New Directions

04/28/2020

Around My Room and Back Again by Christine Wunnicke

"Hello ficus, may I hug you?"

Christine Wunnicke's "Voyage Around My Room" up on the ND Blog.

Quarantine Song

04/02/2020

“Whether there be a radio in the house or not, the tree brings forth her blossoms in silence.”

All of our Thomas Merton ebooks are now $4.99.

03/24/2020

To celebrate the release of Hurricane Season in the age of social distancing,* Fernanda Melchor will be answering questions from her twitter account today at 3 pm EST.
@fffmelchor
#HurricaneSeason

03/09/2020

"They called her the Witch, the same as her mother; the Girl Witch when she first started trading in curses and cures, and then, when she wound up alone, the year of the landslide, simply the Witch. If she’d had another name, scrawled on some timeworn, worm-eaten piece of paper maybe, buried at the back of one of those wardrobes that the older crone crammed full of plastic bags and filthy rags, locks of hair, bones, rotten leftovers, if at some point she’d been given a first name and last name like everyone else in town, well, no one had ever known it, not even the women who visited the house each Friday had ever heard her called anything else."

Read an excerpt from Fernanda Melchor's forthcoming novel HURRICANE SEASON translated by Sophie Hughes in The Paris Review:

https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7477/they-called-her-the-witch-fernanda-melchor

03/05/2020

Join us TONIGHT at McNally Jackson Seaport for a very special evening with National Book Award-winning author, Yoko Tawada. Featuring a tri-lingual reading in two voices with Yoko Tawada and Bettina Brandt and a conversation with the novelist Hari Kunzru.

02/21/2020

ndbooks.imgix.net

BEHOLD! Fall 2020 featuring *drumroll* THE LOST WRITINGS OF KAFKA translated by Michael Hofmann (never ever ever translated stories!), Jenny Erpenbeck's essays, Doon Arbus' debut novel, Adam Mars-Jones, Eliot Weinberger, Hiroko Oyamada, Thalia Field, Wolfgang Koeppen, Beatriz Bracher, Bohumil Hrabal, Georges Perec, and Clarice Lispector turns 100!

12/03/2019

Labyrinths

Borges's LABYRINTHS is now an audiobook! UNABRIDGED. Narrated by the incredible Dominic Keating. Get it on Apple Books (https://apple.co/2OIqJ4N), Audible (https://adbl.co/2rLClLr), or your local library (https://bit.ly/2DDW7ek).

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Now, new in audio and completely unabridged, the collection that made Borges a household name in the English-speaking world.  The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into th...

11/18/2019

Dust to Dust | David Schurman Wallace

Only 2 days away from the National Book Awards ceremony!

Read why László Kraszhorkanai's novel BARON WENCKHEIM'S HOMECOMING is a finalist for the translation prize in a review by David Schurman Wallace for the Baffler.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/dust-to-dust-wallace

Sitting for a while with your earthly meaninglessness in the face of László Krasznahorkai’s fiction is oddly sobering, even calming.

09/19/2019

[Fiction] In the Cards, by Anne Serre | Harper's Magazine

"I came across this little figure rather late in life. Not being familiar with playing cards, still less with the tarot, I was uncomfortable when I first set eyes on him. I believe in magic figures and distrust them. They have powers. A color can derail a train."

Read an excerpt from THE FOOL & OTHER MORAL TALES by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson, in the new issue of Harper's:

06/24/2019

Ingeborg Bachmann’s Experimental Gem ‘Malina’ Is a Novel Like None Other

"An existential portrait, a work of desperate obsession, a proto-feminist classic, and one of the most jagged renderings of female consciousness European literature has produced. In its torrent of language, paralyzing lassitude, and relentless constriction of expectation and escape, Malina condenses—and then detonates—the neurasthenic legacy of the interwar Austrian novel."—Dustin Illingworth reviews MALINA in The Nation

The Austrian writer’s 1971 book is one of the most potent renderings of female consciousness European literature has produced.

