Guest Post: Vanessa Blakeslee, Why I Read Translations

Less than one-percent of international literature is translated into English every year, an abysmally low number by any account. Occasionally, a translated author breaks through with a bestselling hit, such as Elena Ferrante’s trilogy of Neapolitan novels. But those successes largely depend on media coverage: glowing reviews in the New York Times and Boston Globe, features in commercial magazines, Vogue and O. What about the many authors who might be fortunate to have their works translated into English, but who remain relatively unnoticed by the reading public—even by devotees of literary fiction? Even authors who write in English but reside out the United States struggle to obtain mainstream readership and name-recognition stateside as compared to within their home country.

I’m not sure when I decided to devote more of my reading time to discovering international authors. A few years ago I started to review books for literary magazines, and sometimes editors suggested titles or ARCs that had arrived in the office of say, the Kenyon Review, and offered them for assignment. Not only did I delight in discovering stunning masters of fiction—Kevin Barry is one, author of City of Bohane, set in a dystopian future Ireland—but I relished the distance reviewing books by authors abroad gave me. Like it or not, in the U.S., many fiction writers and reviewers belong to the same circle. Knowing that I had less of a chance of running into Barry at a reading or conference made writing an honest critique of his work a more liberating and enlivening endeavor.

Other international titles came to me by way of friends, such as the satirical novel Lovestar by Icelandic writer Andre Magnason; my ex-boyfriend met the author briefly and passed along a copy to me. The more I reviewed and met others who did, the more I received recommendations of international fiction writers to actively seek out. Critic John Domini’s reviews led me to read Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, but more importantly, two novels by German author Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days and Visitation. Much acclaimed on the international literary scene, Erpenbeck is lesser known to the mainstream American reading public, certainly less so than the oft-spotlit Ferrante.

Delving into international literature inevitably leads you as a reader to become familiar with the presses bringing such stellar work to an English-speaking audience. Europa, New Directions, New American Press, Dalky Archive, and Restless Press all publish fiction in translation—presses I’ve come to keep my eye on, whose catalogues I eagerly devour as soon as they drop through my mail slot.

Such presses and their translators do a great service by taking risks and bringing much-deserved talent to a North American audience. Some authors, such as Kevin Barry, whose City of Bohane was first published in the U.S. by Graywolf, eventually make the leap to a major publisher and distribution (Barry’s recent Beatlebone was released by Doubleday), and hopefully, a wider audience. But most importantly, these presses, authors, and translators deserve your attention and support whether or not their authors ever get picked up by a Big 5 publisher. By exploring foreign authors you probably haven’t heard of, your literary landscape will grow more colorful and rewarding, treading imaginative terrain you’d never expect.

Scapegoat Review

Scapegoat Review is interested in poems that challenge the norm. We have an exciting group of poems from an interesting group of poets. This month we come to you with our biggest issue yet. It is an eclectic issue with poetry, art, a cinepoem, and a book review on Froth, by Polish poet Jaroslaw Mikolajewski, translated by Piotr Florczyk (published by Calypso Editions).

The Bird Maiden, oil on canvas, 16" x 20" (by Emily Lisker)Scapegoat Review strives to give you an expansive range of craft that challenges the norm. The result is an assorted collection of work we love and hope you will enjoy. The collection is a potpourri including the grounded, the surreal, ethereal, and work we think pushes the envelope so that you may to consider beyond the words on the page or the image in front of you.

Craft is objective, of course, but solid work is something most can agree upon. Froth, by Jaroslaw Mikolajewski, is such a work. It is poetry at its finest. While he has 10 volumes of poetry that have been translated into several languages, this is the first work to be translated into English. His writing brings to mind various Polish poets such as Wisława Szymborska, Anna Swir, and Czesław Miłosz, yet his voice is all his own.

Here are a few excerpts from the book review written by Jillian Mukavetz:

In this exposing blueprint we whisper in quotidian terms, in transcendence, and intimacy the masculine as it embodies the complexities of father, of lover, and husband. The love between the husband and wife stays complicit regardless of the transformation. How is immortality here outside of earth placed into family? It is in the exigency that we celebrate in the seconds of everyday life; in humor, in times of grandeur and the destitute grappling of placing a ponytail into a hair tie…

Self-alienation occurs when the speaker jumps into linear yet nonlinear juxtaposition. The place of self is disembodied if not only for a number, or letter, eluding, “my step – does it let you sleep and this letter.” When we begin the speaker can only physically internalize his dead father who is cast as hero; inhaling his captured breath in the plastic ribs of a regularly used air mattress.

For more on Froth, go to: http://scapegoatreview.com and to http://www.calypsoeditions.org/froth

Here are a few lines from some of the poets in this issue:

Dream
Anthony Cappo

I had my own Frankenstein monster he’d been
dormant I unwrapped him expecting him to lie
still but I went away for a minute and he slid under my bed
I coaxed him out I’d been reading this book
about how preemies are massaged by nurses’ aides…

To Watch Her Lips
Yvonne Strumecki

She prefers reds,
both in wine and lips,
the cherried variations
staining my thoughts, …

Night Blossom
Alexandra Smyth

In the backseat of the car I bloom into witness.
Part of me knows this is slaughter. I watched
smoke emit from my skin as I fixed my hair in
the mirror while I waited in the foyer for you to
pick me up.

We’ve got monsters, desire, sex, and regret. All the things, which make for absorbing reading. We have a wealth of work to share with you and hope you enjoy as much as we have.

Goodreads

Writing is a lot of work. Even when they’re not actively writing, writers are often thinking – even obsessing — about what they’re writing. One of the best ways to give your brain a break without the guilt of straying too far from work is to think about what other people have been writing. The site www.goodreads.com is the perfect way to relax between chapters. It’s like a Facebook for bookworms, where you can rate and discuss the books you’ve read with your friends and see what they think of the books they’ve been reading. You can rate books anywhere from one to five stars, and then you can write your own New York Times-style review to accompany your rating. But don’t forget to include a spoiler alert if you’re going to write about how it ends.

Goodreads also has digital book clubs you can join and offers recommendations based on the books you’ve read and rated highly. They also sometimes put on special events, such as live video chats with authors. In August they interviewed Jennifer Egan, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, and the moderator pulled many of his questions from the Goodreads users participating in the live chat forum. It was a great way for readers to get insight on Egan’s writing process. They also have contest for free advance copy giveaways so a select few readers can review new releases for the Goodreads community. It’s an excellent website for bibliophiles of all kinds.