Volodine’s writers, as it turns out, write because they must kill.
We Are the Birds of the Coming Storm – Lola Lafon
Lafon’s is a novel that asks, in certain ways, not to be reviewed.
The main pitfall of the book is very similar to the main problem porno generally has: after a while, it becomes predictable and boring.
The Last Days of My Mother – Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson
Drinking novels are familiar, death of a family member novels are familiar, dark comedies, familiar, but Last Days brings something new: a mother and son with absolutely zero boundaries.
Hour three: My head hurts. I feel like I have been translating. I have stopped tweeting.
My Struggle (Books 1–3) – Karl Ove Knausgaard
Telling the truth at this length seems to ask in the starkest way possible why writers turn to fiction to give shape to experience.
Last Words from Montmartre – Qiu Miaojin
While Last Words from Montmartre can at times read as an outpouring of undirected and incoherent desire, it would be wrong to take it as the document of an emotional breakdown.
Vian peppers this Elysium with small, threatening glimpses of the world in which they live and to which they remain oblivious.
Zündel’s Exit bursts, then fades, refusing to become complete, to reach firm grounding.
Translation Questionnaire: Karen Emmerich
Our Translation Questionnaire continues, with Karen Emmerich, translator of modern Greek poetry and prose.