Two Lines 2009: Wherever I Lie Is Your Bed

The latest incarnation of the annual Two Lines anthology from the Center for the Art of Translation is now out, available from Amazon and the Center itself. The cover is a marvel to behold. Inside, the book features the work of such poets and writers as Günter Grass, Adonis, Jose Manuel Prieto, George Szirtes, and Yoko Tawada, and such translators as Breon Mitchell, Esther Allen, Susan Bernofsky, Alison Anderson, and Karen Emmerich. The guest editors are the illustrious Margaret Jull Costa and Marilyn Hacker. It also includes a nifty two-pager by the incredible French comics artist François Ayroles, translated by yours truly. Because Chad Post is Chad Post, he already has a review up at Three Percent.

I would be remiss not adding that this lovely cover, which has caused acquaintances to fondle the book covetously, was the brainchild and handiwork of editor Annie Janusch, who does double world lit duty as the Works-In-Translation editor of The Quarterly Conversation. She’s been my point person at CAT for the last two years, and made the experience of contributing to Two Lines pleasurable and professional. Wouldn’t have happened without her. Three cheers!

This handsome volume fêtes its official launch on the following occasion (wish I could be there):

Monday, November 9: Book Release Party at LIMN Gallery

Foreign Correspondents: October in Words Without Borders

Two new pieces up in the Words Without Borders “Foreign Correspondents” issue this month, one by Gébé and the other by François Vallejo. Gébé, a satirist after my own heart, looks into the mysterious activities of the International Bureau for Front Location, while Vallejo chronicles the 1988 fire that consumed the Chiado district of Lisbon.

Editorial cartoonist Gébé’s piece, featuring a short introduction by yours truly, is taken from his prose collection Not-Quite-Botched Dispatches (But a Hard Sell for the Nightly News), originally Reportages pas vraiment ratés mais difficile à vendre à France Soir, reprinted in 2001 by Le Diléttante (that last link for readers of French).

The excerpt by François Vallejo is the opening to his 2008 novel The Burning of the Chiado (L’Incendie du Chiado) from Éditions Viviane Hamy.

Check’em out!

Obama Card Game!

Charlito, of Indie Spinner Rack fame, and co-publisher of what is to date my only published comics work, has produced a handsome handmade card game from the natural effervescence of his irrepressible creative spirit and sheer infectious joy at our soon-to-be President. I am egregiously late about notifying the masses of it, but when I saw notice posted on my friend GB Tran’s blog, I thought Duh, why not be a copycat. I’m still in time for inauguration. Please go buy it. Feed Charlito.

http://www.obamacardgame.com

Postcard Remix #3

With apologies to Andi Watson, Benjamin Parzybok, and Small Beer Press.

Postcard Remix #2

Me Reading, Sunday Salon, Stain Bar, 11/16

UPDATED 11/30: video footage, thanks to Sunday Salon co-hostess Nita Noveno, of me reading part of G.O.-C.’s short story “The Pavilion and the Linden” (Le kiosque et le tilleul), an earlier version of which is available online at The Cafe Irreal.

A quick and all-too-close-to-the-date note to say I’ll be giving a reading of translations and my own writing at the Sunday Salon in Williamsburg this weekend, with three other writers: short-storyist Leni Zumas, psychologist-memoirist Daniel Tomasulo, and African-American novelist Kim Coleman Foote. It starts at 7pm, at the Stain Bar. (L to Grand, then 1 block west. Stain Bar is located at 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Bar opens at 5 p.m. 718.387.7840.)

To share some good news: the French fabulist whose work I’ll be reading, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, just won the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire for his latest novel, L’Autre rive, at the Utopiales festival in Nantes (kind of to Euro sci-fi what Angouleme is to comics. Kelly Link just won the same prize in the Best Foreign Story Collection category for an edition of stories selected from her two American collections—Yay!)

And two new publications: Châteaureynaud’s story “The Only Mortal” will appear in Dec.-Jan. issue of The Brooklyn Rail, and his story “The Denham Inheritance” has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming volume of British quarterly Postscripts. Thank you, editors!

In a recent letter, the author offered his congratulations on our recent election.

A future post on the novel itself is pending.

Hope you can make it!

A more formal version française after the jump:

My Life Right Now

Courtesy the ever-wondrous GB Tran. Respect.

Panel Talk

My friend M@ alerted me to a WSJ article on eurocomics and la glorieuse B.D. Sardine gets a mention, and First Second quite a few. What an odd roundup of authors, at least among the Francophones… wonder who author Brigid Grauman’s sources were. Not strictly American publishers, apparently–and thank God–but the selection gives a glimpse into the randomness of how reputations are furthered. I’m surprised she unearthed Schuiten and Peeters. The few English volumes of their monumental Cites Obscures have been available forever, but putting everyone in the same article makes them sound recent as Guibert. I’m glad David B. got mentioned, and sad I will likely never get to translate more of him than the excerpt in WWB, sewn up as he is by NBM and Fanta.

Recent Work

a divided soul

Native American magic

parallel worlds

manhua stories

This last is referenced in a nicely detailed account of a manga fest in Germany.

It’s Good to be in Newsarama

A late April review of a book that came out last October, posted in late July by a guy who hasn’t blogged in two months.

But seeing the amount of talent that ISR hosts Charlito and Mister Phil were able to assemble for this 200+ page book makes me want to hear what they’re talking about on their show. The table of contents on this thing is a Who’s Who of my favorite independent creators: Josh Cotter, Robin and Lawrence Etherington, Renee French, Sam Hiti, Blair Kitchen, Matt Kindt, Andy Runton; Ben Towle. And those are just the guys I already liked before I picked the book up. There are many more who I like now that I didn’t know much about before. Folks like Chris Schweizer, Ted Wilson, J. Chris Campbell, Sarah Oleksyk, Keith Champagne, Dev Madan, Jamie Burton, Hanvey Hsiung, Gia-Bao Tran, Dave Roman, and Raina Telgemeier…

Most of the work in this book got a positive reaction out of me though, even if it was just a feeling. Richard Tingley’s untitled story about a traveler who finds a dying badger in the woods, for example, doesn’t have much in the way of story, but it presents a beautiful, quiet, tender moment that I’m going to want to relive again. Similarly, Harvey Hsung and Gia-Bho Tran’s “We Are Not Alone” is difficult to follow, but does a beautiful job of creating a mood of tranquil wonder in its scenes of a still, urban night disturbed by an extraterrestrial visit.

Thank you, Chris Mautner Michael May! (apologies!)