Alejo Carpentier, The Chase, translated from the Spanish by Alfred Mac Adam (New York: The Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990).
Alejo Carpentier, Explosion in a Cathedral: A Novel, translated from the Spanish by John Sturrock (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1979).
Alejo Carpentier, The Harp and the Shadow: A Novel, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Christensen & Carol Christensen (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1990) (From the "Translators' Preface": "In a Latin American village, Indian dancer put on painted wooden masks with fair skin, blue eyes, and blond beards. They dress in the elaborate Renaissance fashions worn by Spanish conquistadors expecting to meet the Grand Khan of the Indies. So begins, in the eternal present of the festival, a new discovery, a ritual reenactment of the conquest of the Americas. It is an incongruous but not unusual scene, for in Latin America the conquest remains a part of daily life, and signs of it are everywhere: In Mexico, Christian churches rise on the foundation of Aztec temples; in Central America, Mayan people praise the hero Tecun Uman, defeater of the villainous Pedro de Alvarado, and remain largely unconquered; in South America, Inca gold, melted and recast in the form of saints, adorns the most glorious cathedral altars." "In North America, by contrast, the conquest is an abstraction, obscured by Hallmark images of Mayflower-landings and blunderbuss-and-buckle-bedecked forefathers dining thankfully with feathered, moccasined savages who have stepped from the pages of Lamartine and Cooper. We have forgotten our origins, rejected and expunged our native heritage; our imagination only takes hold centuries later, with the pioneer movement west." Id. at xi-xii.).
Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World, translated from the Spanish by Harriet de Onis (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989).
Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps, translated form the Spanish by Harriet de Onis, introduction by Timothy Brennan (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 2001) ("We had fallen upon the era of the Wasp-Man, the No-Man, when souls were no longer sold to the Devil, but to the Bookkeeper or the Galley Master." Id. at 9.).
Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch; Blow-up; We Love Glenda So Much, introduction by Ilan Stavans (New York: Everyman's Library, 2014) (From Hopscotch: "Stopping in front of a pizzeria at 1300 Corrientes, Oliveira asked himself the great question: 'Must one stay in the center of the crossroads, then, like the hub of a wheel? What is it to know or to think we know that every road is false if we don't walk with an idea that is not the road itself? We're not Buddha, and there are no trees to sit under in the lotus position. A cop appears and asks for your identity card.'"Id. at 1, 300-301.).
Nawal El-Saadawi, The Fall of the Imam, translated from the Arabic by Sherif Hetata (London: Saqi Books, 2002) (From the bookcover: "Who will overthrow the Imam? Who will defeat the oppression, the tyranny, the injustice and the killings? . . . Then, who is the Imam? Is he the man, the male, the father, the husband, the ruler, the leader? Bint Allah (the Daughter of God), a beautiful illegitimate girl, a child of sin, looked down upon by those around her is falsely accused by the Imam of adulterous relationships and sentenced to death by stoning. This powerful and poetic novel by Egypt's leading feminist writer reveals the underlying hypocrisy of a male-dominated religious state, and raises awareness of the insufferable predicament of women in a society which will ultimately self-destruct.").
Phyllis Granoff, ed., The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories, selected, translated and Introduction by Phyllis Granoff (New York: Penguin Books, 1998) (From backcover: "The stories collected in this volume reflect the rich tradition of medieval Jain storytelling between the seventh and fifteenth centuries, from simple folk tales and lives of famous monks to sophisticated narratives of rebirth. They describe the ways in which a path to peace and bliss can be found, either by renouncing the world or by following Jain ethics of non-violence, honesty, moderation and fidelity. Here are stories depicting the painful consequences when a loved one chooses life as a monk, the triumph of Jain women who win over their husbands to their religion, or the rewards of a simple act of piety. The volume ends with an account of vice and virtue, which depicts the thieving and destructive passions lurking in the forest of life, ready to rob the unsuspecting traveller of reason and virtue.").
Gunter Grass, Crabwalk: A Novel, translated from the German by Krishna Winston (New York: Harcourt, 2003) ("The chat room promptly filled with hate. 'Jewish scum' and 'Auschwitz liar' were the mildest insults. As the sinking of the ship was dredged up for a new generation, the long-submerged hate slogan 'Death to all Jews' bubbled to the digital surface of contemporary reality: foaming hate, a maelstrom of hate. Good God! How much of this has been damned up all this time, is growing day by day, building pressure for action." "My son, however, showed restraint. His tone was quite polite when he inquired, 'So tell me, David, is it possible that you're of Jewish descent?' The response was ambiguous" 'My dear Wilhelm, if it will give you pleasure or help you in some other way, you can send me to the gas chamber the next time an occasion arises.'" Id. at 160. "Did my son hate me? Was Konny even capable of hate? Several times he denied hating the Jews. I am inclined to speak of Konny's matter-of-fact hate. Hate turned down low. An eternal flame. A hate devoid of passion, reproducing itself asexually." Id. at 210.).
Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Professor and the Siren, translated from the Italian by Stephen Twilley, introduction by Marina Warner (New York: New York Review Books, 2014).
Simon Leys, The Death of Napoleon: A Novel, translated from the French by Patricia Clancy & Simon Leys (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991).
Henning Mankell, An Event in Autumn (A Kurt Wallender Mystery), translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2013).
Anna Seghers, Transit, translated from the German by Margo Bettauer Dembo, introduction by Peter Conrad, afterword by Heinrich (New York: New York Review Books, 2013).
