February 2022 Key New Book of Foreign Literature
Dolphins: A Comparative Manuscript, 1972-1973
[United States] Robert Lowell, Guangxi People's Publishing House, translated by Cheng Jia
As the founder and representative writer of "confessional" poetry, Robert Lowell enjoyed a high reputation. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, one National Book Award, and one National Book Critics Association Award, and has been hailed as "the poet historian of our time" and "America's last widely respected public poet." The Guangxi People's Publishing House's Dolphin: A Comparative Manuscript, 1972-1973, released in February, is one of the company's Lowell series, which was previously published, Skunk Time: The Collected Works of Robert Lowell, both translated by poetry translator Cheng Jia.
Dolphin: A Comparative Manuscript, 1972-1973 is a sonnet collection of more than thirty poems with strong autobiographical overtones. Although it was dedicated by Robert Lowell to his lover Caroline, it tells the story of Lovell's relationship with his ex-wife Hardwick and the current Caroline. The Chinese translation is a compilation of three versions of Lowell's writing of the poem: the 1972 hand-typed manuscript, the 1973 revised manuscript, and the official published manuscript, which truly presents the poet's process of writing poetry, and the reader can get a glimpse of the mysterious process of poetry creation.
"Two Serious Ladies"
Jane Bowles, Contemporary World Press, produced by Folio, translated by Zhou Lei
The novel, which Tennessee Williams called a "favorite book," met Chinese readers for the first time in the form of Chinese Simplified. Based on a honeymoon trip between Jane Bowles and her husband, it tells the story of two middle-class women who are restless with the status quo and "degenerate" in a highly modern style. They rebel against the mediocre life, resist the gorgeous life, throw themselves into the vortex of reality and freedom, and finally become fragments. Jane Bowles published the novel at the age of 26, the only novel she left behind, and has been hailed as "a landmark in twentieth-century American literature."
Jane Bowles, more famous as the wife of Paul Bowles, author of The Obscured Sky. But in fact, she is a more legendary and unique novelist than her husband. He wrote only four novels in his lifetime, but was hailed by the literary circles at the time as "a milestone in American literature" and "the best modern novelist". Jane Bowles spent her life wandering, spending her life on travel, alcoholism, and love, and in her later years was in and out of a mental hospital, dying alone. Jane Bowles, for her original stylistic style, has gained the admiration of first-class writers such as Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, John Ashberry, Andree Smith and others.
The Death of a River Guide
[Australia] Richard Flanagan, South Seas Publishing Company, translated by Liu Yuhan
Australian writer Richard Flanagan won the 2014 Booker Prize for The Path Deep North, and Death of a River Guide, was his debut novel, which was named "one of the most promising debuts of Australian literature" by The Times Literary Supplement as soon as it was published. The novel uses a first-person perspective and magic realism to tell the story of the "river guide" drowning in the rapids of the Franklin River in Tasmania, revealing the destruction of Tasmanian nature and civilization by white colonists.
The Death of a River Guide has won the Adelaide Book Festival's National Fiction Award and the Victorian Prime Minister's Literary Award. The Chinese translation launched this time contains a preface written by Chinese writer Yu Hua for this purpose. Yu Hua commented, "'The Death of a River Guide' is a novel and a guide to narrative, which is a book worth savoring for readers who are keen to explore the mysteries of literature; for authors who have just embarked on the road of literary creation, this is a textbook about narrative." ”
Sabas Theatre
Philip Ross, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, translated by Zhang Tingquan and Zhang Yan
On May 22, 2018, Philip Ross passed away, and he was one of the most vocal writers of the Nobel Prize. In honor of the great American writer, the Shanghai Translation Publishing House plans to publish within five years the complete works of Philip Ross, about 30 books, including 10 that have not been published in China before. The Sabas Theater is the latest to win the 1995 National Book Award. The novel follows the bizarre life of puppeteer Mitch Sabbas in his later years. He owns a theater in Manhattan and sees sex as the only thing in his life, and the death of his lover Drenka triggers his memories, and Sabas's lewd theater is staged again.
