Starred review from December 11, 2023
Translator and memoirist Croft (Homesick) serves up a wickedly funny mystery involving an internationally famous author and her translators. It’s 2017 and narrator Emi, who hails from Buenos Aires, is one of eight translators visiting celebrated Polish novelist Irena Ray’s house in the ancient Białowieża forest. This is the translators’ seventh “pilgrimage” to Białowieża, where they’ve gathered to put Irena’s latest tome into their respective languages. All of them worship Irena, whom Emi calls “Our Lady of Literature,” with hilariously slavish devotion. When Irena disappears, so does their collective sanity, and thus begins a twisty detective story. Efforts to track down Irena are interspersed with various “bizarre actions” involving snakes, mythological Slavic creatures, archers, patriots, and attempted murder. Each of the perils is absurdly entertaining in its own way, and the endangered forest’s fungi capture Emi’s imagination and provide Croft with a magical and metaphor-rich backdrop. Emi’s relationships with her colleagues, who are nicknamed for the languages they’re translating Irena’s novel into, further enliven the narrative as it reaches a poignant denouement. The novel’s greatest strength, however, lies in Croft’s energetic set pieces, demonstrated most mirthfully in the “catfight” that takes place between Emi and “English,” whose footnotes provide her with a juicy opportunity for revenge. This is a blast. Agent: Katie Grimm, Don Congdon Assoc.
January 1, 2024
An acclaimed author disappears, leaving her translators to fend for themselves. When eight translators arrive at the home of a renowned author in a remote Polish village, they expect to be put to work translating her latest title--her masterpiece!--into each of the eight languages they not only represent but also call each other in lieu of actual names. There's English, of course, but also German, Ukrainian, the inseparable Serbian and Slovenian, Spanish--who's narrating this novel-about-a-novel--French, and so on. Needless to say, things don't go as planned. To start, within a day or two, and without notice, the renowned author goes missing. Not long after, the translators, who've maintained a cultlike devotion to "Our Author," begin developing habits of their own--like discussing the weather, drinking alcohol, and eating meat, all previously forbidden--and even referring to each other by name. Croft, a renowned translator in her own right (of Olga Tokarczuk, among others), makes for a wickedly funny satirist when it comes to some of the more obsequious behaviors involved in the translator-author relationship. At the same time--even in the midst of a joke--she writes profoundly about the philosophical stakes of translation. "Translation isn't reading," she writes. "Translation is being forced to write a book again." Near the author's house is the Bialowieża Forest, which plays as central a role as any of the human characters. Climate change, myth, and fungi are stirred into the mix as well, which certainly makes for an interesting canvas, if not an entirely successful one. Though her insights tend to inspire wonder, Croft's storytelling can occasionally drag, and she sometimes seems to lose track of her characters, not all of whom feel fully fledged. A striking if imperfect novel about language, the earth, and what it means to make art.
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Starred review from January 19, 2024
DEBUT Eight translators gather in Poland to translate world-renowned author Irena Rey's latest novel. But Irena is acting out of character, and soon after their arrival, she disappears. Torn between completing their work or tracking down their author, the translators come into conflict, particularly Spanish-translating Emi and English-translating Alexis. As their efforts embroil them in nationalist tensions and the destruction of a nearby forest, they grapple with whether the community, and their author, really want them there. Croft's novel is Emi's account of events, translated by Alexis, presenting readers with an unreliable narrator who is further obscured by an unreliable translation. Croft explores the idea of invasiveness through the relationship between translator and author but also through climate change, nationalism, and theft. The building unease of the plot is offset by the back and forth between Emi's text and Alexis's footnotes, which add humor even as they cast doubt on events. Readers are left unsure what to trust, as the novel questions if true, accurate translation is possible and what is lost along the way. VERDICT This fiction debut from Booker Prize--winning translator Croft (Homesick: A Memoir) is a metatextual feast that will keep readers wondering even after the book concludes.--Erin Niederberger
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Starred review from February 1, 2024
Searching for their beloved author in deep Polish woods, a coterie of translators confront an ambiguous text and the perception-distorting realities of imminent environmental collapse. Eight sophisticated literary translators, initially identified only by their respective target languages, convene at a remote cabin near the Belarussian border to collaborate on reverent translations of a major new work by Irena Rey. But something seems off with the world-renowned novelist, and when she disappears, perhaps into the vast Bialowieża forest or perhaps into some other life-form altogether, the group searches for clues and descends into disarray. Could Grey Eminence, Rey's masterpiece, really suggest that our current extinction event is a consequence of humanity's need to create, to transform our world to give it meaning? Is it possible that the whole scenario is an elaborate performance piece? Croft, herself an acclaimed literary translator (of Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, among others) both celebrates and lampoons translation communities, which being both altruistic and parasitic, resemble the complex dynamics of forest biomes. Editorial footnotes, provided by the narrator's own supposed translator, are delightfully wry. But beneath the satire and the metafiction lie a lament for our all-too-real ongoing ecocide and a desperate appeal that humans might emulate fungi and find sustenance within the destruction.
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