MixedThe Star TribuneIf you’re sometimes suspicious of novels-in-translation, wondering if you’re getting the voice of the original writer or the translator, then The Translator’s Bride may be for you. The comic novella was translated from its original Portuguese by the guy who wrote it, João Reis, so any question of authorial intent should be settled ... Almost all of Bride consists of the main character moaning, sometimes for cause...and sometimes because he’s a pill ... Reis has fun exaggerating the courtly manners of the society depicted in Bride, with his protagonist spewing a stream of politely insincere compliments that would make Anthony Trollope proud. But the main character’s nonstop whining does grow wearying over the course of this brief, droll novel, in which I suspect there’s an element of class satire that has gotten lost in translation.
