logo

TMR 15.2: “Yummy Mummy or MILF” [VERNON SUBUTEX]

Emma Ramadan—translator of Despentes’s Pretty Things and Anne Garreta (among many others), and recent winner of the PEN Translation Prize—joins Brian and Chad to talk about how cool Despentes is, and how much slang she uses in her work. They also discuss the conflict that will drive the plot (Laurent Dopalet vs. Bleach’s tapes), inventing fake identities on the Internet (hi, Doug Feldick!), and, not bury the lead, which is preferable: yummy mummy or MILF. Also a bit of music talk, and a lot of laughs.

This week’s music is “Manipulator” by Ty Seagall.

If you’d prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along with all our past episodes. You can join us next week when we discuss pages 147-215 and ask questions, make comments, or correct inaccurate statements. Here’s where you can find the complete reading schedule.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And buy books from Riffraff!!

Be sure to order Brian’s book, Joytime Killbox, which is now officially available at better bookstores everywhere thanks to BOA Editions.

You can also support this podcast and all of Open Letter’s activities by making a tax-deductible donation through the University of Rochester.

The large image associated with this post is a crop of the cover of Anna Johnson’s book.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.