Season Six of the Two Month Review is Coming and It’s Pessoa [UPDATED]
UPDATE: I'm reposting this with the amended dates. We had to move everything back a week to ensure that our opening conversations are of the quality that you've come to expect from the Two Month Review. The first YouTube broadcast will be Wednesday, October 3 at 10am Eastern Time. The podcast version will be available here, ...
>
Pessoa archive declared 'national treasure' in Portugal
L’héritage documentaire de Fernando Pessoa, considéré comme le plus grand poète portugais du XXe siècle, a été classé “trésor national”, a annoncé jeudi le gouvernement portugais. This looks to put an end to some controversy that was started last summer, when Pessoa’s heirs planned to ...
>
Really Cool Pessoa Translation Exercise
LanguageHat brought our attention to this essay by Margaret Jull Costa on the difficulties of translating emotion. She uses a short piece by Fernando Pessoa to illustrate this. Before getting to the really cool thing, here’s a bit of info on Pessoa, who—along with all of his heteronyms—really was an ...
>
The Guardian on Pessoa
The Guardian adds to the recent, and unexpected, surge of interest in Fernando Pessoa: Although admired throughout Europe for his myriad alter egos – the 72 highly distinct personae he assumed over the course of his writing life – it is Fernando Pessoa’s mellifluous writing on emptiness that continues ...
>
More “Montao’s Malady” (Excerpt)
Following up on yesterday's post, this excerpt from Montano's Malady is just too perfect not to share. Enjoy and preorder the forthcoming Dalkey Archive edition of Vila-Matas's brilliant, twisty book here. April 21 “I’m absolutely convinced that publishing being in the hands of businessmen is just a ...
>
Two Month Review #6.11: The Book of Disquiet (sections 394-END)
It's all over! After eleven weeks of Pessoa, Chad and Brian have finished The Book of Disquiet. And to celebrate, they each wrote some jacket copy and blurbs and went hard at trying to get BINGO for someone. They also preview the next season of TMR and come up with a very marketable Pessoa-themed product idea . . . As ...
>
Two Month Review #6.10: The Book of Disquiet (sections 359-393)
Probably the most controversial Two Month Review to date, so buckle up! Are there unhinged rants? You bet! Questions regarding the marketing and "completeness" of the New Directions edition? Yep! A long discussion about the differences in voice between the both excellent Margaret Jull Costa and Richard Zenith translations? ...
>
Two Month Review #6.9: The Book of Disquiet (sections 316-358)
This week David Smith—former Open Letter intern and current grad student at the University of Iowa—joins Chad and Brian to debate poetry vs. prose, separating the p.o.v. of Pessoa's heteronyms from his own personal viewpoint, Soares's morality and metaphysics, how to judge the quality of a translation, and much more. As a ...
>
Two Month Review #6.8: The Book of Disquiet (sections 274-315)
Chad and Brian fly solo this week, filling in dozens of TMR Bingo squares, and trying to come up with "rules for writers" based on this particular section of The Book of Disquiet. It's a pretty imprecise set of rules, but whatever, in the words of Pessoa, "perfection is inhuman." They also talk a bit about a "Mount Rushmore ...
>
Two Month Review #6.7: The Book of Disquiet (sections 222-273)
This week's special guest is Portuguese author and translator João Reis who knows a lot about Pessoa and the writings of his various heteronyms. He also talks about his forthcoming novel, The Translator's Bride, and his work as a translator. There's some of the usual banter as well, including a solid rundown of everyone's ...
>
Two Month Review #6.6: The Book of Disquiet (sections 174-221)
This week's podcast goes off the rails pretty quickly, and includes a hungover dismissal of this version of The Book of Disquiet, the phrase "reclaim some of the douchery" is spoken, there is a lot of laughter, a discussion about the tensions between trying to read this as poetry vs. the expectations that come from trying to ...
