Chinese | Novel (excerpt) | Taiwan
January, 2012Notes of a Crocodile (1994) is a coming-of-age novel and a cult classic of queer literature by the late Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin. Set at one of the nation's most elite universities in cosmopolitan Taipei in the late 1980s, it tells the story of a burgeoning romance between two female students. Sardonic, honest, and painful, the novel takes the ostensible form of a series of journals written by one of the young women--the masculine, defiant Lazi--as she recounts the struggle to realize selfhood and reconcile her deeply taboo desires under the watchful gaze of an authoritarian society.
Arabic | Germany | Novel (excerpt)
January, 2012The sibling rivalry between Yusuf and Yunus is already toxic in their childhood and goes ballistic as they mature, swap wives, trade identities, and adopt multiple additional aliases. The bleak setting for this tale of Cain and Abel is Iraq during the last years of Baath Party rule and the beginning of the American Occupation. Much of the story is recounted in flashbacks recorded on cassettes by Yusuf, but the "live" action occurs during only a few days as the hero traverses Baghdad to locate those responsible for a series of phone calls threatening him with punishment for crimes committed by his brother. Although Yunus has been declared dead by Iraqi authorities, Yusuf suspects that he may still be alive, may have returned with the Americans, and may want him dead. While both looking for and fleeing from his brother, after living under so many aliases, Yusuf finds that the one person hardest to get a clear picture of is himself.
Most of the characters' names in this novel have some extra layer of meaning. In a tribute to Kafka, one character refers to himself as Josef K. Yusuf is the name of the Biblical patriarch and the Qur'anic prophet Joseph, who in Sufism stands as an exemplar of human perfection. Yusuf's wife is Sarab, whose name means mirage. Yunus is Jonah, and his second wife, Maryam, whose child brings hope to the novel, is Mary. His four daughters by his first wife take their names from the cries for mercy of prisoners he has tortured. Harun Wali, the hero's friend who has fled Iraq, has a name that is suspiciously reminiscent of the author's, suggesting there may be some autobiographical scenes--like the one where children are thrown into Yusuf's cell--to this novel, which is this tribute to a lost generation of Iraqis.
China | Chinese | Novel (excerpt)
January, 2012"The Adventures of Monkey King" comprises the first seven chapters of Journey to the West, the great epic of pre-modern China. The book was first published anonymously in the late 16th century during the waning years of the Ming Dynasty, but the story of Monkey is based on folk legend and a much older oral tradition. Wu Cheng En, a poet who published during his lifetime under the pen name "She Yang Hermit," is generally credited as the author.
Austria | German | Novel (excerpt)
November, 2011On a beautiful day in May, Lemming is strolling the streets of Vienna with his heavily pregnant partner Klara. Suddenly her contractions begin, and with no time to get to the hospital, they must accept the help of a stranger, Angela, to deliver the baby. Soon, Angela becomes Klara's best friend and tiny Ben's babysitter. Then, on Christmas Eve, Lemming finds Angela dead.
France | French | Novel (excerpt)
November, 2011McCash, though no longer a cop, is still one-eyed and consumed by an anger as old as his first Clash concert, in Belfast, before Bobby Sands's hunger strikes and the victims of Bloody Sunday... No more wife, no future, illusions lost... An ophthalmologist informs him that if he persists in taking care of everything that surrounds him by destruction, he will quickly and permanently be blind. A fine reason to end it all with a brilliant bullet to his head! The spark, however, will come from somewhere else. A letter reveals to him that he's the father of Alice. The mother is dead and it's now up to him to look after the little girl... McCash has scarcely arrived in his daughter's village when he finds another little girl drowned. Alice comes to see him. She's the bothersome witness. As the dead pile up, McCash rediscovers fear and hope intermingled. He who wanted to die crashes headlong into the need to weigh up the value of a life. That of his child...
German | Germany | Novel (excerpt)
November, 2011Finnish detective Kimmo Joentaa's new case involves the murder of a woman who is almost dead already. Found in a coma by the side of a road, she is killed while lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Who is she, and is her death connected to several others in towns nearby?
Her story is connected somehow to a gang rape witnessed 25 years before by a boy who recorded its effect on him in his diary at the time. Now, a quarter of a century later, the guilty parties are being picked off one by one....
Joentaa, involved with a prostitute who refuses to tell him her real name, finds his attention diverted from the investigation when she disappears. This fourth Kimmo Joentaa case by German author Jan Costin Wagner follows the detective down two paths as he searches for a killer and for the mysterious woman he's involved with.
