Three women find themselves caught in the crossfire in this pulse-pounding saga of a Brazilian community in crisis and the environmental tragedy that threatens to engulf it.On the lush Brazil-Argentina border, greed runs deep. A proposed hydroelectric dam spells doom for both the vibrant ecosystems of the Turvo State Park and the people who call it home. Park ranger Chaya refuses to stand by while her beloved land is razed. Her estranged cousin, Preta, a hardened l...

An energizing real-time journey through the translation of Never Did the Fire and the process of literary translation.In Catching Fire , the translation of Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire unfolds in real time as a conversation between works of art, illuminating both in the process. The problems and pleasures of conveying literature into another language—what happens when you meet a pun? a double entendre?—are met by translator Daniel H...

How do you rebuild a 400-year-old topical joke in a new culture and with none of the same words?How does Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting unfold if they can’t mention pilgrims?What does Taming of the Shrew sound like in a language where every noun has a gender?Why might Hamlet be even longer in Japanese?And why are Lady Macbeth’s pronouns such a problem?

What happens when two revolutionaries are left with nothing to believe in, not even each other?Never Did the Fire unfolds in the humdrum of everyday working class existence, making the afterlife of an agitator that of anyone living next door. For one old couple, brought together years ago in an underground cell, the revolution has ended in a small apartment, a grinding job caring for the bodies of the unwell well-to-do, and all the aches and pains that go ...

In a very few, perfectly chosen words, Alejandra Kamiya conjures vast territories of shadow: all that we can never fully express.As dawn breaks, a woman prepares to make a perfect breakfast for her husband and son, while a subtle note of disquiet grows louder. An isolated Japanese soldier obeys an inexplicable command, and his sense of identity begins to dissolve. Two girls discover themselves through electrically charged games, which they will recall in letters for the rest of the...

In a small village in the Swiss Alps, in the aftermath of World War II, particle physics and psychiatry grapple with a forever changed world.Nicholas walks the wooded path between the sanitarium where he works and his home, alert to a possible menace lurking in the trees, haunted by the possibility of an evil just out of sight. His days are spent ministering to minds that have been grievously damaged by the years of brutal conflict, violence suffered and violence a...

“The most influential Colombian novel before Gabriel García Márquez.”—Times Literary SupplementA new translation of a Latin American classic, José Eustasio Rivera's The Vortex follows the young poet Arturo Cova and his lover, Alicia, as they elope from Bogotá and embark on an adventure through Colombia's varied and magical landscapes. When Alicia—pregnant, jealous, and more than a little fed up—disappears, it’s up to Arturo, and his unstoppable eg...

In Europe after World War II, amid a landscape of rubble, skeletal figures and almost absolute social and psychological helplessness, a girl and a man wander among the ruins.Hanna, a 12-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, is looking for her father. Marius, her companion, seems to be hiding from something. Aided by a simple instruction card, Hanna launches into the exploration of what a human being is, as Tavares creates an abstract yet touching portrait of the true...

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Feature.When Marcelo Rubens Paiva was 11 years old, his father was tortured to death by the Brazilian dictatorship. 25 years later, his mother, Eunice, helped usher into law a way for the families of the regime’s victims to finally have their deaths formally acknowledged, and allow them to seek compensation. In between, the unspooling of Brazilian democracy, and then the terrors and everydayness of life under the dictato...

Friendship makes life worth living, and worth ending too.Eufrasia Vela is a caregiver—it’s not just her job. But when she begins working with Doña Carmen, a bedridden elderly woman who spends her days staring out the window at her now-obstructed view of the sea, she confronts the limits to her ability to help. That is, until Doña Carmen makes a big, last request: to transform her caretaking from helping her stay alive to helping her die. A good death has m...

Brutal and overwhelming, Confession wrestles with the legacy of Argentina’s past and the passions of one young girl.When Mirta López looks out the dining room window, she sees a slim, self-possessed older boy on his way back from school. It’s 1941 in provincial Argentina, and the sight has awakened in her the first uncertain, unnerving vibrations of desire. Naturally, she confesses. But she cannot stop herself.Over thirty years later, in 1977, that...

*My brother is adopted, but I can’t say and don’t want to say that my brother is adopted. If I say this, if I speak these words that I have long taken care to silence, I reduce my brother to a single categorical condition, a single essential attribute...*A young couple, involved in the struggle against the military dictatorship in 1970s Argentina, must flee the country. The brutality and terror of the regime is closing in around them. Friends are being ‘disappeared’. Their names are on a l...