06/22/2019

Who Killed My Father

Excited to announce the release of our audio edition of WHO KILLED MY FATHER—read by Edouard Louis himself!

https://www.audible.com/pd/Who-Killed-My-Father-Audiobook/B07T3RL5KB?qid=1561223267&sr=1-2&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=3XKQHG4YC789YQM7AXH9&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_2

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. This bracing new nonfiction audiobook - read by its young superstar author Édouard Louis - is both a searing j’accuse of the viciously entrenched French class system and a wrenchingly tender love letter to his father. Who Killed My Father&nb...

05/13/2019

I'm the chess messiah

I'm the chess messiah: EEG by the great Croatian writer, Daša Drndić. https://mailchi.mp/ndbooks/im-the-chess-messiah?e=fec1cb8ee9

"Like Bolaño's 2666, EEG demands we stare directly into the face of darkness” —Anderson Tepper, Vanity Fair  Daša Drndić—uncompromising writer, hilarious correspondent, and loving friend—died of lung cancer last June. She was 71. Announcing the 2018 Warwick Prize, Boyd Tonkin wrote, "...

04/11/2019

Talking Translation with Margaret Jull Costa and Ana Luísa Amaral

TONIGHT! The great Portuguese poet Ana Luísa Amaral and her fabulous translator Margaret Jull Costa. Don't miss it! Location: Dodge Hall, Columbia University. Moderated by Katrina Dodson and organized by Susan Bernofksy.

Organized by Susan Bernofsky, Literary Translation at Columbia, Writing Moderated by Katrina Dodson

03/21/2019

One Piece: Kiki Smith by Nina Subin - BOMB Magazine

Nina Subin, known at ND as the master of portraits, talks about stopping time in Bomb Magazime. Nina has taken iconic photographs of Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Yoko Tawada, Bei Dao, Susan Howe, and many more. Her book STILL LIFE is now available on her website.

The artist talks about portraits stopping time.

02/01/2019

On Translating Amparo Dávila’s “Moses and Gaspar”

Audrey Harris on translating Amparo Davila's in The Paris Review. The NYC launch of Davila's THE HOUSEGUEST is tonight at Aeon Bookstore.

Like a dream, Amparo Dávila’s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.

01/15/2019

The Way of Chuang Tzu (Second Edition)

We’re very pleased to announce New Directions' first-ever audiobook, THE WAY OF CHUANG TZU by Thomas Merton, fabulously read by narrator Greg Chun!

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Way-of-Chuang-Tzu-Second-Edition-Audiobook/B07M9CPVWZ?qid=1547495872&sr=sr_1_1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=BAXKA5QHCFS0QQCET7FA&

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Classic writings from the great Zen master in exquisite versions by Thomas Merton, with a preface by his holiness the Dalai Lama, now in audio for the first time. Working from existing translations, Thomas Merton composed a series of his own versions of .....

12/10/2018

Today, we are happy to celebrate the life of Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915—December 10, 1968) as we remember his generosity of heart, love for human beings, and mischievous wit. And we celebrate his work with a new small gift book of some of his most essential and most comforting writings: SILENCE, JOY

12/06/2018

Must-Read Poetry: December 2018 - The Millions

SILENCE, JOY on @The_Millions Must-Read Poetry: https://themillions.com/2018/12/must-read-poetry-december-2018.html

Here are four notable books of poetry publishing in December. Who is Mary Sue? by Sophie Collins Before the core of this book—a sequence that considers the pristine “Mary Sue,” a female character in fan fiction who often seems to be the “author’s idealized self”—Collins includes a gorg...

12/05/2018

The Houseguest by Amparo Dávila - book review

Jeff Alford of @run_spot_run on THE HOUSEGUEST: http://www.runspotrun.com/book-reviews/the-houseguest-amparo-davila/#

The Houseguest is an experience of recognizing the ineffable: feelings of dread, paranoia, and angst adopt familiar forms in these twelve excellent stories.