Novel (excerpt) | Poland | Polish
November, 2011Sandomierz is a picturesque town full of churches and museums. Early one morning in spring, a woman's naked body is found outside a former synagogue. Someone has slashed her throat open--and it looks as if it was done with the enormous razor found lying nearby. Quite by chance, Public Prosecutor Teodor Szacki just happens to be on the scene. How come? Six months earlier he broke up a gang of sex traffickers who had a drop-off point in this town. On a wave of short-lived fame, Szacki decided to move there permanently from Warsaw. But a few months after separating from his wife and daughter, and leaving the big city behind, he knows he has made a mistake. The cadaver outside the synagogue is a chance to put an end to his small-town ennui. Szacki conducts the investigation with the help of an aging policeman and a reluctant lady prosecutor. Gradually he discovers the subtle ins and outs of local society and history. In his efforts to solve the mystery he investigates a love triangle, an ancient Jewish ritual, and some Nazi symbols. In this latest detective novel from Zygmunt Miłoszewski, the author takes us to the Polish equivalent of Twin Peaks, where the scenery is colored by present-day emotions and desires, as well as events from the seemingly distant past.
Arabic | Novel (excerpt) | Switzerland
July, 2011Ibrahim al-Koni, like Joseph Conrad, has found international acclaim as a novelist while publishing primarily in his second language, Arabic, which he learned to read and write at the age of twelve. The Tuareg language, Tamasheq, has its own alphabet, Tifinagh, that dates back at least to the third century BCE. The American scholar and translator Elliot Colla, in a piece written for al-Ahram after al-Koni's most recent award, remarked that "Al-Koni's reception with Arab audiences is particularly significant since it reminds us of one of the oldest strengths of Arabic literature, namely that for its entire history, the Arabic language has served as a universal literary language."
In the same article, Colla also commented: "By now, al-Koni has earned as many literary awards as any other living Arab author, and he has done so across the entire breadth of the Arab world, from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean. Unlike most Arab novelists who still tend to be read as national writers (Egyptians, Lebanese, Iraqis and so on), al-Koni is one of a few whose reception has effectively transcended the national borders that divide the Arab world."
The excerpt featured here is the final chapter from the final volume of a trilogy consisting of "New Waw," "The Puppet," which was released by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2010, and "The Scarecrow." This trilogy traces the rise (first volume), flourishing (second volume), and destruction of a Tuareg (nomadic Saharan Berber) oasis community. The novel is set in the mythological past, but the oasis also represents the modern state of Libya. The final ruler of the oasis is literally a demon who has adopted a human form, which he sheds when the armies of the world are besieging the oasis. Some readers may choose to understand the portrait of this final ruler of this oasis community, which was named for the lost paradise of the Tuareg people, the original Waw, as a caricature of a current head of state.
Austria | German | Novel (excerpt)
March, 2011Die Alaskastrasse is a road novel, a tale of men against men and men against women. It details conflict both exterior and interior; it takes an unsparing look at insecurity, lethargy, and boredom. It is suffused, in the words of one critic, with "an erotic pessimism." The unnamed narrator in an unnamed city quits his job as web manager at an Internet dating firm and takes a spur of the moment trip with his girlfriend to an unnamed island that ends badly, setting in motion a quest (the tip-off is the book's epigraph, from Walker Percy's Lancelot) for some sort of inchoate fulfillment. Die Alaskastrasse is a dark, funny, compelling, self-lacerating passion play, shot through with a coruscating moral intelligence.
France | French | Novel (excerpt)
November, 2010"We're going through some difficult times, as you surely know. Who can tell what the future holds for us, for you, me, the planet? Nothing's simple. Care for some water? No? As you wish. After all, if you'll allow me, I believe I can confide in you, a person in my position is very much alone, terribly alone, and you're some kind of doctor, aren't you?"
"Not really..." the Investigator murmured.
"Come, don't be so modest!" said the Manager, tapping his visitor on the thigh. Then he took a long, deep breath, shut his eyes, exhaled, and opened his eyes again. "Remind me, what's the exact purpose of your visit?"
"To tell the truth, it's not really a visit. I'm here to conduct an investigation into the suicides that have affected the Enterprise."
"Suicides? News to me... I've been kept out of the loop, no doubt. My Coworkers know it's best not to cross me. Suicides, imagine that! If I had been aware of them, God only knows what I might have done! Suicides?"
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).