Cover Image: Golden Orb Weaver and Her Translators by Scott R. Horsley, 2009
The latest issue of Subtropics is now available for purchase and perusal online and in print (at discerning periodical purveyors nationwide), featuring my translation of Belgian Bernard Quiriny’s “A Guide to Famous Stabbings†from his debut collection Fear of the First Line (Phebus, 2005). The entire story is also available online at the journal’s website, where you’ll also find in English and the original French an interview the author graciously agreed to give, wherein he muses on sundry topics of interest including author Enrique Vila-Matas, the writing process, other stories and characters from the collection, what it means to be a Belgian Francophone writer, and the Belgian fantastical tradition known as the Belgian School of the Bizarre.
Comments welcome from any and all readers, who may wonder on the basis of this story that I characterize Quiriny as a fabulist. Without referring to other stories that would vindicate the appellation beyond doubt, I would say only this: Borges ventures that “at least one of the following four elements must be present in a narrative for it to be fantastic: 1) contamination of reality by dream, 2) a work of art within a work of art, 3) travel in time rather than in space, and 4) the presence of a doppelganger.”