11/30/2018

‘The Governesses’ Offers Subtle Lessons in Shame, Constraint and Lust

Anne Serre's erotic fairy tale reviewed in The New York Times! "Prim and racy, seriously weird and seriously excellent...The Governesses is not a treatise but an aria, and one delivered with perfect pitch."—Parul Sehgal, NYT

Anne Serre’s slender work of fiction, recently translated from the French, is about three carnal but innocent women working for a large family.

10/15/2018

Forrest Gander's only NYC reading for his NBA longlisted poetry collection, BE WITH, is this Wednesday at The Poetry Project. Forrest will be reading with Rosamond S King.

Link below. Photograph by Michael Flomen.

"Be With charts the addled chronology of personal loss. Poetry often creates a supernatural-seeming rapport with the dead, but rarely has the communication between worlds felt so eerily reciprocal."—Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker

https://www.facebook.com/events/458647767957738/

10/08/2018

TOMORROW, 7pm, at 192 Books! A celebration for A Milk Bowl of Feathers: Essential Surrealist Writings. Come toast with us!

Editor Mary Ann Caws will speak with Stephanie D’Alessandro, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the MET.

http://www.192books.com/tuesday-september-18th-7pm/

09/07/2018

[Essay] The Condition of Secrecy by Inger Christensen | Harper's Magazine

"When I was nine years old, the world, too, was nine years old. At least, there was no difference between us, no opposition, no distance. We just tumbled around from sunrise to sunset, earth and body as alike as two pennies."

The great Danish poet Inger Christensen's essays are forthcoming for the first time in a beautiful translation by Susanna Nied. Read "Interplay" from The Condition of Secrecy in this issue of Harper's Magazine. https://harpers.org/archive/2018/09/the-conditions-of-secrecy-inger-christensen/

08/08/2018

'Marvellous Equations' Pulses With Rhythmic Power

"A beautiful and otherworldly book; a work of poetry steeped in history and rich with imagination. Douglas has a way of conveying the sense of wonder that powers the island's creative spirit."—Juan Vidal, NPR

Marcia Douglas's new book imagines a resurrected Bob Marley, living in a clock tower and conversing with spirits — but Douglas also honors and elevates the voices of the women in Marley's orbit.

07/31/2018

Bob Marley - Iron Lion Zion

MARVELLOUS EQUATIONS OF THE DREAD by Marcia Douglas is out today!

I am on the rock and then I check a stock I have to run like a fugitive to save the life I live Im gonna be iron like a lion in zion (repeat) Iron lion zion ...

07/30/2018

Fiction Book Review: The Governesses by Anne Serre, trans. from the French by Mark Hutchinson. New Directions, $13.95 trade paper (112p) ISBN 978-0-8112-2807-7

Introducing Anne Serre!

Serre’s first work to be translated into English is a hypnotic tale of three governesses and the sensuous education they provide. Roaming the country estate of a staid married couple, Monsieur and Mad

07/30/2018

How Jorge Barón Biza Turned His Family Tragedy Into Fiction

"Strikingly of the moment"—The New Yorker on The Desert and Its Seed

When Barón Biza wrote “The Desert and Its Seed,” he feared that its lurid backstory would dominate attention. But the work is strikingly of the moment.

07/16/2018

Does the Name Dag Solstad Mean Anything to You? It Should

Happy birthday Dag Solstad! And just in time, a review from the New York Times Book Review.

"All of the whispers have been right: Solstad is a vital novelist."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/books/review/dag-solstad-armand-v-t-singer.html

He’s Norway’s greatest living writer, and two more of his novels — “T Singer” and “Armand V” — have recently been translated.

