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Written by Saadat Hasan Manto
Translated from the Urdu by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad
Pakistan | Short Fiction | Urdu
October, 2009
Synopsis:
Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-55) is perhaps the best-known Modernist fiction writer in South Asia. His stories won him censure during his lifetime, including five trials for writing obscene material (in each instance he was acquitted). Since his death, his fiction has been widely cited by South Asian writers and his border stories have been used in classrooms to help students come to some understanding of the atrocities that took place during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. His stories that take place in Bombay offer another view of the times—full of the characters of pulp fiction, they depict a seedy world of opportunity, ambiguous morals, and cosmopolitan energy. His evocative use of the colloquial (and swear words), as well as his often abrupt and ambiguous conclusions, can be seen as attempts to destabilize the prim sense of morality that dominated the subcontinent's social sphere during his lifetime.
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Written by Fatima Yousef al-Ali
Translated from the Arabic by William Hutchins
Arabic | Kuwait | Short Fiction
October, 2009
Synopsis:
The narrator of the short story “Behind a Latched Window” is a female school assistant in Kuwait. She describes her experiences during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (August 2, 1990 to February 26, 1991) from behind her latched window. While trying to calm her elderly mother, the terrified narrator observes the arrival of Iraqi tanks and soldiers in front of her house. Although at first she finds fault with her fellow citizens for not putting up a fight, she herself, despite her conservative social views, finds herself becoming part of a vibrant Kuwaiti resistance movement. The hallucinatory ending may reflect dramatic events outside her window or inside her own mind.
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Written by Selim Özdogan
Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
German | Germany | Short Fiction
August, 2009
Synopsis:
In 2008, the artist Markus Lörwald approached Selim Özdogan, asking for permission to print one of his stories in a catalog of his work. Özdogan, curious, asked to see some of the pictures for the book and offered to write a literary essay to accompany them. But in fact the pictures instantly gave him a title and the line,
It could be so easy. And so the story was born.
Markus Lörwald's work will be on show from October 2009 at the Raab Galerie in Berlin.
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Written by John Antoine Nau
Translated from the French by Michael Shreve
France | French | Novel (Excerpts) | Short Fiction
August, 2009
Synopsis:
Force ennemie (Enemy Force) was awarded the first Prix Goncourt in 1903. In 1906, Paul Léautraud said: “The Prix Goncourt has really only been given once—the first time to Nau.” And years later Huysmans would say, “It was the best one that we ever crowned.”
A visionary masterpiece: Phillipe Veuly, accursed poet, wakes up in a rubber room. Where is he? An insane asylum. Why? He doesn’t know and the doctors refuse to tell him. Is he crazy? Or rather are the ‘psychiatrists’ the ones who should be in his place? Stricken with amnesia, he learns from a guard that he was committed by his cousin to separate him from his alcoholic tendencies. In reality, he is the victim of the imaginary (?) jealousy of this relative. Soon he thinks he is inhabited by a being from another planet: Kmôhoûn, the ‘enemy force’, (among others), a disembodied spirit who fled the insupportable conditions of his home planet, Tkoukra. It’s not easy living with this naughty tenant who doesn’t hesitate to act insanely, speak extravagantly and even vulgarly, or even scream inside your head when others talk to you. And the “semi-lucid mental patient” falls passionately, madly, desperately in love with a female inmate, Irene. She leaves, disappears; he flees after her. He runs to the ends of the earth to find her. Enemy Force tells the story of the troublesome cohabitation of these two beings in the same body, and Veuly’s desire to concretize his love for Irene while protecting her from Kmôhoûn.
Also featured is a short story by Nau called The Emerald Eyes.
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Written by Valeria Parrella
Translated from the Italian by Stephen Twilley
Italian | Italy | Short Fiction
July, 2009
Synopsis:
Valeria Parrella was born in 1974 in the province of Naples. During the period in which she wrote and published her first stories, she was an Italian Sign Language interpreter and worked at the National Agency for the Protection and Assistance of the Deaf in Naples. Her first collection, Mosca più balena (Fly Plus Whale), from which the present story is taken, was published in 2003 and awarded, among many other prizes, the 2004 Premio Campiello for the best debut work of fiction. Her second collection, Per grazia ricevuta (For Grace Received), was one of five finalists for Italy’s most prestigious literary prize, the Premio Strega (2005). The novella Il verdetto (The Verdict), recasting the story of Clytemnestra in contemporary Naples, appeared in 2007. Parrella’s first novel, Lo spazio bianco (The White Space) was published by Einaudi in 2008. For Grace Received is scheduled for publication this fall by Europa Editions as Parrella’s English-language debut.
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Written by Victor Hugo Viscarra
Translated from the Spanish by Forrest Hylton
Bolivia | Short Fiction | Spanish
June, 2009
Synopsis:
Bolivian writer Victor Hugo Viscarra (b. 1958) was an indigent alcoholic in La Paz from the 1970s until his death in 2006, and published five works of literature: Avisos necrológicos (2005), Borracho estaba pero me acuerdo (2003), Alcoholatum y otros drinks: Crónicas para gatos y pelagatos (2001), Relatos de Victor Hugo (1996, 2005), and Coba: Lenguaje secreto del hampa boliviano (1981, 2004). He was honored at Bolivia’s International Book Fair in 2004 and 2005, and each of his books has gone through various printings. He has had an exceptional reception among younger readers.
