February Newsletter
Mariana Dimópulos's All My Goodbyes (tr. Alice Whitmore) is out this month, the debut novel that Katie Kitamura calls "a virtuoso performance. A love story told in razor-sharp fragments [that] lies at the intersection of memory, violence, and trauma.”
Mariana Dimópulos Interview
Dimópulos spoke with Jennifer Croft, Man Booker International Prize-winning translator of Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights, for The Paris Review. Croft describes Dimópulos's novel as “a tale of murder in Patagonia and of wanderlust, or rather, a lust for an arrival that never quite happens.”
INTERVIEWER
In this book, you write: “My freedom always implies the slavery of another. So, my heart asks (and at heart I’m no good): if I enslave myself, does that mean someone else is set free?” Can you talk a little bit about what this means?
DIMÓPULOS
Since my early years, I’ve been interested in how people live and how the social differences between people come to be. The world is far from being a fair place. The sentence you are pointing at is an intended fallacy, and its answer is no. There is no perfect balance between two constants—free people and enslaved people—and there is no personal, isolated solution to the problem of inequality. But if you are young, like the protagonist, and you have a critical vision about how our world is built, with its contradictions and conformism, then you may think in this way. […]
You can read the conversation in full at The Paris Review.
Spring Books Preview
We look ahead to the books we're publishing this spring (and, okay, one this summer), so you can plan your next few months' reading accordingly.
Receive them all with a 5- or 10-book subscription to the Transit Book Club, or preorder one at your local bookstore through Indiebound.
Makumbi at George Mason
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi will be a resident at the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center from March 18–May 4, and will be doing a series of events in the DC area ahead of the release of her first story collection, Let's Tell This Story Properly. (Stay tuned!)
"I am thrilled that Jennifer will be joining the Cheuse Center at George Mason University this spring," says Cheuse Center Executive Director Matt Davis. "Jennifer is a gifted writer of great depth, skill and compassion, one who sheds light on contemporary Uganda and whose literature helps us better understand our diverse world."
News, Reviews, and More
1. The New York Times recommends Kintu for fans of Black Panther in their reading guide to the Oscars. 2. "There are plenty of ways silence can be violent." Mariana Dimópulos interviewed for Crime Reads. 3. "A suspenseful and propulsive read." Librarie Drawn and Quarterly recommendsAll My Goodbyes. 4. Jennifer Croft previews her translation of Wioletta Greg's Accommodations.