The End of Oulipo? The End of Oulipo? My book (co-authored with Lauren Elkin), published by Zero Books. Available everywhere. Order it from Amazon, or find it in bookstores nationwide. 
Lady Chatterley’s Brother Lady Chatterley's Brother. The first ebook in the new TQC Long Essays series,  called “an exciting new project” by Chad Post of Open Letter and Three Percent. Why can't Nicholson Baker write about sex? And why can Javier Marias? We investigate why porn is a dead end, and why seduction paves the way for the sex writing of the future. Read an excerpt.
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Translate This Book! Ever wonder what English is missing? Called "a fascinating  read" by The New Yorker, Translate This Book! brings together over 40 of the top translators, publishers, and authors to tell us what books need to be published in English. Get it on Kindle.
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Katherine Silver is one of the most talented, interesting, and dedicated translators working from Spanish today. She recently translated Cesar Aira’s novel(la) The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira, her second Aira translation (it joins The Literary Conference) though definitely not her last (read on).
I asked her six questions about the particular challenges of translating Aira, her own interpretations of his oeuvre-in-progress, her discovery of Aira, and what lies ahead for Aira-fans in the English language. In addition to Aira, Silver has translated Almost Never by Daniel Sada (with two more Sada novels . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Without a doubt, one of the most interesting new books I read last year was My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec. The book raises quite legitimate comparisons to authors like Sebald and Walser, and its brief 100 pages are made expansive by intricate, precise prose. The book concerns the reflections made by its unnamed narrator over the course of a short walk through a park in some unnamed Brazilian city. What is perhaps most striking about this walk is the haze of thought that Chejfec creates within it. Reading, we sense some sort of meaning . . . continue reading, and add your comments
The Third Reich was unpublished at the time of Bolaño’s death, but there are indications that he meant it to be published one day: he had begun typing it up, as he did with earlier unpublished novels that were eventually published in his lifetime. The book follows the transformation of one Udo Berger, a German tourist in Spain’s Costa Brava as he plays a board game called The Third Reich. Wimmer corresponded with me on the actual board game that inspired The Third Reich, reading fast for pleasure vs reading slow for translation, the role of creativity in the process of translation, and readings and misreadings of Roberto Bolaño. . . . continue reading, and add your comments
By now, readers of this blog (and I would hope readers in general) need no introduction to Cesar Aira, one of the most exciting authors to be making his way into English. Over the past couple of years, New Directions has done amazing work with Aira, publishing novel after novel. I think they’re beginning to make some headway in developing the kind of audience that this writer deserves. They have just published The Seamstress and the Wind . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Perhaps no other author has grown in my estimation over the past 12 months as much as László Krasznahorkai. An author known for his challenging grammar and long, complex sentences, he has previously published two novels in English translation, both by New Directions–War and War and The Melancholy of Resistance. Animalinside, his third book in English, has taken a circuitous route, first being published in Paris as part of Sylph Editions’ Cahiers series . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments
I’m no specialist on the relative reputations of contemporary U.S. authors, but I would classify Lynne Tillman as “greatly underappreciated.” Over a long and fruitful career she has worked in numerous genres to numerous ends, the one underlying quality seeming to be, simply, quality. Her latest book, a collection of short fiction called Someday This Will Be Funny, has just been published by Red Lemonade . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments
I don’t say things like this a whole lot, but I feel relatively safe in saying that if Tim Mohr wasn’t translating, our image of contemporary German literature would be quite different. His first two translations were two of the most notable and noted books to emerge into English from Germany in the ‘00s: Guantanamo by Dorothea Dieckmann and Wetlands by Charlotte Roche. He followed up those two with two novels for Europa Editions by Alina Bronsky, who has quickly built a name for herself as a writer to be reckoned with in English. Prior to coming on the translation scene in 2004 with Guantanamo, Mohr worked as an editor with Playboy . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments
This is an interview by editor Eric Ormsby an editor with the press Biblioasis: The Pigeon Wars of Damascus by Marius Kociejowski. I’m presenting it here for two reasons: first, having published the work of author Ray Smith (have a look at Century), Horacio Castellanos Moya, and others, as well as having an international fiction series edited by Stephen Henighan, the press has distinguished itself in my mind for quality literature. The second reason is that the book in question, The Pigeon Wars of Damascus, is a work that fits into the genre of “atypical travel literature,” and as such might resonate with the readers of this site who have enjoyed authors like Jean Rolin, W.G. Sebald, etc. . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Without a doubt, one of the best things I’ve read this year is a small book called Suicide. It was written by the contemporary French writer Edouard Levé, who, ten days after delivering the manuscript, in fact did commit suicide, but the book is not so much a suicide note or explanation as it is an exactingly wrought object. It was only on a second reading that I was able to truly appreciate how precise the prose is, and how enigmatically this small book opens up to envelop you as a reader. If the suicide on the face of this book leads you to assume that only one interpretation of this book is impossible, everything in the book stands to refute it. After reading Suicide, it’s clear to me that Levé was a major talent. Already, Dalkey will follow up Suicide with a second Levé book, Autoportrait, to be translated by Lorin Stein and published in early 2012, and I expect Levé’s final two books will not be long in following. I interviewed Suicide’s translator, Jan Steyn, for more about this intriguing book and its author . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments
Last December Columbia University Press published a posthumous work by Roland Barthes titled The Preparation of the Novel. The book consists of lectures for a series of courses on the writing of a novel, lectures which were among the last Barthes delivered before his sudden death in 1980. At the time of the lectures many speculated that they were a run-up to a project many had long hoped Barthes would take on: the writing of his own novel, provisionally titled “Vita Nova.” Although Barthes never did write a novel, the lectures provide both an idea of how Barthes might have approached this unique task, as well as his typically profound thoughts on numerous aspects of the novel. I interviewed the book’s translator, Kate Briggs, on this capacious text. The Times Literary Supplement praised Briggs’ translation, saying in part “Kate Briggs’s wonderful translation finally makes available in English a most unusual book by one of the most significant literary figures of the twentieth century.” . . . continue reading, and add your comments
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Recommended Books DeLillo's major work before White Noise is probably his most underrated novel. Its all right here--the politics of paranoia, terrorism, the unnamable--set in an evocative, timeless Greece.
The most bizarre Abe novel I've yet read, which is indeed saying something. About a subclass of Japanese men who go around wearing boxes from the waist up (and then use them as domiciles in the evening), the book is also an experiment in perspective shifts, a highly unstable, metafictional first-person narrative, and an exploration of voyeurism, consumerism, and aberrant sexuality.
Charting the path to three gunshots--the one that killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the one that disabled his Islamic extremist assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri, and the one that led to Vincent Van Gogh’s one hundred years earlier--Olsen tells three separate stories that resonate with one another on numerous levels: the logic of extremism, the role of the dissident in Dutch society, the limits of tolerance, the purpose of the artist, the feeling of the most important five minutes of your life. Read my interview with the author.
Creatively structured, well-executed epic novel of rural South Africa from 1950 - 2000. Takes on a lot and lives up to it magnificently. Highly recommended.
A book that's an interview about the book you're supposedly holding in your hands. Creative, potent, and full of life. Just what metafiction should be. Read my post on it.
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So Much for the Granta
The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)
The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen (2009)
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)
You Say