Language: French

What’s New in Translation: November 2019

November 11, 2019  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Allison Braden, Alyea Canada, Daljinder Johal, and Katarzyna Bartoszyńska

November’s best new translations, chosen by the Asymptote staff.

November brings plenty of exciting new translations and our writers have chosen four varied, yet equally enriching and timely works: Bohumil Hrabal’s memoir that is at once a detailed study of humans’ relationship with cats and an exploration of dealing with mounting pressures and stress; a debut collection of Chilean short stories which explores social and economic difficulties and sheds light on some of the causes behind Chile’s recent social unrest; Hiromi Kawakami’s follow-up novella to the international bestseller, Strange Weather in Tokyo; and a novel set on the Chagos Archipelago which recounts the expulsion of Chagossians from the island of Diego Garcia and examines cultural identity and exile. Read on to find out more!

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All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by Paul Wilson, New Directions, 2019

Review by Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, Educational Arm Assistant

Bohumil Hrabal’s All My Cats is not for the faint of heart. Though fans of the author will recognize and appreciate the quirky humor and lyrical melancholy, one must also be prepared to take on the harsher aspects of the story, and I suspect that the uninitiated may find the descriptions of cats being murdered a bit much to take. The short memoir documents the author’s relationship to the feral cats living in his country cottage in Kersko, and his anguished labors to brutally limit their number. It is a lovely homage, and a richly evocative account of the pleasures of feline companionship, with lush descriptions of their delicate paws and velvety noses. We become acquainted with each individual kitty and their distinctive markings, habits, and personalities, but these rhapsodic stories are punctuated by episodes of grim slaughter that are depressingly specific—a morose account of an awful deed. And so, gradually, horrifyingly, this becomes a book about guilt and how it shapes one’s worldview, producing a strange reckoning of crime and punishment that reads retribution in the random alignments of events.

Witnessing Hrabal shuttling back and forth between his life in Prague and Kersko, we begin to notice that his concerns about his cats are combined with a steadily accumulating sense of anxiety and torment about his work, neighbors, and life. “What are we going to do with all those cats?” his wife asks, in an echoing refrain, as new litters of kittens, inexorably, arrive. The book is about the cats, but we start to realize that it is also not about the cats, not really, but rather, about how Hrabal struggles to manage the various stresses of his life more generally as he gains success and recognition as a writer. Haunted by his guilt over the murdered creatures, he surveys the world around him, reflecting on the relationship between art and suffering, and increasingly begins to feel that he is a plaything of fate, doomed to unhappiness, with no choice but surrender. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

November 8, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Daniel Persia, Ruba Abughaida, and Sarah Moore

Our editors have you covered with the latest news in world literature!

This week, our editors report on the commemoration of Amjad Nasser, one of Jordan’s most celebrated writers, as well as Syrian poet Adonis’ discussion with his translator Khaled Mattawa at London’s Southbank Centre. From Brazil, the International Literary Festival of the Peripheries (FLUP) and the Mulherio das Letras have taken place, with both festivals seeking to give voice to underrepresented writers and speakers. In France, the winners of two of the most prestigious literary awards were announced at the beginning of the week. Read on to find out more!

Ruba Abughaida, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Lebanon

This week, word-lovers celebrate the life and work of Jordanian poet, novelist, essayist, and travel memoirist Amjad Nasser (1955-2019), who launched his writing career as a journalist and activist for Palestinian rights. His debut poetry collection, Praise for Another Café, was published in 1979 when he was just twenty-four years old. A Map of Signs and Scents, a collection of sixty poems spanning from 1979-2014 and published by Northwestern University Press, features new English translations of his work by Fady Joudah and Khaled Mattawa.

In 2014, his poem A Song and Three Questions, was praised by Saison Poetry Library as “one of the fifty greatest love poems of the last fifty years.” Translator Jonathan Wright said of Nasser’s lyrical novel Land of No Rain: “I’m not sure what to call Land of No Rain. The publishers call it a novel. I call it a meditation.” 

