More Books of the Year

... or in this case translations of the year. From Words Without Borders selection:

From Esther Allen

An Episode in the Life of a Language Painter
by César Aira
Translated by Chris Andrews
New Directions

"The most extraordinary book in translation of 2006 was César Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, brilliantly translated by Chris Andrews (and published by New Directions). Aira is a rather unusual writer who composes his short books (more than thirty of them so far) in uninterrupted bursts of inspiration and without looking back or correcting, or so I'm told. As you might expect, such a methodology leads to a highly varied and uneven though always fascinating body of work. In this brief, incandescent book, about an actual incident in the life of the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas who traveled in Argentina in the early nineteenth century, lightning strikes."

From Francisco Goldman

Last Evenings on Earth
by Roberto Bolaño
Translated by Chris Andrews
New Directions

"Chris Andrews' translation captures Bolaño's unique and elusive voice perfectly."

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Latin American Literature