescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter and published by the incomparably amazing independent publisher Archipelago Books, should win the 2014 Best Translated Book Award for two reasons, both of which fulfill whichever the criteria of what a 糖心传媒渂est translated book糖心传媒� should be: 1) it is the best book I read in the last year; and 2) it is the best work of translation, the work of a genius author translated by a genius translator, I read in the last year. Not only is it a damn good book, which I糖心传媒檒l get into below, but it糖心传媒檚 the best damn translation by the best damn translator in the game: Dr. Sean Cotter.

What every person had intuited at some point in their lives somehow, suddenly, became clear: that reality is just a particular case of unreality, that we all are, however concrete we may feel, only the fiction of some other world, a world that creates and encompasses us . . .

I suppose I should write a disclaimer: Sean Cotter is a friend. He lives in the Dallas area, where I live. We frequently eat at Mediterranean buffets together. I糖心传媒檝e put together readings for him in town. I trumpet the cause of Sean Cotter. This may make you think I糖心传媒檓 biased towards him, but that糖心传媒檚 not entirely true. The reason I do all of these things and the reason why I am even writing this piece is not because I糖心传媒檓 friends with Sean Cotter but rather that I糖心传媒檓 Sean Cotter believer. I believe in this man糖心传媒檚 talent as a translator that transcends your earthly opinions of human relationships and whatever notion of bias means in this instance. When I sit with him at lunch I basically just ask him how the hell he could actually manage to translate this beast of a novel, and even after he糖心传媒檚 explained it to me over and over again I糖心传媒檓 still in awe.

What every person had intuited at some point in their lives somehow, suddenly, became clear: that reality is just a particular case of unreality, that we all are, however concrete we may feel, only the fiction of some other world, a world that creates and encompasses us . . .

But back to the book itself糖心传媒�Blinding is a masterpiece. It was an instant bestseller when it appeared in Romania (God bless the Romanians). Blinding first book in a trilogy that takes the form of a butterfly tracing out the history of C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 family history: the full title of book one is Blinding: The Left Wing. The other two books, as yet untranslated, include book two, 糖心传媒淭he Body,糖心传媒� and book three, 糖心传媒淭he Right Wing.糖心传媒� The left wing of the butterfly-novel is the history, or rather, the legend, of C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 mother; the right wing tells the story of his father; the body is about the author himself. It糖心传媒檚 an imaginative format, and is made apparent to the reader throughout the novel by the central figure/motif/metaphor/symbol/icon of the butterfly that links all of the stories taking place across time/space. Chapters alternate in narrative points of view and throughout the history of C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 mother and her ancestors, from the narrator philosophizing about the nature of our existence in this universe sitting in his room overlooking Bucharest糖心传媒檚 skyline in the present day to magical stories of gypsies and resurrected zombies in rural 19th-century (or before?!) Romanian hinterlands, to WWII-era Bucharest and its bombed-out aftermath under the Soviet stooge government.

Space is Paradise and time is inferno. How strange it is that, like the emblem of bipolarity, in the center of a shadow is light, and that light creates shadows. After all, what else is memory, this poisoned fountain at the center of the mind, this center of paradise? Well-shaft walls of tooled marble shaking water green as bile, and its bat-winged dragon standing guard? And what is love? A limpid, cool water from the depths of sexual hell, an ashen pearl in an oyster of fire and rending screams? Memory, the time of the timeless kingdom. Love, the space of the spaceless domain. The seeds of our existence, opposed yet so alike, unite across the great symmetry, and annul it through a single great feeling: nostalgia.

The complex layout of the novel isn糖心传媒檛 so complex when you read it, I swear, it is fun and breathtaking and will carry you away in the epic sweep of very sentence. I can糖心传媒檛 tell you what happens in the novel, because there is no plot per se, unless you describe in the terms I attempted to above: the novel is C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 creation myth for his mother糖心传媒檚 side of the family; the mythmaker, the storyteller, is the axis of the many stories that spoke out from his mind into a work of beautiful, complex genius.

I remember, that is, I invent. I transmute the ghosts of moments into weighty, oily gold.

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.

You do not describe the past by writing about old things, but by writing about the haze that exists between yourself and the past. I write about the way my present brain wraps around my brains of smaller and smaller crania, of bones and cartilage and membranes . . . the tension and discord between my present mind and my mind a moment ago, my mind ten years ago . . . their interactions as they mix with each other糖心传媒檚 images and emotions. There糖心传媒檚 so much necrophilia in memory! So much fascination for ruin and rot! It糖心传媒檚 like being a forensic pathologist, peering at liquefied organs!

