RaveAsymptote... written sparely, subdued in tone if not in depth of feeling. Scattered across each page are bold X’s, a mark of punctuation that carries more weight than the period. They don’t impair comprehension of the narrative but rather cast a subtle shadow, calling to mind a graveyard of nameless crosses, or marks on a map—death as the ultimate destination. The first and final pages of the novel feature these marks in a half-hourglass and hourglass pattern, and the shape of each individual X, as they stalk the story and linger between thoughts, echoes the notion of convergence and divergence, time left and time lost ... the environment characterizes the narrative to a striking extent ... Ellen Jones makes this difficult translation look easy—in one standout case, rendering the extremely local and abbreviated dialect of one character, Jesulé, in a compact, slangy English that successfully communicates the unique relationship he shares with Nancy. She also smartly retains many Spanish phrases ... Jones’ skill extends from the language all the way down to this deliberate, fraught punctuation ... Even as they visually interrupt the narrative, the X’s on every page contribute to a deliberate pacing, both swift and pensive, that makes for quick read with plenty of room to reflect. In the forced pauses—the deep, still pools in Nancy’s stream of consciousness—you can almost hear her stop to catch her breath or look out a dusty window as she gathers her thoughts.
Josef Pla, trans. by Peter Bush
RaveAsymptote Journal[Pla\'s] curiosity courses through the book, a series of ten sketches that revolves around the coast of Pla’s native Catalonia ... Though his plots unfold on or near the sea, human culture is ever present. Pla revels in detail ... This book is a product of that fascinated, caffeinated gaze ... The book is listed as literary fiction, but its blend of lived experience, journalistic observation, and fanciful style defies the fiction-nonfiction binary. The distinction becomes meaningless as soon as you immerse yourself in Pla’s well-drawn world. Bush, who won the Ramon Llull Prize for Literary Translation for his work on Pla’s The Gray Notebook, demonstrates his award-winning expertise and decades of experience here. He conveys Pla’s winking humor and sharp observations in language that nods to the era without alienating modern readers ... Overall, the translation left me with the sense that if I sat across from Pla in a firelit tavern over a bream supper, his personality wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Guido Morselli
PositiveAsymptote... short and surreal ... Frederika Randall’s accomplished translation keeps pace with the narrator’s many-tentacled digressions and philosophical somersaults. Her language hitches the reader to his galloping thoughts ... Her translation contributes to the book’s sense of momentum—despite its lack of traditional plot and characters—and her introduction contextualizes Morselli’s work, subtly connecting this story to the unforeseen events of 2020 ... Dissipatio H.G. is an invitation to muse about the final act of the human race, to connect Morselli’s collage of influence to our own, and to the events that have unfolded since his own suicide in 1973, soon after he completed the book.
Meryem Alaoui, Trans. By Emma Ramadan
RaveAsymptoteHumour and courage infuse debut author Meryem Alaoui’s Straight from the Horse’s Mouth, a brazen and lucid portrait of a sex worker who moves through her city of Casablanca with a scrupulous gaze and an aptitude for colourful description ... the novel enchants with its surprising and exacting prose as equally as with its deft navigation of human experience and emotional spectrums, building a fully populated world that seems to have always been there, waiting for one to visit ... Alaoui’s charming and at times profane protagonist, Jmiaa Bent Larbi, shares her harrowing story with unflinching clarity ... The women here aren’t sketches or stereotypes, but fully drawn characters with a complex set of motivations and relationships. The men vary in their own way ... Alaoui weaves a tapestry of nuanced observations of class in Casablanca ... Award-winning translator Emma Ramadan must juggle this multiplicity as well, and she re-knits Alaoui’s intricacies finely into English, conveying Jmiaa’s fast and loose conversational style as vividly as if we were chatting with her outside the market ourselves ... Despite the omnipresence of men, both good and bad, sex and romance play a surprisingly minor role in the narrative; men influence but never define the main characters. Instead, they link the women in various ways, lending insight into the shifting relationships these women navigate with one another ... We meet the character on her own terms and interact with an individual, not a romanticized or fetishized sex worker. Jmiaa’s authenticity and forthright claim to her own experience propel the plot, and when she winds up in unfamiliar places, we never doubt her right to be there. Alaoui successfully brings to life a character of complex humanity, giving us a story that feels real—never flip or bleak alone, but a mix of the two that echoes a textured life ... In some ways, Straight from the Horse’s Mouth reads like a fairy tale, but Alaoui deftly dodges the easy choice to make Jmiaa a one-dimensional Cinderella. Her nuanced characterization and Ramadan’s colorful and vivid language invites the reader to look beyond assumptions about Morocco and sex work. Like many fairy tales, this story has a moral—but unlike most, Jmiaa’s verve and agency remind us at every turn that this is a story of her own making.
Oksana Zabuzhko, trans. by Nina Murray, Halyna Hryn, Askold Melnyczuk, Marco Carynnyk and Marta Horban
RaveAsymptoteWhitewater sentences cascade around banks of commas and drop the reader into new altitudes. Tossed-out asides contain a depth of experience and reveal Zabuzhko’s dedication to her theme ... The women of these stories observe their own actions and feelings amid both internationally significant events...and more quotidian turning points ... But their preoccupation is both intellectual and physical: Zabuzhko’s characters are unapologetically embodied. Their complicated and evolving relationships with physicality are treated with respect, as an integral component of selfhood, whether they’re embracing their own sexuality or confronting a loss of beauty ... Taken together, these stories push for a way forward for Ukrainian women and celebrate the country’s activists ... Her luxurious prose indulges Eve as she reflects, literally and figuratively, on herself, contemplating thoughts, actions, and a bare body that are all her own. Zabuzhko holds readers rapt as Eve—women—shucks off the notion of being made in anyone’s image, and we’re still rapt when, finding fierce power in her own experience, she finally looks up and holds our gaze.
