Excerpt from Marosia Castaldi's novel *For How Many Lives* in this year's *Best Literary Translations* anthology, out today, and originally solicited by @the_point_mag. Please DM/email for more - it's a translation in progress still in need of a publisher!

I would love to have a publisher to help make that possible!

"There are people the sea doesn’t suit, they prefer the mountains or the plain. Personally, I feel no worse there than anywhere else." (Quoth Molloy)

I pretty much only check this site for your updates! I have to get The Folded Clock

The Folded Clock — Gerhard Rühm (tr. Alexander Booth) time poem a note on recitationrecited in real time, the “time poem” would take an entire year: were you to begin on january 1st, you would recite only a single line a day until december 31st, then,…

Don't miss "time poem" from Gerhard Rühm's The Folded Clock, translated by @wordkunst.bsky.social @twistedspoon.bsky.social
The Folded Clock — Gerhard Rühm (tr. Alexander Booth) minorliteratures.com/2025/12/10/t...

Probably the best possible review?

Seeking a publisher for another of Castaldi's books. Still experimental but totally different. Hallucinatory yet controlled (punctuated but paratactic, Steinlike). Please reach out if this is you! 👀

www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...

#llegit Un llibre original, curiós, abellidor, encativador; una mirada poètica, repetitiva i hipnòtica de la vida, desitjos i passions d'una viuda italiana narrada a traves de la seva cuinar/receptes i llegendes, imatges i records del Mediterrani. Crec que no s'ha traduït al català encara.

Thank you for reading! This is I believe the first translation of one of Marosia Castaldi’s novels in any language. Hopefully there will be more!

Obituary of a Soft Porn Translator ‘Using “ostrica” for vagina sounded bad in Italian, not representative enough, so clitorises became pearls. They were gone now too. Sex had once been a jewelry store, a jewelry store built on top of a...

"...figurative language had become a chimera."

Claudia Durastanti in @grantamag.bsky.social

granta.com/obituary-of-...

you have to feel the language in your bones. the language is not a part of you, you are a part of the language, a wave in its ocean

Issue 6 The Lincoln Review Issue 6 of The Lincoln Review

More Vitaliano Trevisan via me thanks to Daniele Pantano and the Lincoln Review!

www.lincolnreview.org/issue6

Cristina Campo, "The Unforgivable" (tr. Alex Andriesse)

In case you want to take a workshop with me or any of my fabulous colleagues.
Registration opens tomorrow am.

www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-summe...

The Farewell Song of Marcel Labrume The first 21st century English language translation of Italian master Attilio Micheluzzi, a rousing adventure story that takes place in the Middle East during World War II. The first act of this thril...

"The dialogue and writing is snappy and vernacular – applause to translator Jamie Richards for keeping the prose crisp and urgent." (thanks also to Nicholas Burman, in The Comics Journal, for a serious review)
www.fantagraphics.com/products/far...

Eisner Awards - Comic-Con International Nominees Announced for 2025 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards SAN DIEGO – Comic-Con is proud to announce the nominees for the 2025 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The nominations are for works publ...

Thanks to the judges and to @fantagraphics.bsky.social not to mention Agnese Micheluzzi and the friends who helped me track down obscure quotes.
Vote for us if you are able!
www.comic-con.org/awards/eisne...

This year’s Eisner nominations for Best Archival Project include my translation of Marcel Labrume by Attilo Micheluzzi – a fascinating writer who blends the fictional and the historical so seamlessly that the translation was truly an archival project (took years off my life).

Small Press Economies: A Dialogue By Hilary Plum and Matvei Yankelevich

"It's not merit, it's money. Capitalism has a very simple algorithm."

Yes. For instance it’s indubitably more entertaining to an Italian reader to encounter a Neapolitan in space. But I appreciate that, the dialogue (+captions) was copious and not the easiest.

But both collections contain dystopic or cautionary tales the general likes of which we’ve seen before, or can seem a bit retro in a calcified way. Still I think all the stories have interesting elements and are delightful to read.

Maybe what you’re seeing that seems disappointing is the lesser innovativeness of the stories in the other two collections. Like HP is a wonderful genre mash-up and prescient fable. Revolt of the Wretched is famous in Italy for being the first graphic novel and is a potent class allegory.

I want to respond to this, but I’m biased…

Tired as a Mother | Nicholas Dames What is the tone of this literary-theoretical tone? Take away anything from reading these books together and it’s their similar vibe: something quietly persistent, invested in its own disinvestments, ...

I'm so glad someone wrote this (I keep trying to write things but am too tired!)—Nicholas Dames in @nplusonemag.com on the exhaustion trope in Briggs' The Long Form and Samatar & Zambreno's Tone
www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/rev...

People don't really take the translation of graphic literature seriously. They should.

The International Booker Prize 2025 | The Booker Prizes The longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced on Tuesday, 25 February 2025 at 2pm (GMT).

We are delighted to reveal the #InternationalBooker2025 longlist – a feast of fiction from around the world, featuring ‘stories from everywhere, for everyone’.

➡️ Discover the full list: thebookerprizes.com/ibp2025

Just came across this & will try to follow along. The antidote to what has elsewhere been termed “brodernism”. Thank you 🙏

I thought this was an interesting translation. The Italian is “fatua veste,” so, fatuous, superficial, frivolous, the idea that fiction is like an invisibility cloak smuggling in the real… “lunatic garment” sounds nice but put to scrutiny I’m not sure what it means

The aesthetics of resistance

Tom Robbins, Whose Comic Novels Drew a Cult Following, Dies at 92 He blended pop philosophy and absurdist comedy in best-selling books like “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and “Skinny Legs and All.”

“Reviewers also describe my work as ‘cartoonish,’ which I take as a compliment, because I love cartooning, and cartooning is very Greek." RIP
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/o...

Now Trending: How to Be a Fascist - Words Without Borders These days, there could be fierce competition over who could write the book on “how to be a fascist”—if we could agree on what a fascist is. Michela Murgia’s lapidary definition, depicted in a Forrest...

Maybe—just for kicks?—could be a good moment to re/read Michela Murgia's How to Be a Fascist (Istruzioni per diventare fascisti).
(RIP Michela Murgia, tr. @alexvalente.fyi, review in @wwborders.bsky.social)
wordswithoutborders.org/book-reviews...

We call them sand dollars!