>
Two Month Review #6.5: The Book of Disquiet (sections 131-173)
This week Chad and Brian come to some conclusions about the Vicente Guedes part of The Book of Disquiet and get very excited about the more "mature, sophisticated" writings of Bernardo Soares. They both love this new voice and dig into what separates the heteronyms and their philosophies on life. And without a guest, Chad ...
>
Two Month Review #6.4: The Book of Disquiet (sections 82-130)
BINGO! That's the theme of today's episode, which includes a Twin Peaks reference, awkward introduction, LitHub reference, and many other squares on the recently released Two Month Review bingo cards. It's explained in full at that post and on the podcast, but every week, the first person to email Chad with "bingo" in the ...
>
Two Month Review Bingo
It may have started as a joke, but now we're deadly serious about Two Month Review Bingo. Starting tomorrow (Wednesday, October 24th), the first person each week to listen to the podcast and send a photo of their completed Bingo card will get 30% off any order at openletterbooks.org (excluding subscriptions). New to ...
>
My Struggle, Part I: Confusion and Value
As part of my "Deep Vellum Month" experiment, I decided to move from the toponymy—and topography—of Iceland to geography. Or rather, "geography," as in the Geography of Rebels by Maria Gabriela Llansol. Like with most of the books I've been reading of late, I knew basically nothing about this book before picking it ...
>
Two Month Review #6.3: The Book of Disquiet (sections 40-81)
Jerónimo Pizzaro—editor of the "complete edition" of The Book of Disquiet published by New Directions—is the special guest on this week's Two Month Review. He discusses his history with Pessoa, how this volume came to be, the next three volumes in the New Directions project, how to approach The Book of Disquiet and ...
>
Two Month Review #6.2: The Book of Disquiet (sections 1-39)
This is one of the most Two Month Review podcasts yet. Chad, Brian, and Tom Flynn (Volumes Books in Chicago) come together to discuss the first forty-six pages (sections 1-39) of the complete version of Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. In addition to breaking down the philosophy and literary style representing ...
>
Two Month Review #6.1: “The Book of Disquiet” with Declan Spring
The Two Month Review is back! This season we'll be reading the New Directions publication of The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa, one of the greatest works of literature (or poetry?) from the past century. To kick things off Declan Spring joined Brian Wood and a ...
>
Two Month Review: #5.10: Bonus Episode with Dubravka Ugresic!
Dubravka Ugresic is in Rochester for Open Letter's tenth anniversary celebration, so she got together with Chad and Brian to talk about how she wrote Fox, Melania-related tourism, the two story points that launched the book, her writing process, and more! As always, Fox (and all the previous Two Month Review titles) is ...
>
Sorrow-Maker Gospodinov (Part 1, Pgs 1-58)
This week we will be looking at the opening section of Georgi Gospodinov’s The Physics of Sorrow. If you didn’t already, you can catch the conversation between Chad Post, Tom Roberge, and Brian Wood on this section of the book at Three Percent or on YouTube for the unedited, behind the scenes full audio-visual experience ...
>
Tabucchi in Portugal: On Tabucchi’s “Viaggi e altri viaggi” [an essay by Jeanne Bonner]
Jeanne Bonner is a writer, editor and journalist, and translator from the Italian now based in Connecticut. In the fall, she began teaching Italian at the University of Connecticut where she is also working on several translation projects. You can find out more about Jeanne and her work at her website here. It’s a travel ...
>
BTBA Gift Guide [BTBA 2018]
This post was compiled by BTBA judge P.T. Smith. From now until the announcement of the long list, we’ll be running one post a week from a BTBA judge, cycling through the nine of us. To launch those posts, just in time for the holidays (just in time, yes), here’s a gift guide. These are books that have stood out to ...
>
Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso [Press Release]
The pub date for Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso, which is translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, with a biographical note from Ben Moser officially came out on Tuesday, December 13th. To celebrate the release of this Brazilian masterpiece, we’ll be running a series ...
