Tag: Latin America

Book Festival, Translation

An Annual Tradition: The 2015 Brooklyn Book Festival

A little over a week I was at the Brooklyn Festival. The weather was beautiful – a warm and windy Fall day. Due to the construction happening around Borough Hall everything was a little more spread out this year. The Hall’s grand steps, featured in every article about the festival and usually completely filled with people, stood empty behind a chain link fence. Food trucks were parked … Continue reading An Annual Tradition: The 2015 Brooklyn Book Festival

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Literary Awards, Non-Fiction, Novella, Translation

Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia by Julio Cortázar (translated by David Kurnick)

Title:  Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia Author:  Julio Cortázar Translator:  David Kurnick Publisher:  Semiotext(e), Los Angeles (2014) ISBN:  978 1 58435 134 4   One problem with coming to a book without any useful prior knowledge is that your risk being blindsided.  For example:  sometimes you pick up a novella (Say by  Julio Cortázar, an author with whom you’ve had enjoyable experiences in the … Continue reading Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires: An Attainable Utopia by Julio Cortázar (translated by David Kurnick)

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Advance Review Copy, Fiction, History, Translation

His Own Man by Edgard Telles Ribeiro, translated from the Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings

It is the late 1960’s and Max is embarking on what will be a remarkable career in the Brazilian Foreign Service. A career that will span some of the most tumultuous decades in Latin American history. Through the coups and purges, the government shifts from left to right and back again, the making & breaking of political alliances – he thrives… Continue reading His Own Man by Edgard Telles Ribeiro, translated from the Portuguese by Kim M. Hastings

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Fiction, Film, History, Translation

The Days of the Rainbow by Antonio Skármeta & the film NO

In 1988 Chilean President and General Augusto Pinochet, after a 14-year dictatorship that began with the 1974 military coup which deposed then President Salvador Allende and in an attempt to legitimize his regime in the eyes of Western governments, called for a plebiscite.  Citizens of Chile would vote – Yes or No – to Pinochet.  “Yes” for Pinochet to remain in power and “No” for … Continue reading The Days of the Rainbow by Antonio Skármeta & the film NO

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Advance Review Copy, Fiction, Short Story, Translation

The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon (translated from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn, Ollie Brock, Lisa Dillman, Thomas Bunstead & Anne McLean)

Eduardo Halfon is an exciting new Guatemalan author.  Chosen as one of the best young Latin American writers at the Hay Festival of Bogotá in 2009, he’s also received a José María de Pereda Prize for the Short Novel and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011.  He’s published 9 novels, The Polish Boxer is the first to be translated into English. I believe The Polish Boxer … Continue reading The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon (translated from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn, Ollie Brock, Lisa Dillman, Thomas Bunstead & Anne McLean)

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