When Papers in the Wind by Eduardo Sacheri, a novel about soccer translated from Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem, arrived on my desk, it pushed everything else out of the way. This is the story: systems manager Alberto "Mono" Raguzzi takes a corporate buyout rather than accept a promotion, and invests the money through a washed-up soccer agent in a promising player, Mario Juan Bautista Pittilanga. It turns out that Pittilanga is crap as a striker. Mono dies of cancer and his three best friends are left with the problem of selling the contract to provide for Mono's daughter. Their strategies to inflate Pittilanga's value, and their cons and misadventures to unload him, create multiple twists. Papers in the Wind comes from Other Press in May.
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When Powell's Books fused its desire of featuring literature in translation with #Readwomen2014, the result was Women in Translation. Twenty women writing in 12 languages from 16 countries--from well-known authors like Colette and Isabel Allende to the not-yet-as-famous Albena Stambolova and Olga Grjasnowa. In late March, Susan Bernofsky's Translationista propelled the offering into the translator crowd on Twitter. The 20 titles are being offered at 30% discount for six weeks.
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Women Lusophone writers are having back-to-back years. My prediction is that what Clarice Lispector was to 2013, Hilda Hilst will be for 2014. Nightboat has just released Letters from a Seducer, translated by John Keene. Melville House will publish With My Dog Eyes, translated by Adam Morris, in late April.
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Michigan State University Press is going to publish literature in translation beginning in spring 2015. Its first novel will be Boris Diop's The Knight and His Shadow. The press plans to publish three to five books a year, mostly from African and Arab world writers.
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Green Apple Books has a permanent "Read the World" fixture. It warrants a visit every time I'm in San Francisco. The beauty of the display is that they installed it next to the travel section. Genius.
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In housekeeping news, Columbia University Press now distributes Dalkey Archive. The much-anticipated final installment in Goncalo Tavares's Kingdom cycle, Klaus Klump: A Man, is scheduled for May. Open Letter and New Vessel Press will be distributed by Consortium. The former will release Juan Jose Saer's La Grande in June. --George Carroll