I read a lot of translations by a lot of translators but the fact of the matter is the Blinding is a perfect reminder of the importance of world literature being translated into English as the ability to expand not only our artistic consciousness and understanding of the world but blowing apart the very limits of our own reality. I volunteered to write this piece because I read Blinding and it blew my mind into a zillion pieces, it is wholly unlike any other novel I have ever read, so unique and refreshing that I now see the world in new ways, and that糖心传媒檚 why I read books in the first place, and the fact is that it is so miraculously wrought a novel that I cannot help but write a piece extolling the translator糖心传媒檚 talents in rendering the weirdest turns of phrases and run-on sentences that mark the genius C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 work into a breathtakingly original English that extends the limits of what we imagine our own native language糖心传媒攐ur own native minds糖心传媒攃an fathom.

Under my skin, tensioned and fresh, run tendons that activate the levers of my fingers. And my fingers move, because we do not doubt ourselves. Because what flows within the borders of our skin is not only blood, lymph, hormones, and sugar: more importantly, our belief flows.

Sean糖心传媒檚 translation is imaginative and creative, fearless and flawless. He has captured the manic, mad majesty of C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 mind as they trace the fantastical branches of C膬rt膬rescu糖心传媒檚 family tree and the labyrinthine shadows of Bucharest so lovingly described throughout centuries of history糖心传媒攚hich is the history of C膬rt膬rescu himself, his ancestors, his family, his city, and his active, whirlwind imagination. There has never been anything written in the English language to prepare you for the originality of vision and language that you will find within the pages of Blinding.

What else would I be but a neuron, with a brain as my cellular body, spinal marrow as my axons, and nerves as my numberless dendrites? A spiderweb that feels only what touches it. Yes, each of us have a single neuron within us, and humanity is a dissipated brain that strives desperately to come together. And I wonder, quaking inside, whether the Last Judgment and the resurrection of the dead are nothing more than this: the extraction of this neuron from every person that ever lived, their evaluation, and the rejection of the unviable into the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and construction of an amazing brain糖心传媒攏ew, universal, blinding糖心传媒攆rom the perfect neurons, and with this brain we will climb, unconscious and happy, onto a higher level of the fractal of eternal Being.

Blinding should win the 2014 Best Translated Book Award because it is the best book of the year, and Sean should win the first ever back-to-back BTBA award for a translator because he is a master of the English language and brought C膬rt膬rescu into my mind. Into our minds. Into our collective consciousness. Into our collective memory. And for that he should be awarded eternal life. Legend.

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BTBA 2014 Fiction Longlist: It's Here! /College/translation/threepercent/2014/03/11/btba-2014-fiction-longlist-its-here/ /College/translation/threepercent/2014/03/11/btba-2014-fiction-longlist-its-here/#respond Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2014/03/11/btba-2014-fiction-longlist-its-here/ The wait is over. Listed below are the twenty-five titles on this year’s Best Translated Book Award Fiction Longlist.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting each and every one of these as part of the annual “Why This Book Should Win the BTBA” series. It’s a fun way of learning about all of these diverse titles, and hopefully finding a handful that you personally want to read.

Speaking of diverse, I want to use this post to point out a couple of interesting facts about this year’s list:

  • Twenty-three different publishers have a book on this list, which is unprecedented;
  • There are translations from sixteen languages on this year’s longlist;
  • This year’s longlisted authors are from twenty different countries.

That’s a pretty solid spread. Not to mention the vast differences between these books: On the one hand there’s Nobel Prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek’s Her Not All Her, a slim, exquisitely crafted Cahier; on the other, there’s Antonio Mu帽oz Molina’s gigantic In the Night of Time. There’s the two-volume slipcased A True Novel by Minae Mizumura and Stig Dagerman’s short story collection, Sleet. There’s a very unconventional Arabic work from the nineteenth century just now being translated for the first time, and there’s a novel about an execution from Mo Yan, the other Nobel Prize winner on the list.

Overall, it’s an excellent list, one that will be really tough to pare down . . . But that’s the job for this year’s brilliant judges: George Carroll, West Coast sales rep; Monica Carter, Salonica; Scott Esposito, Conversational Reading and Center for the Art of Translation; Sarah Gerard, Bomb Magazine; Elizabeth Harris, translator; Daniel Medin, American University of Paris, Cahiers Series, Quarterly Conversation, and the White Review; Michael Orthofer, Complete Review; Stephen Sparks, Green Apple Books; and, Jenn Witte, Skylight Books. I want to personally thank them all for their hard work.

But this is just the beginning—on April 15th we’ll announce the finalists for both fiction and poetry, and in the meantime, stay tuned to read about each and every one of the following “best translated books” of 2013.

Also, a special thanks has to go out to for once again making $20,000 of prize money available for the winning authors and translators.

I’ll post information about any and all celebrations for the BTBA 2014 here as soon as things are arranged. In the meantime, here we go . . .

