Posted by Guillermo Maynez
on 12/9/2011, 20:42:25, in reply to "Re: Nominations for 2012"
189.140.65.35
Here I go:
1. Umberto Eco (Italian): "The Prague Cemetery"
2. Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar (Turkish): "A Mind at Peace"
3. Anthony Burgess (British): "Nothing Like the Sun"
4. Marguerite Yourcenar (French): "Opus Nigrum"
5. Benito Perez Galdos (Spanish): "Fortunata and Jacinta"
6. Roberto Bolaņo (Chilean): "The Savage Detectives"
7. Martin Luis Guzman (Mexican): "The Eagle and the Serpent"
8. Yasunari Kawabata (Japanese): "The Sound of the Mountain"
9. Hermann Melville (American): "Typee"
10. Now for the Mexican female author:
There are several options available on Amazon:
1. Carmen Boullosa: "Leaving Tabasco". A Mexican woman recollects her life with her tyrannical grandmother in Southern Mexico. Heavy dose of Magical realism.
2. Carmen Boullosa: "They're Cows, We're Pigs". In 1666, 13-year-old Jean Smeeks leaves his native Flanders for Tortuga, notorious 17th-century pirate refuge. In the reeking, pitching quarters of the vessel, a woman reveals herself to him--and to him only. It is her fate that sets the novel's moral compass, for what attracts her is a renegade Tortugan community, the Brethren of the Coast--anti-colonialist buccaneers who represent, in part, the upside of lawlessness: communalism and no locked doors. The downside? Women are forbidden.
3. Carmen Boullosa: "Cleopatra Dismounts". Mexican author Boullosa plays with the life and myth of Cleopatra in her third novel to be published in the U.S., following Leaving Tabasco (2001) and They're Cows, We're Pigs (1997). Drawing on the writings of several ancient authors, including Sophocles, Cicero, and Virgil, Boullosa presents a Cleopatra different from the traditional, historical portrait, which came to us via the Romans, who had much reason to dislike her. Boullosa offers three possibilities, leaving us to decide which defines her best. Was she the lover of Marc Antony, too distraught to remain alive after his death? Or the young girl who disguised herself and went to live with a band of pirates in order to escape from her royal duties? Or a woman who learned the art of love and war from Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons, and her tribe of women warriors?
4. Elena Garro: "Recollections of Things to Come". This remarkable first novel depicts life in the small Mexican town of Ixtepec during the grim days of the Revolution. The town tells its own story against a variegated background of political change, religious persecution, and social unrest. Miss Garro, who has also won a high reputation as a playwright, is a masterly storyteller. Although her plot is dramatically intense and suspenseful, the novel does not depend for its effectiveness on narrative continuity. It is a book of episodes, one that leaves the reader with a series of vivid impressions. The colors are bright, the smells pungent, the many characters clearly drawn in a few bold strokes.
5. Josefina Vicens: "The Empty Book". A forerunner of the Latin American metafiction boom of the 1960s, this novel by Mexican author and screenwriter Vicens was first published in Mexico in 1958. The new translation is a spare and striking first-person account of Jose Garcia, a middle-aged accountant tormented by the craving to write something "significant" and his belief that he will never be able to do so. He keeps two journals, one of events in his everyday life, the other an "empty book," and he can never quite find words important enough to fill its pages. Ironically, the "nothing" that he tells us in his everyday diary is the vivid, straightforward story of an ordinary man, which ultimately transcends the limits of the printed word to become a heroic tale of the struggles of Everyman.
--Previous Message--
: I didn't take it that anyone was against old and English
: literature, or that Sterling's nominations were in any
: way inappropriate. I think we all like to have some
: variety in our selections, so I thought it would be
: fun to come up with an "anti-Dickens" list.
: I know next to nothing about any of these authors; I
: just picked up some ideas from sources such as the
: Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to World Fiction. The
: only one I've read anything by is Laura Restrepo. I am
: the last person on earth to be called
: "politically correct," and I probably
: wouldn't have voted for any of them myself anyway.
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: Please don't be concerned, Guillermo. I genuinely
: appreciate the international focus of our group. No
: worries.
:
: You know, we could certainly skip the Allende and now
: I certainly do not want to read Poniatowska. I was
: thinking, though, much as I was charmed by Steven's
: "living non-white (or at least non-English
: speaking) females" list, maybe you could suggest
: an extraordinary Mexican novel (even if written by a
: dead male).
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: I am mortified and worried about having been
: misinterpreted: I LOVE English literature: shame on
: me, I am more knowledgeable of English than Spanish
: literature; and I LOVE old literature, I prefer books
: that have passed the test of time, although of course
: I like to experiment with novelties some times. So I
: was not complaining about Sterling's list, which, as I
: said, I would read joyfully.
:
: Now, some of Steven's anti-Dickens sound very
: interesting, although I have the feeling that some of
: the others are politically correct stuff that I don't
: like. Isabel Allende: I hated the movie so much that I
: would be willing to give the novel a try (though my
: suspicion is that I won't like it). And I would never
: read any novel written by Poniatowska, Steven's
: Mexican selection. The woman is, in muy humble
: opinion, despicable, and a fraud (I hope she's not
: your friend, Steven). I will look for a Mexican female
: author translated to English, as a competitor with
: Poniatowska for our attention.
:
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: What an interesting list, Steven! The only one I have
: even heard of is The House of Spirits, which I have
: not read (but have intended to read).
:
: Same here. I have actually seen the movie of this
: book, with Meryl Streep.
:
: Steven, I have Elif Shafak's the Bastard of Istanbul,
: maybe the two of us can read that book off-line. I
: don't like this author as a person, I have watched
: interviews with her and I wasn't impressed, but I
: would like to give her writing a chance.
:
: Lale
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