Philip Ross often describes sex in novels and questions this. Kundera described him as "a great modern erotic historian" and "a poet who writes about this strange loneliness—the loneliness of man abandoned and born of his own body." It has also been commented that Philip Ross, in describing sex, "rarely combines confession with irony, extremely fragile because of sincerity, and extremely deep because of irony." ”
Our Generation: A Literary Lecture by Ginsburg
[Beauty] Alan Ginsburg, People's Literature Publishing House, produced by 99 Readers, translated by Huiming
If you have the heart to understand the anecdotes of the "Beat Generation", "Our Generation" is a good choice. This is a systematic review of the literary history of the Beat by The Beat shaper and author Alan Ginsburg of Howl. Alan Ginsburg was a leading figure in the Beat Generation, and was closely related to Kerouac, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and others, and the book recorded their interactions. Alan Ginsburg also interpreted the masterpieces of these writers as a scholar, thus presenting a vivid group portrait of the writers.
The book is based on five lectures by Alan Ginsburg, and scholar Bill Morgan has compiled them based on the audio tapes left behind, so that Alan Ginsburg's literary legacy will be known to more readers.
The Red Trolley: Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams, Beijing United Publishing Company, produced by Lucida Mingmu, translated by Li Hui
William Carlos Williams, whose main profession is a pediatrician, works as an amateur poet. Influenced by his friend Ezra Pound, he inherited Whitman's Romantic tradition and insisted on writing in the native American language, developing a unique free-form poetry that is known as the originator of American postmodernist poetry. He was revered not only by great poets such as Alan Ginsburg, Robert Lowell, Gary Snyder, Octavio Paz, etc., but also by cultural celebrities like Jim Jarmusch. Jim Jarmusch's film Patterson was inspired and sourced by William Carlos Williams' long narrative poem of the same name, Patterson.
"No ideas but in things", a famous quote left by William Carlos Williams, highly summarizes the poet's creative principle: local materials, everything can be included in poetry, and ideas are expressed in concise and clear imagery. The Red Trolley: Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams is based on the Complete Poems of William Carlos Williams, and is a selection of more than 120 masterpieces from different periods, which is a good choice for understanding this great poet.
Literature Class
[Argentina] Julio Cortázar, South Seas Publishing Company, translated by Lin Yeqing
Do you remember Neruda's statement that anyone who does not read Cortázar "will become gloomy in silence, become more and more pale, and most likely lose all his hair a little bit"? If anyone listens to this and reads Cortázar to prevent hair loss, it will make people laugh and be generous. What Neruda meant was not that not reading Cortázar really made people lose their hair, he was just expounding the charming temperament of Cortázar literature and the bad luck of those who did not read Cortázar. Cortázar didn't have any panacea, but he had literary magic. If you want to enter cortázar's world, you should not miss this exclusive literature lesson narrated by Cortázar himself.
In 1980, Cortázar was invited to the University of California, Berkeley, to teach a two-month literature class. The recordings left by the eight lectures have been compiled into this "Literature Lesson". If you think Cortázar will give a good lecture, you are wrong. For "one of the greatest experimental writers of the 20th century," literature class is also a serious game. Cortázar reveals his writing secrets in his lectures: the interpretation of fantasy stories, the musicality, humor, gameplay, fantasy and realism in literature, the analysis of his own work and the path of creation...
Visible Darkness
William Styron, Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, translated by Ma Ren
William Styron is best known for his novel Sophie's Choice, which won the National Book Award. "Visible Darkness" is an autobiographical memoir he wrote in his later years, telling the true mental journey after he was diagnosed with depression. In his book, he recorded in detail the whole process from the deterioration of his condition, the fruitless search for a treatment plan, the attempt to commit suicide to the final recovery of health, and the return to rationality. The book is not only recognized as one of William Styron's most important works, but also a classic text on depression writing, breaking the silence of public opinion on depression at the time and changing the public's prejudice against depression.
