Brooklyn Trilogy

Eduardo Lago on mistaken identities, assumed memories, and literary inspiration
Translated by Ernesto Mestre

When Enrique Vila-Matas realized that he was riding on the same bus as J.D. Salinger, that most invisible of writers, he was overcome with emotion and made up his mind to follow him. It was a bold decision, for not only did he not speak a word of English, but he did not have the slightest idea how to get around in a city as confusing as New York.
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from Angel

Jáchym Topol flies over the cuckoo’s nest
Translated by Alex Zucker

He wandered the corridors. Shuffled his feet. Got used to it. His first time here he’d been unstoppable, sleepless even after the nth Rohypnol. So they gave him some other chemical. He woke up screaming, woke the others, caused a disturbance. Finally, the shots hit the spot. And at last he sank into dreams. more>>>

from I Can't Stand Still: An Interview with Jáchym Topol

Jáchym Topol tells Tomáš Weiss his travel stories
Translated by Alex Zucker

To get to the sea—what better goal could an inlander have? I’m still drawn to the sea very intensely to this day. The damp, the sand in the air. The smell of the water. You hear it. I start shaking all over. Pure euphoria. I’ll never forget how I found the sea on my trip to Romania. This was after the nuthouse and I had an urge to get out on my own.
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Counterpoint

Anna Enquist’s pianist practices variations on grief
Translated by Jeannette Ringold

Of course you can look back (”look ahead”), but the time that has meanwhile elapsed, what has happened in that time span, colors the perception. A thing can never be the same during two moments in time; at any rate it can’t be perceived as “the same” because the observer has changed. Just look at the Goldberg Variations.
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The Silence of Abraham Bomba

Carles Torner translates the transmission of memory
Translated by Edward Gauvin

Once finished and ready for screening, was the film shown to the Jewish survivors? When asked, Claude Lanzmann replied in the negative: “What language would they have seen the film in? The original was in French; they don’t speak French.” more>>>

The Polish Boxer

Eduardo Halfon’s grandfather rewrites his past for his grandson’s future version
Translated by Ezra E. Fitz

That it was his phone number. That it was tattooed there, on his left forearm, so he wouldn’t forget it. That’s what my grandfather told me. And that’s what I grew up believing. In the seventies, the country’s phone numbers were all five digits.
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The Man in the Travel Trailer

André Kaminski writes a new ending to a story of the Polish resistance
Translated by Ingrid G. Lansford

They caught him forty times. They locked him up in a camp forty times—but he always managed to slip out. I made a movie of the forty-first time. Watch my movie and you’ll understand. more>>>

From My Father's Books

Luan Starova tears through his father’s books and rewrites his family’s history
Translated by Christina Kramer

My father ended his life as a citizen of the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia and of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. He did not live to see the breakup of Yugoslavia, which gave his offspring citizenship in a new country, the Republic of Macedonia. First they were a minority, then an ethnic minority, and now a nationality, without ever sufficiently understanding the terminological importance of each new designation.
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from Mausolée

Rouja Lazarova looks back at three generations of women under communism
Translated by Christine Schwartz Hartley

There was always something to hide, a suspicious parent, a forbidden book, a breach of discipline, an ill-placed remark, a vague subversive thought… The worst was that, as time went by, we no longer knew what was subversive.
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Against Art

Jochen Gerner on the case against comics
Translated by Edward Gauvin

Are comics art? Does the most beautiful comic stand comparison with the masterpieces of the great painters?
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An Interview with Wu Wenjian

Liao Yiwu talks to one of the “June 4 Thugs”
Translated by Wen Huang

Wu, a nineteen-year-old cook and an aspiring painter, was roused into action after witnessing the governmental brutality. Following the crackdown, he was imprisoned for seven years for making a speech on June 5 denouncing the bloodshed. more>>>

from Prison Diaries

Tiananmen student leader Wang Dan looks back twenty years
Translated by Wen Huang

It marked the beginning of a unique experience in my life. On the morning of June 4, 1989, having lived through the darkest night in modern Chinese history, I bid good-bye to Beijing University, where I was a sophomore in the history department, and embarked on a risky journey of escape. more>>>

Five Spice Street by Can Xue

“Who is Madam X? Madam X sells peanuts at the stand with the red-painted sign. Madam X is an occultist, a collector of mirrors and corrupter of neighborhood children. Madam X is a home wrecker. Madam X is a threat to communal harmony and morality.”

Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda

Reviewed by Hugh Ferrer

“Many of the images work to reveal a system of natural symbols that is at once suggestive, evocative, and deeply paradoxical.”