Revenge of the Translator. Brice Matthieussent

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Revenge of the Translator - Brice Matthieussent

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      * A clarification about my modus operandi: even when I resist the temptation of censorship or when I don’t dilate the original prose as I please, I am an indelicate transporter, a clumsy mover, a seedy trafficker. I dispatch fragile and labeled objects from one edge of the ocean to the other, and although I certainly do my best, I bang them and drop them, I damage and dent them, scuff them and scrape them, I destroy them despite myself …

      Deep Vellum Publishing

      3000 Commerce St., Dallas, Texas 75226

      deepvellum.org · @deepvellum

      Deep Vellum Publishing is a 501c3

      nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013.

      Vengeance du Traducteur Copyright © P.O.L Editeur, 2009

      English translation copyright © Emma Ramadan, 2018

      ISBN

      978-1-941920-70-1 (ebook)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936731

      Quoted material on p. vii is from Letters to Milena by Franz Kafka, translated by Philip Boehm. Copyright © 1990. Used by permission of Schocken Books, a division of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved.

      Quoted material on p. 10 is from The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley, illustrated by Peter Sis. Copyright © 2005. Used by permission of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved.

      The quote on p. 23 is a reworking of the opening lines to The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, by Vladimir Nabokov. Copyright © 1941. Used by permission of New Directions. All rights reserved.

      This work received the French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation. French Voices is a program created and funded by the French Embassy in the United States and FACE (French American Cultural Exchange).

      Cover design by Anna Zylicz · annazylicz.com

      Typesetting by Kirby Gann · kirbygann.net

      Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.

      Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.

      … I, who am not even the pawn of a pawn in the great chess game, far from it, now want to take the place of the queen … —I, the pawn of a pawn, a piece which doesn’t even exist, which isn’t even in the game—and next I may want to take the king’s place as well or even the whole board …

      —Franz Kafka Letter to Milena Jesenská, about the Letter to His Father

      The machine works with words.

      —Jean Suquet

       for Maeva A.

      Contents

       Chapter 6: Prote’s Secret Passage

       Chapter 7: David and Doris Meet at Abel’s Place

       Chapter 8: The Hidden, Stolen, and Finally Revealed Letter

       Chapter 9: David’s Secret Passage

       Chapter 10: The Secret Passage Revisited

       Chapter 11: Asterisk Pasta, Cuttlefish in Ink Sauce, and Mille-Feuille

       Chapter 12: The Flight

       Chapter 13: The French Translator

       Chapter 14: The Dinner

       Chapter 15: Trad’s Secret Passage

       Chapter 16: Prote Receives a Final Visit

       Epilogue

       Chapter 1

       THE TRANSLATOR TAKES THE STAGE

      *

      * I reside here below this thin black bar. This is my place, my living room, my den. The walls are painted white and covered with several lines of thin black characters, like an uneven frieze, a changing wallpaper. Welcome to you, dear reader, who has crossed the threshold of my lair. It’s not as spacious as that of my upstairs neighbor, but in his absence I welcome his visitors who have been rerouted by his inexplicable desertion. I know it’s him that you came to see, and you’ve stumbled

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