New Toussaint Coming from Dalkey

In a couple of weeks Dalkey will publish the latest Toussaint translation, Self-Portrait Abroad, coming in at a whopping 80 pages. This one sounds a bit more Running Away than Television.

It’s described by its translator, John Lambert, at Words Without Borders (which also includes an excerpt) as consisting:

of glimpses, less essays than reminiscences, of places Jean-Philippe Toussaint has traveled, often for readings or as the literary member in a group of French cultural emissaries. These locales, which include Kyoto, Hanoi, Prague, and Berlin, among others, serve as occasions for the author to sketch eccentricities in both his setting and himself.

There’s also a short piece by Lambert at The Elegant Variation, where we learn:

Translating Toussaint is consequently the locus of a curious reversal in my life, whereby the active moments of translation are far less productive than the passive ones. I really make headway when I give myself up to a Toussaintesque flow of traffic or of time, of the waters of the Spree River in Berlin or the cascade of words that flows over me in the shower, on my bike or in my car when picking up my daughter after school. As a consequence the real moments of translating Toussaint move from the active to the passive realm, from behind my desk to behind the meat counter, at a parent-teacher meeting or at the dentist’s, from a moment spent hunting for a word on the Internet to one where I’m at a loss, if not for words altogether then at least for an adequate way of expressing them.

The Complete Review labels the book appealing trifle.

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More from Conversational Reading:

1. Toussaint at Splice Today Quarterly Conversation contributor John Lingan writes on Jean-Philippe Toussaint at Splice Today. This is the philosophical thrust of Toussaint’s early work. The books’ aloof protagonists...
2. Publishing Toussaint at Dakley Dalkey Archive editor and Quarterly Conversation contributor Martin Riker has a piece at the Semininary Co-Op Blog about how Dalkey came to publish three Jean-Philippe...
3. Toussaint Reviews The Complete Review reviews the two new Dalkey books by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. As a reminder, The Bathroom is a reissue of the original English translation...
4. About 5,000 Reasons to Read Jean-Philippe Toussaint That’s roughly what you’ll find in Tom McCarthy’s excellent LRB essay on the author. Placing Toussaint into the context of post-nouveaux roman authors (though McCarthy...
5. New Toussaint Former LBC pick and personal favorite Jean-Philippe Toussaint, has a new book. Apparently it’s 17 pages long. Guess that means it won’t take too long...

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