In honor of the three editors of this volume—Esther Allen, Sean Cotter, and Russell Scott Valentino—are coming to town to talk about Heim and his lasting influence on a variety of aspects of the field of literary translation.

Esther, Sean, and Russell (all of whom are greatly respected for their own personal translations) did an amazing job putting this book together, creating a volume that’s both a homage to one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century and a book that adds a lot to translation studies. The essays in this book—from a variety of contributors, including Dubrakva Ugresic, Celia Hawkesworth, Rosanna Warren, Maureen Freely, Alex Zucker, Breon Mitchell, and more—are by turns engaging, heartbreaking, brilliant, and intellectually stimulating.

I’ll be moderating this panel, and there will be a reception to follow.

So, if you’re in the area,

RTWCS: Michael Henry Heim & A Life in Translation
Thursday, April 2nd at 5:00pm
Welles-Brown Room in Rush Rhees Library (755 Library Road at the U of R)

Hope to see you there!

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.

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)

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.

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 . . .

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)

Thanks to George Szirtes, Sean Cotter, L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai, and Nichita Stanescu will each receive a $5,000 cash prize.

I want to personally thank Jill McCoy of the European Society of Authors for kicking off the event by talking about and to Esther Allen for adding some thoughtful and interesting comments (as is to be expected, I mean, duh, it’s Esther Allen). Also, a large Internet round of applause should go out to Bill Martin and Michael Orthofer for making the actual announcements—thanks guys!

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the two titles, here’s a bit more info:

by L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai, translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes and published by New Directions

And from Bromance Will’s² write-up of why this book should win:

Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s Satantango takes a look at evil in its everyday forms. Satantango is a diabolical novel, a bleak, haunting, hypnotic, philosophical, black comedic deconstruction of apocalyptic messianism. Translated flawlessly by George Szirtes, Hungarian poet and translator of renown, the story of Satantango‘s appearance in English is so miraculous, and the end result so perfect, from the gorgeous first edition hardcover that New Directions released, to the quality of the translation inside, that it is clear: Satantango deserves to win the BTBA. [. . .]

Though the film version is nearly seven hours long, Satantango is by far the shortest and easiest Krasznahorkai novel to digest of the three published in English by New Directions thus far. Though the sentences are long and there are no paragraph breaks in each chapter, as per Krasznahorkai’s unique style, the narrative pace is brisk, with a black comedy underlying the character’s thoughts and actions, or rather, lack of actions. Set up in a cycle of twelve chapters that progress from I-VI, then backwards from VI-I, with the eponymous Satan’s tango in the middle, the story tells of a wretched collective farm fallen into a hapless state of disrepair that suddenly perks up with life when word gets to the inhabitants that the mysterious and enigmatic Irimi谩s was coming back.

Irimi谩s had left the collective farm some years before, promising great change upon his return, but when we meet him and his sidekick, Petrina, the pair are plotting to return to the farm to wreak havoc under the direction of an unnamed, evil government bureaucracy. The inhabitants had been waiting for the day when their messiah, Irimi谩s, would return to deliver them from their squalor to a brighter future, unaware that Irimi谩s is a false prophet, who despises them and will bring them only to their doom.

If you haven’t read this, buy it NOW. There is a paperback version coming out soon, but god damn is the hardback gorgeous. Buy it because quality printed books are somewhat of a rarity and should be preserved and glorified.

*

by Nichita Stanescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter, and published by Archipelago Books.

And from judge Russell Valentino’s write-up:

A friend of mine once did commentary for a literary death match in the language of wine labels: a fruity blend of blackberry and barnyard; hints of oaky tangerines and smoked chestnuts; and so on. This worked well because no one forgets irony in literary death matches: everyone knows the contest cannot ever really be a contest. Unfortunately not the cast with the things called contests, and O, do we need some irony here!

This is one糖心传媒攖hough just one糖心传媒攐f the reasons that Nichita Stanescu糖心传媒檚 Wheel with a Single Spoke, in Sean Cotter糖心传媒檚 English translations, should win this contest. It knows for irony, as when, in the love lyric, 糖心传媒淏eauty-sick,糖心传媒� the lover enjoins, 糖心传媒淒o your best not to die, my love / try to not die if you can糖心传媒�; or, in a nod to trans-sense, (糖心传媒淲hat is the Supreme Power that Drives the Universe and Creates Life?糖心传媒�), it turns out to be 糖心传媒淎 and E / and I and O / and U.糖心传媒� And once this tone, then everything takes on a tinge, or you at least have to wonder, when he writes words like 糖心传媒渃onsciousness糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渃ognition糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渂eing糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渁h糖心传媒� and most definitely 糖心传媒淥.糖心传媒�

It should also win because through the irony the post-War, Cold War, otherwise all-too-depressive seriousness grows deeper, more meaningful, easier to understand and appreciate, brighter, as when he writes, 糖心传媒淏ecause my father and because my mother, / because my older sister and because my younger sister, / because my father糖心传媒檚 various brothers and because my mother糖心传媒檚 various sisters, / because my sister糖心传媒檚 various lovers, / imagined or real,糖心传媒� after which you can糖心传媒檛 help but want to know more, read another line and another. And because Cotter has selected, pulled together, found coherent, compelling English form. And because the book itself is beautiful.