Since its publication in the 1990s, Visible Darkness has become a bibliography recommended for students in American medical schools, which shows its value. The Guardian commented, "Literature cannot replace empirical research or professional treatment in psychology, but it can retain personal experience and make it a light that illuminates the way forward for others." These torches in the darkness make us no longer lonely in the forest of depression. ”
The Boy and the Sea of Silence
[De] Siegfried Lunds, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, KEY Can Culture Productions, translated by Ye Huifang
Siegfried Renz, together with Günter Grasse and Heinrich Heber, was known as the "Three Great Masters of German Literature after the War" Lenz wrote a lot of works in his lifetime, the most famous of which is probably the novel "German Lessons", which was also very popular in China. "The Youth and the Sea of Silence", a masterpiece of his mature novels, is included in the must-read list of German secondary school students, which is the first time it has been translated and published in the mainland. The novel tells the story of twelve-year-old Teenager Ana who searches for the roots of family tragedy. As the only survivor, the teenager was placed in foster parents' house, and he began to explore why his father had led the family to his death.
"Oblique Sun", "Rotating Heart", "December Chronicle"
[United States] Donal Ryan, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, translated by Wen Hua and Yu Yongbo
The latest anthology of Donal Ryan, published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, includes three works, namely "The Sun Shines Obliquely", "The Rotating Heart", and "December Chronicle". Donal Ryan's novels have a distinct avant-garde color, a unique linguistic rhythm, accurately depict the justice and injustice of Irish society and the life and death of the Irish, presenting a hazy and earthy Ireland. Among them, "The Revolving Heart" and "December Chronicle" are two nested works set in Ireland's "Falling Sky". "The Revolving Heart" is about 21 characters, and "December Chronicle" begins the 12-month life of one character. The former is a group portrait, the latter is a single portrait; the former is a panorama, the latter is a close-up. 21 and 12, the numbers are exactly the opposite, like elaborate writing packages, nested in each other.
This is the first translation of Donal Ryan's work into Chinese Simplified. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize twice, and has been hailed as "Ireland's Literary Prize Harvester", "Ireland's Chief Pathologist" and "Irish Contemporary Literature Standard-Bearer". Ryan's fans include National Book Award winner Jonathan Franzen, Booker Award winners Roddy Doyle and Ann Enlet, Irish novelist-laureate Joseph O'Connor, One Man's Pilgrimage author Rachel Joyce, and One Day author David Nix.
The Mars Club
Rachel Kushner, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, produced by Penguin Random China, translated by Wang Simin
The Mars Club is about contemporary American life. The protagonist of the story, Romy Hall, a single mother and stripper, was sentenced to two life sentences plus six years in prison for killing the stalker who had been harassing her, and was held in Stanville Women's Prison. For her, there are two worlds inside and outside the prison: her young son is missing outside the prison, and inside the prison, prisoners are telling true and false life stories while struggling to find a chance to survive.
After the publication of "Mars Club", it won many honors, topped the Time Magazine annual novel list, and was shortlisted for the final list of the Booker Awards, the short list of the National Book Critics Awards, and the long list of Carnegie Medals. The media commented that the book opened up a neglected corner of the United States under a glamorous and glamorous shell: the neglected and the covered scars in the context of the "prison industrialization". Margaret Atwood read it with praise, believing it to be "a novel with a grit texture, exquisitely written and moving." The author's narrative is unpretentious and fist-to-flesh. ”
William Blake's Biography
Catherine Ren, Guangxi Normal University Press, by Shanghai Bebet, translated by Zhang Xingwen and Liu Wenyu
"One sand, one world, one flower and one heaven, infinite palm in the middle, instantly into eternity." These four verses are familiar in the Chinese world, but few people know the original author. The person who left these few legendary works was the English poet and printmaker William Blake. William Blake is considered to be the first important Romantic poet in Britain, writing classic works such as "The Song of Innocence" and "The Song of Experience", and his poetry has been admired by yeats and other poets of later generations. But during his lifetime, William Blake did not have a good life, and he had to rely on printmaking work to survive.
Written by the English poet and critic Kathleen Wren, William Black's Biography reveals the complexities of William Black's life and creative career. Kathleen Wren concludes in the book, "The prophet, the poet, the painter, the engraver—Blake's unique greatness lies not in each of his individual achievements, but in all that he is, more than the sum of everything he does." The book is also accompanied by a large number of color illustrations, from Blake's hand-colored prints of his poems and prophetic books, to his series of paintings based on Biblical, literary, and highly personal themes, presenting distinctly personal features and visual effects.
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Editor: Deng Jiefeng
Second instance: Wang Yang
Third instance: Chen Tao