Foreign Correspondents: October in Words Without Borders

October 1st, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Two new pieces up in the Words Without Borders “Foreign Correspondents” issue this month, one by Gébé and the other by François Vallejo. Gébé, a satirist after my own heart, looks into the mysterious activities of the International Bureau for Front Location, while Vallejo chronicles the 1988 fire that consumed the Chiado district of Lisbon.

Editorial cartoonist Gébé’s piece, featuring a short introduction by yours truly, is taken from his prose collection Not-Quite-Botched Dispatches (But a Hard Sell for the Nightly News), originally Reportages pas vraiment ratés mais difficile à vendre à France Soir, reprinted in 2001 by Le Diléttante (that last link for readers of French).

The excerpt by François Vallejo is the opening to his 2008 novel The Burning of the Chiado (L’Incendie du Chiado) from Éditions Viviane Hamy.

Check’em out!

Postcard Remix #3

January 15th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Promo postcard for Benjamin Parzybok's Couch by Andi Watson

With apologies to Andi Watson, Benjamin Parzybok, and Small Beer Press.

Postcard Remix #2

January 9th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

Promo postcard for L'Association's revue Lapin

Me Reading, Sunday Salon, Stain Bar, 11/16

November 14th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

UPDATED 11/30: video footage, thanks to Sunday Salon co-hostess Nita Noveno, of me reading part of G.O.-C.’s short story “The Pavilion and the Linden” (Le kiosque et le tilleul), an earlier version of which is available online at The Cafe Irreal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9hhkzfGAk&eurl=http://www.sundaysalon.com/video&feature=player_embedded]

A quick and all-too-close-to-the-date note to say I’ll be giving a reading of translations and my own writing at the Sunday Salon in Williamsburg this weekend, with three other writers: short-storyist Leni Zumas, psychologist-memoirist Daniel Tomasulo, and African-American novelist Kim Coleman Foote. It starts at 7pm, at the Stain Bar. (L to Grand, then 1 block west. Stain Bar is located at 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Bar opens at 5 p.m. 718.387.7840.)

To share some good news: the French fabulist whose work I’ll be reading, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, just won the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire for his latest novel, L’Autre rive, at the Utopiales festival in Nantes (kind of to Euro sci-fi what Angouleme is to comics. Kelly Link just won the same prize in the Best Foreign Story Collection category for an edition of stories selected from her two American collections—Yay!)

And two new publications: Châteaureynaud’s story “The Only Mortal” will appear in Dec.-Jan. issue of The Brooklyn Rail, and his story “The Denham Inheritance” has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming volume of British quarterly Postscripts. Thank you, editors!

In a recent letter, the author offered his congratulations on our recent election.

A future post on the novel itself is pending.

Hope you can make it!

A more formal version française after the jump: » Read the rest of this entry «

My Life Right Now

October 8th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Courtesy the ever-wondrous GB Tran. Respect.

Panel Talk

September 21st, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

My friend M@ alerted me to a WSJ article on eurocomics and la glorieuse B.D. Sardine gets a mention, and First Second quite a few. What an odd roundup of authors, at least among the Francophones… wonder who author Brigid Grauman’s sources were. Not strictly American publishers, apparently–and thank God–but the selection gives a glimpse into the randomness of how reputations are furthered. I’m surprised she unearthed Schuiten and Peeters. The few English volumes of their monumental Cites Obscures have been available forever, but putting everyone in the same article makes them sound recent as Guibert. I’m glad David B. got mentioned, and sad I will likely never get to translate more of him than the excerpt in WWB, sewn up as he is by NBM and Fanta.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Recent Work

September 10th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

This last is referenced in a nicely detailed account of a manga fest in Germany.

Life vs. Blog

May 22nd, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Catching up with reviews… The Onion AV Club’s Comics Panel covers Lewis Trondheim’s Kaput & Zösky and Cyril Pedrosa’s Three Shadows.

I read one of Trondheim’s Lapinot books (part of my NYCC swag pile). V. enjoyable: I’d put it on a par with a really clever sitcom, but edgier. Handles multiple storylines well, sustaining tension throughout. Quick and witty neurotic dialogue among citydwellers and, floating over it all, the delicious and slightly despairing nastiness of a pessimistic author toying with his characters.

Trondheim also had a funny sketchbook page on his blog presenting overheard conversation “traduit de l’américain”: “J’ai eu le mal de mer à cause des vagues.” Always amusing to have the redundancies of national speech patterns shoved in one’s face through the defamiliarizing mechanism of a foreign tongue. (I can’t link to it anymore; he fades old pages out and takes them down.)

So much for updating more regularly… the perennial life vs. blog conflict, you might say. Not to be mistaken for life vs. art , which is a matter of expectations–the former is purely a matter of time.

Con Town: NYCC Countdown

April 17th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Starting this Friday the 18th at 10am EST, you—yes, you too! Even you! No, except for you, in the back there—can find me at Booth 1960 of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center for the 2008 New York Comic Con, tending handsome Eurocomics for a consortium of French publishers (à savoir le Bureau International de l’Édition Française). I’ll be there till the madness winds down Sunday evening. Come one, come all, drop by and I’ll get someone French to turn his or her nose up at your Superman tee as we try to interest you in fine and lavish hardcovers for the discerning artiste. No, we won’t share cheese from our platters, but your food offerings are welcome.

As a result of the madness, I will not be answering emails. Stop sending me emails. Yes, that means you in the back there. I am on contact hiatus until the craziness is over.

That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Also check out the booths of my erstwhile employers Archaia Studios Press (1713) and First Second Books :01!

Three Shadows Update

February 14th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Dude, I’m in New York Magazine. Color me astonished. Between Lou Reed and Nicole Kidman. Check it.

Kudos and thanks to Mr. Pedrosa and the team at First Second.

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