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(from the short fiction collection Die Nacht, die Lichter)
Written by Clemens Meyer
Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
German | Germany | Short Fiction
April, 2008
Synopsis:
Clemens Meyer was born in Halle/Saale in 1977 and lives in Leipzig. He started his working life as a builder, furniture removal man, and security guard, before studying at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig. Clemens Meyer won the MDR-Literaturwettbewerb in 2001 and the Rheingau-Literatur-Preis, the Märkisches Stipendium für Literatur, the Förderpreis zum Lessing-Preis and the Mara-Cassens-Preis for his first novel Als wir träumten, published in 2006. His short fiction collection Die Nacht, die Lichter was published by Fischer Verlage in February 2008 and contains the story "A Trip to the River."
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Written by Mario Benedetti
Translated from the Spanish by Harry Morales
Short Fiction | Spanish | Uruguay
November, 2007
Synopsis:
Mario Benedetti was born on September 14, 1920 in Pasa de los Toros, Tacuarembó Province, Uruguay. When he was four years old, his family moved to Montevideo. Between 1938 and 1941, he lived in Buenos Aires almost continuously. When he returned to Montevideo in 1945, he published his first book, La Víspera Indelebe (Poems) and became the editor of Marcha. Although he was a trained accountant, he went on to publish Peripecia y Novela (Literary Criticism) in 1948, and a year later, Esta Mañana, his first book of stories. In 1953, he published his first novel, Quién de Nosotros, but it was with the publication of Montevideanos: Cuentos (Stories), in 1959, that the urban concept of his narrative style took shape. With the publication of La Tregua in 1960, Benedetti acquired international pre-eminence. This novel, written in the form of a diary, has been published in more than one hundred editions, translated into nineteen languages, and has been adapted for the stage, screen, radio, and television. In the late fifties and sixties, he traveled extensively in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. While in Cuba, he founded the world famous Centro de Investigaciones Literarias at Casa de las Americas, which he directed from 1969 to 1971. Returning to Uruguay in 1971, he opposed increasing government repression through his writing and participation in the leftist coalition known as the Frente Amplio, which he helped organize. Following the coup of June 1973, his work was banned by the Uruguayan military. Between 1973 and the return of the civilian government in 1985, he lived in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and Spain. Writing for an international audience, he denounced the tragic events occurring in Uruguay at the time. Since 1985, he has lived in Montevideo, where he devotes his full time to writing.
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Written by Mario Benedetti
Translated from the Spanish by Harry Morales
Short Fiction | Spanish | Uruguay
November, 2007
Synopsis:
Mario Benedetti was born on September 14, 1920 in Pasa de los Toros, Tacuarembó Province, Uruguay. When he was four years old, his family moved to Montevideo. Between 1938 and 1941, he lived in Buenos Aires almost continuously. When he returned to Montevideo in 1945, he published his first book, La Víspera Indelebe (Poems) and became the editor of Marcha. Although he was a trained accountant, he went on to publish Peripecia y Novela (Literary Criticism) in 1948, and a year later, Esta Mañana, his first book of stories. In 1953, he published his first novel, Quién de Nosotros, but it was with the publication of Montevideanos: Cuentos (Stories), in 1959, that the urban concept of his narrative style took shape. With the publication of La Tregua in 1960, Benedetti acquired international pre-eminence. This novel, written in the form of a diary, has been published in more than one hundred editions, translated into nineteen languages, and has been adapted for the stage, screen, radio, and television. In the late fifties and sixties, he traveled extensively in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. While in Cuba, he founded the world famous Centro de Investigaciones Literarias at Casa de las Americas, which he directed from 1969 to 1971. Returning to Uruguay in 1971, he opposed increasing government repression through his writing and participation in the leftist coalition known as the Frente Amplio, which he helped organize. Following the coup of June 1973, his work was banned by the Uruguayan military. Between 1973 and the return of the civilian government in 1985, he lived in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and Spain. Writing for an international audience, he denounced the tragic events occurring in Uruguay at the time. Since 1985, he has lived in Montevideo, where he devotes his full time to writing.
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Written by Mario Benedetti
Translated from the Spanish by Harry Morales
Short Fiction | Spanish | Uruguay
November, 2007
Synopsis:
Mario Benedetti was born on September 14, 1920 in Pasa de los Toros, Tacuarembó Province, Uruguay. When he was four years old, his family moved to Montevideo. Between 1938 and 1941, he lived in Buenos Aires almost continuously. When he returned to Montevideo in 1945, he published his first book, La Víspera Indelebe (Poems) and became the editor of Marcha. Although he was a trained accountant, he went on to publish Peripecia y Novela (Literary Criticism) in 1948, and a year later, Esta Mañana, his first book of stories. In 1953, he published his first novel, Quién de Nosotros, but it was with the publication of Montevideanos: Cuentos (Stories), in 1959, that the urban concept of his narrative style took shape. With the publication of La Tregua in 1960, Benedetti acquired international pre-eminence. This novel, written in the form of a diary, has been published in more than one hundred editions, translated into nineteen languages, and has been adapted for the stage, screen, radio, and television. In the late fifties and sixties, he traveled extensively in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. While in Cuba, he founded the world famous Centro de Investigaciones Literarias at Casa de las Americas, which he directed from 1969 to 1971. Returning to Uruguay in 1971, he opposed increasing government repression through his writing and participation in the leftist coalition known as the Frente Amplio, which he helped organize. Following the coup of June 1973, his work was banned by the Uruguayan military. Between 1973 and the return of the civilian government in 1985, he lived in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and Spain. Writing for an international audience, he denounced the tragic events occurring in Uruguay at the time. Since 1985, he has lived in Montevideo, where he devotes his full time to writing.
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