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.
The Man with the Compound Eyes – Wu Ming-Yi
If the term magical realism creates a false subset of modernism, what is to stop cli-fi from functioning in a similar way?
It becomes quickly obvious that a lot of this book’s psychic energy is dedicated to a fear of women.
I feel like cardboard. My God! Vice leaves a bitter taste. Virtue brings sweet consolation. Alcohol does me untold damage . . . but I am always so thirsty!
Women Who Make A Fuss – Isabelle Stengers & Vinciane Despret
What is the value of walking soberly and honorably to the guillotine? Why not cry and scream all the way there?
There are sociologists and anthropologists who can do a great job of describing Italy. They have data, theories, studies, statistics. But a writer arrives at it through language and describes the society that is emerging through language.
Flametti, or the Dandyism of the Poor – Hugo Ball
It is not often I read a novel so enthusiastic and unconstrained (and so funny) in its use of language and in its building of worlds.