The UK’s Southbank Literature Festival saw Syrian poet Adonis in conversation with Khaled Mattawa, Libyan poet and Adonis’ regular translator. They discussed poetry, translation, the blurred cultural lines between geographical points of East and West, and read their poems to a packed audience.  READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The Hot-Air Balloon” by Vassilis Alexakis

November 5, 2019  |  in Translations  |  by Rebecca Dehner-Armand

In reality, it’s like all words, with good and bad attributes, capable of protecting a thought as much as betraying a meaning.

This week’s Translation Tuesday features microfiction by Vassilis Alexakis. “The Hot-Air Balloon” begins and ends in an ambiguity, thickly described. The prose is structured around a choice without mooring, a choice that presents itself only to give way to the realization that a language system is something that only appears all-encompassing. By intellectualizing the feeling of infinite choice within a closed system and the eventual choice to leave it, Alexakis acutely describes a weightlessness only obtainable by those who walk between epistemologies. In the end, it is the feeling of the transcendence of the system, thematized as an air-balloon, that prevails. It is only through a meditation on words that we can unmoor ourselves from a system. This airy story depicts well the critical posture, especially of those with multiple languages to rely on.

I was asked to write a definition for a word without knowing which one. I had no hesitation. The more arduous a task, the more it fills me with joy. If I’d been given a word, I would’ve felt some pressure; I would’ve felt trapped. Now that I’ve briefly surveyed the entirety of the lexicon, I feel free as if I were being carried in a hot-air balloon.

Is it a masculine or feminine-gendered word? From my point of view, this question is of no concern. Besides, it’s not uncommon for a word’s synonyms to be of the opposite gender. READ MORE…

Section Editors’ Highlights: Fall 2019

October 28, 2019  |  in News  |  by Ah-reum Han, Caridad Svich, Ellen Jones, Henry Ace Knight, Lee Yew Leong, Varun Nayar, and Victoria Livingstone

Our Section Editors pick their favorite pieces from the Fall 2019 issue!

Eleven days after its launch, Asymptote’s Fall 2019 issue continues to capture the zeitgeist. Many of its pieces, drawn from a record thirty-six countries, simmer with polyvocal discontent at the modern world, taking aim squarely at its seamy underbelly: the ravages of environmental degradation, colonial resource extraction, and media sensationalism of violence, in particular. If you’re still looking for a way in, perhaps our Section Editors can be of some assistance. Their highlights from the edition follow:

From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction, Poetry, and Microfiction Special Feature Editor:

Via frequent contributors Julia and Peter Sherwood, an excerpt from Czech writer and dramaturg Radka Denemarková’s latest Magnesia Litera Prize-winning novel, Hours of Lead, brings us into the bowels of a Chinese prison, bearing witness to a dissident girl’s defiance of state repression and censorship. Inspired by Václav Havel, the protagonist’s struggle is entirely private and self-motivated, untethered from any broader democratic collective or underground movement. Her guards are driven mad by her equanimity and individuality in the face of savage interrogation: “Even her diffident politeness is regarded as provocative. As is her decency. Restraint. Self-control. Humility. . . The guards find her very existence provocative.” Renounced by her parents and rendered persona non grata, “a one-person ghetto,” by the state, her isolation is both liberating and the ultimate gesture of self-sacrifice.

Meanwhile, poet Fabián Severo—the only Uruguayan writing in Portunhol, the language of the Uruguayan frontier with Brazil—revels in an act of presence just as radical and defiant of the mainstream, resisting the state’s attempted erasure of his language. Laura Cesarco Eglin and Jesse Lee Kercheval’s translation sings: “This language of mine sticks out its tongue at the dictionary/ dances a cumbia on top of the maps / and from the school tunic and bow tie / makes a kite / that flies / loose and free through the sky.” Don’t overlook the luminous poems of prolific French and Martinican Creole writer Monchoachi, whom Derek Walcott has credited for “completely renewing our vision of the Creole language.” “The Caribbean could be considered a workshop for the modern world,” he conveys in Eric Fishman’s English translation, “with its deportations, its exterminations, and also its ‘wildly multiple’ side, its ‘ubiquity of voices and sounds.’” READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

October 25, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Barbara Halla, José García Escobar, and Paloma Reaño Hurtado

Central America, France, and Peru—our writers bring you this week's latest news from around the globe.

This week, our reporters bring you news of the release of unpublished Proust short stories in France, literary award winners in Guatemala and Panama, and the Lima International Book Fair in Peru.