07/11/2018

res.cloudinary.com

BEHOLD! Winter 2019. Featuring Dasa Drndic, Rachel Ingalls, Robert Lax, Edouard Louis, Rivka Galchen, Jean Fremon, Qurratulain Hyder, César Aira, Christine Wunnicke, Ana Luisa Amaral, Adonis, Vila-Matas, Mishima, and Lispector!

07/03/2018

Music and Spirituality: A Conversation with Marcia Douglas

The women in Marcia Douglas’s books are proud women: they tuck their sorrow silently into the folds of their skirts, or release them audibly as they chant and gyrate to pulsating dancehall beats. They are the descendants of Queen Nanny, the Maroon chieftain who, according to legend, could catch the bullets of the British soldiers between her teeth.

Marcia Douglas discusses her forthcoming novel, THE MARVELLOUS EQUATIONS OF THE DREAD.

06/18/2018

Twins, Foils, Frauds: A Posthumous Novel on the Puzzle of Free Will

"Posthumous books almost always feel half-formed, coincidental, unpublished for a reason....THE SOLITARY TWIN however, may well be the last great surprise Mathews pulled out of his deep bag of tricks. It is funny, perplexing, consistent and unusual, with all the characteristic Mathews obsessions. It may also be one of the best places to start enjoying his work."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/books/review/solitary-twin-harry-mathews.html

In “The Solitary Twin,” by Harry Mathews, fractured identities come together in small, miraculous revelations that never feel contrived at all.

05/23/2018

Northness: Lesley Harrison in Conversation by Daniel Poppick

Lesley Harrison, author of BLUE PEARL:
Maybe this is just being over-romantic, but I can’t see how generations and generations of thinking and movement can be suddenly cut off. I can’t see how it’s not there as a residue, somehow, in our orientation to the coast and to the sea. For me, when I’m out walking the dog and I meet somebody, we always stand with our back to the land, facing out to sea. It’s always the first thing that we talk about. People make a lot of jokes about British people talking about the weather, but it’s true. We say, Oh, did you see that sunset? Or, Yeah, there’s weather coming. People are very much orientated toward the coastline and what’s out there beyond the horizon. You’re on the edge of something much greater, not just geographically, but on a much deeper level. And I find it so interesting that when you talk to people in this part of the world these vowel sounds, or sometimes whole words, just reappear on a completely separate part of the coastline with a gap of several hundred miles in between. If you’re transporting language, I think, what else are you transporting as well, you know?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2018/05/Northness-Lesley-Harrison-in-Conversation

Lesley Harrison and I met in Manhattan on one of those increasingly common hot October mornings when it still feels like summer. She was visiting New York from her home...

05/08/2018

Lightning Rods

Helen DeWitt's SOME TRICK is coming! Get ready with the LIGHTNING RODS ebook, on sale for $2.99 all month: https://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Rods-Helen-DeWitt-ebook/dp/B005SH4M5Y/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1525786487&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=lightning+rtods

The long-awaited second novel by the author of “arguably the most exciting debut novel of the decade: The Last Samurai.” (Sam Anderson, New York).“All I want is to be a success. That’s all I ask.” Joe fails to sell a single set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in ...

04/23/2018

I Have Strayed From My Theme | Tin House

Read an excerpt from César Aira's THE LINDEN TREE at Tin House.

http://tinhouse.com/i-have-strayed-from-my-theme/

Opposite our house was an accountant’s office where I would go when I had nothing else to do; I ran errands for the accountant and his clerk (who was his nephew). Since the clerk was often absent, the accountant used to leave me to look after the office when he went out. My sole function …

04/20/2018

Becoming the Brown Girl in the Ring

A new essay by Marcia Douglas, author of Marvellous Equations of the Dread (July), in NYRB Daily:

I grew up with the sense that true-home was always elsewhere. I was born in the United Kingdom to Jamaican immigrants; our family returned to Jamaica when I was six; and I immigrated to the US after high school. My parents told stories of Jamaica—a place where life was tough, but often, or so it s...