Recommended Reading: In which a great translator takes on a nearly impossible project: “Schmidt violates the rules of orthography and punctuation throughout the book, and its sprawling conversations cover James Joyce, trees, magic, the moon, and Xerxes, among many other things. After getting Zettel’s Traum out of his system, Schmidt would go on to write his best works. ‘I had to write it,’ he said. ‘And such a book had to be written sometime.'”
Translating the Untranslatable
Pink Matter
No doubt inspired by the musical stylings of Ricky Rozay (aka Rick Ross), Peter Foges set out to investigate the origins and present state of pink champagne.
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Teenage Scum Tollbooth
We couldn’t get enough of Mallory Ortberg’s “Dirtbag Hamlet,” and now she presents “Dirtbag Phantom Tollbooth.” “KING AZAZ: Please, my dear boy! Without these sisters, our kingdom will decay into chaos MILO: sisters eh nice.”
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Badly Drawn Authors
Hooray, consumerism! Or, Happy Valentine’s Day, rather. For all you literary saps out there, here are seven valentines of badly drawn authors that are sure to thaw any frozen hearts. Don’t worry, there are plenty more badly drawn authors where those came from.
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Werewolves Etc.
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One Book to Rule Them All
“We note that there is a great lack of schoolbooks among secondary pupils, due to their weak purchasing power. The books currently in circulation will remain in use, but for purposes of ‘complementary consultation.’” Mozambique’s Education Minister has announced that with the start of the 2017 academic year, its school system will adopt a single book for each subject taught in the country’s secondary schools.
Also: get to know the internationally renowned Mozambican writer Mia Couto, whose books The Blind Fisherman and The Tuner of Silences were recently translated into English.
An Unwelcome Invitation for László Krasznahorkai
You can read the entire first chapter from László Krasznahorkai’s latest novel, Seiobo There Below. We reviewed the work on our site last month. Meanwhile, the Hungarian author has recently received an unwelcome invitation. As literary scholar Tibor Keresztúry notes (via George Szirtes’s translation), “a certain G Fodor Gábor, the strategic director of the Századvég (Century’s End) Foundation … suggests that [Krasznahorkai] should shoot himself in the head.”