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America

It’s award season in Central America!

In early October, the committee of the Miguel Angel Asturias National Prize in Literature (Guatemala) announced that this year’s winner was the poet, fiction writer, critic, and translator Luis Eduardo Rivera. Luis began his career in the seventies, alongside other great Guatemalan writers like Marco Antonio Flores, Ana María Rodas, and Luis de Lión. He’s the author of close to twenty books, and he currently lives in France where he teaches Spanish and Literature. Famed writer Eduardo Halfon received this prize last year.

Guatemalan readers and book lovers also saw the opening of a new bookstore called Kitapenas Books & Bistro, and Editorial Catafixia, one of Central America’s most important indie presses, celebrated its tenth anniversary a few days ago. Catafixia has published the likes of Vania Vargas, Wingston González, Sabino Esteban, Jacinta Escudos, and Alfredo Trejos. READ MORE…

Our Fall 2019 Issue Is Here!

October 17, 2019  |  in News  |  by Lee Yew Leong

Featuring Radka Denemarková, Sylvia Molloy, Monchoachi, and a Spotlight on International Microfiction

Welcome to our spectacular Fall 2019 edition gathering never-before-published work from a record-breaking 36 countries, including, for the first time, Azerbaijan via our spotlight on International Microfiction. Uncontained, this issue’s theme, may refer to escape either from literal prisons—the setting of some of these pieces—or from other acts of containment: A pair of texts by Czech author Radka Denemarková and Hong Kong essayist Stuart Lee tackle the timely subject of Chinese authoritarianism. In “The Container,” Thomas Boberg performs the literary equivalent of “unboxing” so popular on YouTube these days, itemizing a list of things in a container shipped from Denmark to the Gambia—all in a withering critique of global capitalism.

The container lends itself to several metaphors but none as poignant or as on point as—you guessed it, dear Asymptote reader—the container of language itself, as suggested by London-based photographer Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee’s brilliant cover highlighting the symbolism of the humble rice grain. This commodity has, like language, been exported, exchanged, enhanced, and expressed in various forms from its various origins across the planet. Even when a state attempts to erase language, resistance remains possible, as poet Fabián Severo—the only Uruguayan writing in Portunhol, the language of the country’s frontier with Brazil—demonstrates: “This language of mine sticks out its tongue at the / dictionary,” he sings, “dances a cumbia on top of the maps / and from the school tunic and bow tie / makes a kite / that flies / loose and free through the sky.” In one of Argentine writer Sylvia Molloy’s many profound riffs on the bilingual condition, Molloy claims that “one must always be bilingual from one language, the heimlich one, if only for a moment, since heim or home can change.” READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Basketball, Tennis, and Swimming” by Régis Jauffret

September 17, 2019  |  in Translations  |  by Jonathan Woollen

Since then, everything has filled me with wonder. I dumped my entire fortune into this company, which doesn’t produce any more than it sells.

This week’s Translation Tuesday features the work of Régis Jauffret, a French writer working since the 1980s. “Basketball, Tennis, and Swimming” is a micro-fiction that takes a look into the lived experience of depression—specifically a depression borne under a lack of inspiration and connection. Deep colors, sweeping juxtapositions, and a certain simplicity of thought feed into a narrative that questions schedules, labor, and purpose. An anti-capitalist vision of work opposed to melancholic states gives purpose to the purposeless. Uplifting narratives do not always have to be grand, this story shows, and the structures of neoliberal life worlds and traditional values can be tweaked with the help of a proper and poetic angle (and some odd desires!).

The staff have access to basketball hoops, three tennis courts, and a big pool with a sunroof, allowing them to enjoy some fresh air over the summer. It matters to me that everyone’s happy. I didn’t create this company to earn money, but to let the hopeless reacquire a taste for life.

