In the run-up to the Best Translated Book Awards, Monica Carter pens a lovely appreciation of Paul Willems’ The Cathedral of Mist:
By far, The Cathedral of Mist is going to be one of those works that I will read from time after time, always being inspired by something new within its pages… I couldn’t help but think, after reading The Cathedral of Mist, that Willems had applied Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space and On Poetic Reverie and Imagination to perfection. His Elysian stories transport you to realities so vivid, even knowing they don’t exist, feel otherwise.
Willems voice is humorous, light, hopefully resigned to his imagination, and this combination infuses his pieces with a touching nostalgia. I can’t help but be in awe of Edward Gauvin’s translation (he has many fine translations…) that captures Willems’s essence[…]
Simply breathtaking.
Thank you!