EDWARD GAUVIN

Jean Ferry’s The Conductor and Other Tales is picking up steam again after a holiday lull following its November release:

• It makes beloved indie Green Apple Books’ list of recommendations in SFGate:

A book of crazily inventive short-prose narratives with the imaginative zeal of Borges or Breton – first published in France in 1950.

• Gabriel Blackwell, erstwhile editor of The Collagist, excerpts a favorite bit at his site.
• Look I Have Opinions weighs in on my translation of Ferry’s most famous story, “Le tigre urbain” as “The Society Tiger,” previously translated as “The Fashionable Tiger” and “The Urbane Tiger.”

I like “society tiger” as a translation of “tigre mondain.” I don’t know French well but “mondain” seems to come from a root meaning “the world” and to suggest high society. In contemporary English a fashionable tiger sounds like it means a well-dressed tiger, without connoting much about social class or status.

Sir, I concur.

I’ve made a page in the left sidebar for Ferry with info, quotes from reviews, and links to pieces available online. More, bigger Ferry news in the offing, but I must keep mum for the moment.