I myself have known periods when I’ve risen at five in the afternoon, only to immediately lie back down after drinking some orange juice and eating a slice of bread. Those were the only times I saw my children, when they weren’t with their soccer team or at school. I came in contact with my wife’s body whenever she’d happen to be in bed, but I spent whole weeks without seeing her face in broad daylight. Medications in every color were piled up on the bedside table. I swallowed them without counting, and recognized them by their shape or their taste. I had gray dreams, without peaks or valleys, without sea, snow, night, or sun. Dreams like landscapes so flat, so desolate, that to my eyes nothing like them exists on our planet. I didn’t even think about death, it was too desirable for me to think possible. I slowly sank into the mattress, which cradled me like a cockle shell cast around my imprint.
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Transcribing Spoken Dialects: Sharidan Russell on Language Ideologies in Morocco

September 9, 2019  |  in Interviews  |  by Hodna Bentali Gharsallah Nuernberg

I often think back to the famous saying that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

Sharidan Russell is a Rabat-based researcher who studies language ideologies. After graduating with a BA in Arabic and Middle East Studies from Dartmouth College, she was named a Fulbright fellow to Morocco, where she conducted research on transition of Darija, the dialect of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, into a written language. Keenly interested in the ways new writing practices evolve, Russell’s work draws on sociolinguistics and the field of linguistic anthropology as she seeks to understand changing social practices through the lens of literature.

Hodna Nuernberg (HN): Morocco, where you have been conducting your research, has a very rich linguistic landscape. Could you please describe how Morocco’s languages interact and describe the role of Darija specifically?

Sharidan Russell (SR): Morocco has both official languages and what I refer to as “de facto official languages”. After its independence in 1956, Morocco began the process of Arabization by re-introducing Arabic as the language of government and education. By Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)—or Fusha—was meant. Today, MSA is the kingdom’s official language, but French, which is not in the constitution, functions as a de facto official language. There are very high standards for “fluency” in France and there are many ideologies around the continued use of French. In 2011, Tamazight—the name of a family of languages spoken by the Amazigh, or indigenous peoples of the Maghreb—became an official language in the constitution. Morocco is also home to a range of dialects, which are—or have been—largely unwritten. Darija is the most widely spoken of these dialects and it varies from region to region. Darija is also a de facto official language, in a sense, because it is so widely used for communication at a variety of levels, though it has no official status. Hassaniya, which is spoken in the south, is another dialect that is so different from Darija as to be mutually unintelligible. Hassaniya is recognized in the constitution—not as an official language, but as an important aspect of Morocco’s culture and diversity. Darija is the only of these that is not mentioned.

My research looks at the concept of language ideology against the backdrop of Morocco’s linguistic context. A language ideology refers to the thoughts and feelings we all carry about the languages we speak (or do not speak). For example, we sometimes see a stereotype in the U.S. about people who speak with a southern accent as being less educated. While stereotypes like this aren’t necessarily true, for research like mine it is important to understand where these ideologies come from and how they reflect other parts of the culture.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

September 6, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Quyen Nguyen, Sarah Moore, and Xiao Yue Shan

Follow our editors through France, Japan, and Vietnam as they bring a selection of literary news of the week.

This week, our editors are bringing you news from France, Japan, and Vietnam. After quiet summers in the literary world for many countries, September brings the literary scene back to life. In France, the anticipation is building ahead of the most prestigious literary prizes being awarded. In Japan, a new edition of a historic quarterly is uniting Japanese and Korean literature through a shared feminist voice. And in Vietnam, the launch of a new anthology, as well as events held by prestigious translators, celebrate the ties that are created through translation.

Sarah Moore, Assistant Blog Editor, reporting from France

September in France marks the rentrée littéraire, with hundreds of new titles published before the big award season starts in November. The prix Fémina, prix Renaudot, prix Interallié, prix Médicis, and the prix de l’Académie française will all be contested, as well as the prestigious prix Goncourt.

Amongst the French titles announced for the rentrée, Amélie Nothomb’s Soif (Albin Michel, 21 August) is highly anticipated, although not at all unexpected—an incredibly prolific author, she has consistently featured in the rentrée littéraire every year since the publication of her debut novel, Hygiène de l’assassin, in 1992 (Hygiene and the Assassin, Europa Editions, 2010). With a narrative that takes the voice of Jesus during the final hours of his life, Soif is sure to be as audacious, controversial, and successful as ever for Nothomb.