Best Translated Book Award 2014 Fiction Longlist

translated from the French by Lulu Norman (Morocco; Tin House)

translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter (Romania; Archipelago Books)

translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu (Israel; Feminist Press)

translated from the Swedish by Steven Hartman (Sweden; David R. Godine)

translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Italy; Europa Editions)

translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett (Netherlands; Open Letter Books)

translated from the German by Damion Searls (Austria; Sylph Editions)

translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Norway; Archipelago Books)

translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet (Hungary; New Directions)

translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull (Ukraine; NYRB)

translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor (Argentina; New Vessel Press)

translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa (Spain; Knopf)

translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters (Japan; Other Press)

translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (Spain; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

translated from the Spanish by Jeffrey Gray (Guatemala; Yale University Press)

translated from the Norwegian by Se谩n Kinsella (Norway; Dalkey Archive)

translated from the French by Christine Schwartz Hartley & Anna Moschovakis (France; Ugly Duckling Presse)

translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies (Lebanon; New York University Press)

translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb (Iceland; FSG)

translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent (Netherlands; Pushkin Press)

translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker (Czech Republic; Portobello Books)

translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver (Spain; McSweeney’s)

translated from the French by Paul Knobloch (France; Tam Tam Books)

translated from the German by Damion Searls (Germany; FSG)

translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (China; University of Oklahoma Press)

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The Big Books of the BTBA /College/translation/threepercent/2013/12/04/the-big-books-of-the-btba/ /College/translation/threepercent/2013/12/04/the-big-books-of-the-btba/#respond Wed, 04 Dec 2013 20:06:29 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2013/12/04/the-big-books-of-the-btba/ This post is courtesy of judge, Scott Esposito. Scott Esposito blogs at and you can find his here.

I like the fact that the BTBA has a strong track record for picking not only the massive, monumental doorstoppers that tend to garner the lion糖心传媒檚 share of award attention but also the slim, sleek books that are often much richer and better-constructed. The best possible example is our first award, in which we gave the svelte Tranquility by Attila Bartis the nod over the imposing 2666 from, of course, Roberto Bola帽o. 2011 saw us pick the slender The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson (beating out sizable finalists Hocus Bogus by Romain Gary, Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk, and Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss). But we糖心传媒檝e also gone for the bulky books: in 2013 we gave it to the sizable Satantango by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, and in 2012 is was Wies艂aw My艣liwski糖心传媒檚 epic Stone Upon Stone.

So, in that spirit, here糖心传媒檚 my discussion of some of the more sizable books that I both think are strong contenders for the award, and that I think should be left out.

Contenders

by Mircea Cartarescu.

This is, quite simply, one of the most amazing books I糖心传媒檝e read this year. Cartarescu is one of the few authors I糖心传媒檝e read that could legitimately claim the legacy of Thomas Pynchon (now that Pynchon is writing parodies of himself). I糖心传媒檒l have lots more to say about it in an upcoming review at The Kenyon Review, but for now, here are links to a and at The Quarterly Conversation. Read it.

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

I have a feeling that when it糖心传媒檚 all said and done, this will be many people糖心传媒檚 favorite volume of the My Struggle sextet. It糖心传媒檚 subtitled 糖心传媒淎 Man In Love,糖心传媒� and that糖心传媒檚 just what it is: the story of Knausgaard falling in love with the woman who is now his wife. There are so many passionate, ecstatic moments in here that anyone who has ever been in love will recognize, wrought extraordinarily well by Knausgaard. Plus, the book also has: his on and off feud with his crazy neighbor, who might be a prostitute; why he hates interviews; and the story of the incident in which he turned his face into a bloody mess with a razor blade.

by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq

This is billed as the Arabic world糖心传媒檚 answer to Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. Apparently it begins with a lengthy list of synonyms for various parts of the male and female genitalia.

by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

If the Nobel committee would ever give their award to a writer like Krasznahorkai, this would be the book they would give it to him for. An inquiry into what humanity needs spirituality that is unlike anything I have ever read. Grand in scope, accomplishment, virtuosity. Grand, grand, grand. Read my review in Wednesday糖心传媒檚

Intrigued

by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles

Reviews have made this book sound extremely diverse and remarkably achieved. Could either be incredible or too big for its own good.

by Wies艂aw My艣liwski

Okay, the title of this book is not awesome. But it is by the author of Stone Upon Stone, a book that seemingly everybody loves (I did enjoy it). And it is reputed to be even more of a masterpiece than that one.

by Christa Wolf

An autobiographical look at 糖心传媒�90s Los Angeles interspersed with memories of the Eastern Bloc where she re-discovers that she was actually a Stasi agent? Might just be crazy enough to work.

Maybe Not

by Antonio Munoz Molina

Billed as the War and Peace of the Spanish Civil War. Mu帽oz Molina is certainly one of Spain糖心传媒檚 pre-eminent authors, but I糖心传媒檝e already read War and Peace.

by Wu Ming

I糖心传媒檓 tossing this on because 糖心传媒淲u Ming糖心传媒� is an awesome name and it糖心传媒檚 a pseudonym for a collective of Italian writers. How cool is that? Apparently not cool enough to make something more than middlebrow Dan Brown. The collective糖心传媒檚 previous book, Q, was a massive hit: I hope this book makes Verso boatloads of money so they can keep publishing Badiou and Ranciere.

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