Speaking of things that are beautiful, this is the third Archipelago title to win. Stone Upon Stone by Wies艂aw My艣liwski, translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston won in 2012, and Tranquility by Attila Bartis, translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein won in 2009. Seeing that only 11 titles have received this honor, that’s incredibly impressive. Congrats to Jill Schoolman—the publisher of one of the greatest publishers of international literature there is!

And stay tuned. We’ll be announcing info about the 2014 BTBAs in approximately one month.

¹ Which, especially for a test-run, was remarkably successful. I sold more than 15 books in the first hour and a half, and only brought back a handful of units.

² Will Evans was an apprentice here last year, and as a result is launching Deep Vellum, an indie press based in Dallas dedicated to doing awesome literature from around the world. He has a few titles in the works that I know about, but the only think I should really mention here is that he’ll be publishing Sergio Pitol as one of his first authors. For more information, you should follow his Twitter account: @DeepVellum. And if you’re at BEA this year, you should meet with him. Will has the rare ability to make the most jaded professional excited about books and publishing once again. We need people like him in this field.

by Nichita Stanescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter, and published by Archipelago Books.

Russell Valentino is the chair of Slavic Studies at Indiana University, editor of The Iowa Review, founder of Autumn Hill Books, and translator of eight literary works from Italian, Croatian, and Russian. Oh, and he’s also received two Fulbright-Hays research grants and two NEA Fellowships.

A friend of mine once did commentary for a literary death match in the language of wine labels: a fruity blend of blackberry and barnyard; hints of oaky tangerines and smoked chestnuts; and so on. This worked well because no one forgets irony in literary death matches: everyone knows the contest cannot ever really be a contest. Unfortunately not the cast with the things called contests, and O, do we need some irony here!

This is one糖心传媒攖hough just one糖心传媒攐f the reasons that Nichita Stanescu糖心传媒檚 Wheel with a Single Spoke, in Sean Cotter糖心传媒檚 English translations, should win this contest. It knows for irony, as when, in the love lyric, 糖心传媒淏eauty-sick,糖心传媒� the lover enjoins, 糖心传媒淒o your best not to die, my love / try to not die if you can糖心传媒�; or, in a nod to trans-sense, (糖心传媒淲hat is the Supreme Power that Drives the Universe and Creates Life?糖心传媒�), it turns out to be 糖心传媒淎 and E / and I and O / and U.糖心传媒� And once this tone, then everything takes on a tinge, or you at least have to wonder, when he writes words like 糖心传媒渃onsciousness糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渃ognition糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渂eing糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渁h糖心传媒� and most definitely 糖心传媒淥.糖心传媒�

It should also win because through the irony the post-War, Cold War, otherwise all-too-depressive seriousness grows deeper, more meaningful, easier to understand and appreciate, brighter, as when he writes, 糖心传媒淏ecause my father and because my mother, / because my older sister and because my younger sister, / because my father糖心传媒檚 various brothers and because my mother糖心传媒檚 various sisters, / because my sister糖心传媒檚 various lovers, / imagined or real,糖心传媒� after which you can糖心传媒檛 help but want to know more, read another line and another. And because Cotter has selected, pulled together, found coherent, compelling English form. And because the book itself is beautiful.

And because of poems like 糖心传媒淜not 33. In the Quiet of Evening糖心传媒澨切拇綕:

I thought of a way so sweet
for words to meet
that below, blooms bloomed
and above, grass greened.

I thought of a way so sweet
for words to crash
that perhaps grass would bloom
and blooms would grass.

Finally, it should win because it糖心传媒檚 ambitious and humble at the same time. This may smack of the poetry version of wine label verbiage, but I don糖心传媒檛 know how else to express it, and I don糖心传媒檛 mean it ironically. Though it糖心传媒檚 true that such a combination settles with a surprising tingle upon the palate, and leaves one stimulated long after.

Lightwall by Liliana Ursu. Translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter. (Romania, Zephyr Press)

Poetry judge Matthew Zapruder — poet, translator, academic, and co-editor of — wrote the review below. I want to publicly thank him — and all the poetry judges — for helping provide info about all of the BTBA poetry finalists.

The Romanian poet Liliana Ursu’s wonderful new volume, Lightwall, continues to establish her reputation as one of the foremost living Central European poets. This is her fourth book in English: previously she worked with legendary Romanian translator Adam Sorkin and poet Tess Gallagher, to marvelous effect, and this time she is lucky again to collaborate on the translations with Sean Cotter, who has also written a fascinating introduction to the book. The results in English are full of power and grace. Ursu’s poems are sometimes mythic, taking place in an imagined landscape; at others, they are full of everyday details, but always viewed through her particular pleasurably tilted lens. In this latter way she is, as Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun justly calls her, “an archeologist of light.” Ursu’s poems are built structures in which light, aka consciousness, or seeing, bounces pleasurably and strangely around.

The poems of this bilingual edition continue to exhibit Ursu’s idiosyncratic transformative imagination, but also include more details of everyday life in America, where she has spent significant time over the past decade, teaching and writing. “Waiting for Hurricane Isabella to Pass” for instance begins with the lines:

On my table: The Art of Poetry, Lives of Egyptian Saints
and the coffee from Starbucks I drink every morning
with eyes lost to my American window.

This is a perspective somewhat familiar to any reader of contemporary American poetry, but also more confident and stranger in its distance. And when the second stanza begins “

I also talk to an old tree
whom I address as ‘Your Majesty,’

we feel in the presence of a European, contemporary poetic perspective, one that is, like this entire terrific book of poems, very exciting and welcome.