Marie Darrieussecq’s new novel, La Mer à l’envers (P.O.L, 2019), examines the migration crisis, narrating an encounter between a Parisian woman and a young refugee, rescued from a capsized boat. Many of Darrieussecq’s novels have already been translated into English, including her first novel Pig Tales (Faber & Faber, 2003), and, most recently, The Baby (Text Publishing, 2019). An interview with her translator, Penny Hueston, for Asymptote can be read here and an extract of her translation of Men was part of Asymptote‘s Translation Tuesday series for The Guardian.

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What’s New with the Crew? (Aug 2019)

August 14, 2019  |  in News  |  by Lee Yew Leong

We've been keeping busy!

What do Asymptote staff get up to when they’re not busy advocating for world literature? Answer: Quite a lot! For those interested in joining our team, please note that we have just completed the first phase of our recruitment drive and will conclude the second and final phase by the end of the month. It’s not too late to send in an application!

Communications Manager Alexander Dickow published two poems in Plume, in English and French versions.

Assistant editor Andreea Iulia Scridon‘s poem, Glossa, a re-writing of Mihai Eminescu’s Romanian poem of the same name, has been published by WildCourt.

Copy Editor Anna Aresi‘s Italian translation of Ewa Chrusciel’s Contraband of Hoopoe (Omnidawn, 2014) was released in May by Edizioni Ensemble. 

Chris Tanasescu (aka MARGENTO, editor-at-large for Romania and Moldova) has been featured in a Romanian poetry anthology in Italian translation, Sette poeti rumeni (Seven Romanian Poets) edited by Matteo Veronesi.

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What’s New in Translation: August 2019

August 12, 2019  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Andreea Scridon, P. T. Smith, and Rachael Pennington

Noirs, voyeurs, and sensuality abound in this week's reviews of the newest in translated literature.

This week’s reviews of the newest and most compelling translated literature include the latest work by Poland’s preeminent writer, Olga Tokarczuk, a fascinating portrayal of manic self-interrogation and class by Stéphane Larue, and a darkly dionysian tale of the female gaze by the award-winning Nina Leger. Our editors burrow into the philosophy, language, and atmosphere of these three novels to give you some extra additions to your reading list.

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Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Riverhead Books, 2019

Review by Andreea Scridon, Assistant Editor

Janina Duszejko is the kind of woman that many would call “eccentric”: she’s in her mid-sixties, often bordering on paranoia, and she’s firmly convinced by astrology, absolute vegetarianism, and William Blake. In rural Poland, Janina—as she hates to be called—lives peacefully and in relative solitude as a guardian for the summer cabins surrounding her home. However, she quickly comes into conflict with the insensitive and barbarous hunters who reign over the area. The death of a neighbor escalates such tension, creating a series of mysterious murders that Janina will be privy to, and which will culminate in an unexpected twist.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

August 9, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Ruba Abughaida, and Sarah Moore

Follow our editors through Lebanon, Hong Kong, and France as they bring a selection of literary news of the week.

From the town nestled in the peaks of Lebanon, to the recent surge in Hong Kong streets, to the crystal waters of the Occitanie coast, our three literary destinations of the week bring forth an array of Lebanese love stories, reimaginings of home, and the rich culture of Mediterranean poetry. In the words of the great Sufi poet Yunus Emre, “If I told you about a land of love, friend, would you follow me and come?”

Ruba Abughaida, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Lebanon

The mountain town of Bsharri in Lebanon should see an increase in tourism following the Lebanese debut of a musical adapted from Gibran Khalil Gibran’s Broken Wings, published in 1912. Born in Bsharri in 1883, Gibran’s book The Prophet, published in the United States in 1923, is still one of the best-selling books of all time after ninety-six years and 189 consecutive print runs. Showing at Beit El Din Palace, a nineteenth century palace which hosts the annual Beiteddine festival, the musical tells of a tragic love story which takes place during the turn of the century in Beirut.

Closer to sea level, an evening of poetry in Beirut celebrated Lebanese poet Hasan Abdulla.  Born in Southern Lebanon, Abdulla was inspired by its natural beauty, and infused his poetry with observations of nature. His work, spanning over forty years, has been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian. 

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Translation Tuesday: “Platini’s Free Kick” by Vassilis Alexakis

July 30, 2019  |  in Translations  |  by Rebecca Dehner-Armand

The more I studied the unbelievable curve of the ball, the more I found it sublime.

