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Title details for Revenge of the Translator by Brice Matthieussent - Available

Revenge of the Translator

by Brice Matthieussent
Emma Ramadan
ebook
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The work of a novelist and translator collide in this visionary and hilarious debut from acclaimed French writer Brice Matthieussent. Revenge of the Translator follows Trad, who is translating a mysterious author's book, Translator's Revenge, from English to French. The book opens as a series of footnotes from Trad, as he justifies changes he makes. As the novel progresses, Trad begins to take over the writing, methodically breaking down the work of the original writer and changing the course of the text. The lines between reality and fiction start to blur as Trad's world overlaps with the characters in Translator's Revenge, who seem to grow more and more independent of Trad's increasingly deranged struggle to control the plot. Revenge of the Translator is a brilliant, rule-defying exploration of literature, the act of writing and translating, and the often complicated relationship between authors and their translators.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 25, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781941920701

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781941920701
      • File size: 557 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2018

      DEBUT In a novel called Translator's Revenge, American David Grey is translating into English Abel Prote's latest novel N.d.T. (i.e., Note du traducteur, or "translator's note")--and getting sufficiently aggravated by the task that he installs a virus on Prote's computer to muck with words, sentences, even paragraphs. In esteemed French translator Matthieussent's award-winning debut novel, a mysterious translator called Trad is translating Translator's Revenge--and getting sufficiently aggravated by the inadequacies of the text that he corrects errors, adds and deletes material willfully, and finally roars off into wholesale invention. Matthieussent's novel opens with just footnotes from Trad explaining what he's doing and why; the top half of the page, where the actual text would be, is blank. Eventually, as contretemps between Grey and Prote escalate into existential crisis, it's hard to distinguish the original story (which we've initially had to intuit) from Trad's interjections. VERDICT The concept is brilliant, the writing luscious, and the portrait of translation-as-creation absolutely apt; great fun for sophisticated readers, who will revel in this celebration of language itself. Bravo, translator Ramadan.

      Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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