>
Handicapping Margaret Jull Costa's Odds at Winning the BTBA [BTBA 2017]
This week’s Best Translated Book Award post is by Jeremy Garber, events coordinator for Powells and freelance reviewer. For more information on the BTBA, “like” our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. And check back here each week for a new post by one of the judges. Esteemed translator Margaret Jull ...
>
"Rilke Shake" by Angélica Freitas [Why This Book Should Win]
This entry in the Why This Book Should Win series, is by Tess Lewis, BTBA judge, writer, translator from the French and German, and an advisory editor of the Hudson Review. We will be running two (or more!) of these posts every business day leading up to the announcement of the finalists. Rilke Shake by Angélica ...
>
Introducing "The Vegetarian" by Han Kang [RTWBC]
As previously announced, the fiction book we’re reading for this month’s Reading the World Book Club is The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith. Since I already read this one—taught it in my class last year, more on that below—I thought I’d start out this ...
>
25 Reasons to Read Lispector's Complete Stories [BTBA 2016]
Today’s Best Translated Book Award post is by Mark Haber of Brazos Bookstore. For more information on the BTBA, “like” our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. And check back here each week for a new post by one of the judges. Before encountering the massive, indispensable Complete Stories of Clarice ...
>
All Set for the Semifinals [World Cup of Literature]
And with Germany’s defeat of BiH the semifinals for the World Cup of Literature are all set. You can download a PDF version here. Here’s a bit of a breakdown on these two match ups: Chile By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews Originally published in ...
>
Portugal vs. USA [World Cup of Literature: First Round]
This match was judged by Will Evans. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket. The result came to me as a shock, more of a shock to me even than to you: the US pulled out a 3-2 stunner of a victory over Portugal in the 2014 World Cup of Literature: David Foster Wallace’s final, ...
>
Elsewhere
What a wonderful, idiosyncratic book Weinberger has written. I say book, but the closest comparison I could make to other works being published right now are from Sylph Edition’s “Cahiers Series“—short pamphlet-like meditations by notable writers such as Ann Carson, Elfriede Jelinek, and László Krasznahorkai ...
>
Antoine Volodine & His Self Interview
Next year we’re going to be publishing Antoine Volodine’s Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons: Lesson Eleven, a book that I’m super excited about, and which help explain (somewhat) Volodine’s crazy-awesome project. If you’re a regular listener to the “Three Percent Podcast”: you’ve ...
>
Dublinesque
“The funeral march has begun, and it is futile for those of us who remain loyal to the printed page to protest and rage in the midst of our despair.” Samuel Riba, Dublinesque’s depressive and narcissistic protagonist, stumbles upon this and other similarly prophetic sentiments in an online article ...
>
PEN America #14: The Good Books
The new issue of PEN America, PEN’s literary journal, came out during last week’s World Voices Festival. As always, it’s loaded with good stuff, including excerpts of Marcelo Figueras’s Kamatchka, Andrzej Sosnowski’s Lodgings, Herve Le Tellier’s erotic as hell The Sextine Chapel, and Quim ...
>
Let's Us Praise and Ponder Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Over the years, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s website has been a go-to for jokes about the disconnect between the publishing industry and how the Internet works. I really don’t think I can come up with enough insults about the total disfunction of HMH’s website. Basically, it looks like something an MBA put ...
>
More from Buenos Aires
This city is exhausting. Way more so than New York. Even more than Barcelona. Dinner starts so late, and it’s the perfect setting to linger over a glass of wine chatting for hours . . . Then suddenly it’s two in the morning and the next round of meetings starts in just seven hours . . . Anyway, the past two ...
>
The Blog of Disquiet
A few lit-bloggers have gotten together to form The Blog of Disquiet: The purpose of this site is to draw out everything that comes from reading Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. As the reading progresses, it will inform the content of this manifesto, which will – possibly – grow and change to ...
>