This week’s Translation Tuesday features work by Greek writer Vassilis Alexakis, who is known for his self-translation work: translating his own work from Greek to French and vice-versa in order to study the lived experience of moving through cultural and linguistic boundaries that recalls Beckett’s experimentation. “Platini’s Free Kick” offers a vision of a man obsessed with event and form. As the story twists on, the free kick is stripped of its content as it becomes the focal point for the speaker, a movement of concentration on an object that invokes idolatry and addiction. Rebecca Dehner-Armand’s apt translation brings out the mundane terror of Alexakis’ story, which offers a critique of the persistence of an object and the effects of transfer, wear, and social tension on the way that objects create meaning for the viewer and how that meaning can change and dissipate over time. This dissipation and wear hint at the anxiety of a text or concept being used and reused. Alexakis’ story forces us to ask: Can the original effect of an event or form hold its sway over an individual without both the viewer and the viewed dissolving?

Michel Platini scored the most beautiful goal I’ve ever seen in my life with a free kick against the Dutch team. I’m almost certain that it was the team from the Netherlands: on the videotape, there are still a few traces of orange, the color of the Dutch jerseys. It was not merely a magnificent goal: it seems, in fact, that it ensured the French team’s qualification for the World Cup, which must’ve been held that year in Mexico, or in Argentina. Or in Italy, maybe. No matter. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this historic goal changed my life.

I saw the match at home. I didn’t even regret not finding a ticket for the Parc des Princes, because some goals are shown exclusively on TV in slow motion. Fortunately, I thought to record the match, as if I’d sensed that it would be exceptional. I watched the match alone, because neither my wife nor my daughters like soccer. Was it during the first period that Michel scored? Actually, I think it was during the second half, I would even say during the last fifteen minutes, because things had grown very tense and anticipatory as much on the field as in the stands, as is always the case at the end of a game.

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Section Editors’ Highlights: Summer 2019

July 29, 2019  |  in News  |  by Ah-reum Han, Alexander Dickow, Eva Heisler, Joshua Craze, Lee Yew Leong, Sarah Timmer Harvey, and Victoria Livingstone

Standout pieces from the Summer 2019 issue of Asymptote, as selected by section editors!

Another issue of Asymptote means another dazzling array of voices, languages, and genres in translation. If you’re not sure where to begin, look no further than these recommendations from the editors who compiled this spectacular issue. 

From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction and Poetry Editor:

This issue’s Fiction section is memorable for being the first fiction lineup in an Asymptote issue (and there are now 34 of them!) that does not include a single European author. Naguib Mahfouz and Bernardo Esquinca have already been singled out by the blog editors last week, so I’ll touch briefly on works by Bijan Najdi and Siham Benchekroun—two ambitious short stories that are remarkable in different ways. Showcasing the acclaimed narrative technique for which he was known, Najdi’s heartbreaking story “A Rainy Tuesday” (translated beautifully by Michelle Quay) unravels the thin seam between memory and reality, leading us on a nonlinear journey through grief. Benchekroun’s “Living Words,” on the other hand, is also a personal essay that exults in the very richness of language. Kudos to translator Hannah Embleton-Smith who masterfully tackled a text that leans so heavily on French phonetics to make synaptic leaps—and gave us something in English that preserves the delight of the original French. My personal favorites from the Poetry section this issue are the new translations of The Iliad by James Wilcox, which inject vigor into an ancient classic, and Tim Benjamin’s introduction of Leonardo Sanhueza, 2012 winner of the Pablo Neruda Prize for career achievement. Benjamin’s evocative translations bring into English for the first time an extraordinary poetic voice that deserves to reach a wider audience.

From Joshua Craze, Nonfiction Section Editor:

“Personal Jesus” by Fausto Alzati Fernández is a visceral study of the self that drugs make. Ably translated by Will Stockton, the prose slows down time, as we wait on the side of the highway, hoping for a fix, and then, finally, time stops, in the infinite space of the hit. Fernández explores an enchanted world, in which of all the dumb sad morass of the human animal is given the possibility of transcendence, and yet—cruelties of cruelties—it is this very transcendence that produces the animals living half-lives that stumble around his dealer’s living room. “Personal Jesus” is a love letter, written to a cleansing balm that leaves us only more pitiful than before.

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