This week’s music is “I’ve Got Reason” by Mikal Cronin.

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• by Mathias Énard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell;

• by Amanda Michalopoulou, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich;

• by Giulio Mozzi, translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris; and

• by Juan José Saer, translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph, all made the longlist.

They’re up against some tough competition though, which includes:

• by Cesar Aira, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver;

• by Ibrahim al-Koni, translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins;

• by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky;

• by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella;

• by Jean-Patrick Manchette, translated from the French by Donald Nicholson-Smith;

• by Leo Tolstoy, translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz;

• by Can Xue, translated from the Chinese by Annelise F. Wasmoen; and

• by Xu Zechen, translated from the Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen.

That’s a really solid list—of translators, authors, books, and publishers. Well done, judging committee!

The also came out today, also featuring twelve titles:

• by Jose Acquelin, translated from the French by Hugh Hazelton;

• by Maria Attanasio, translated from the Italian by Carla Billitteri;

• by Paul Celan, translated from the German by Pierre Joris;

• by Najwan Darwish, translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid;

• by Suzanne Doppelt, translated from the French by Cole Swensen;

• by Gunnar Harding, translated from the Swedish by Roger Greenwald;

• by Osip Mandelstam, translated from the Russian by Peter France;

• by Ernst Meister, translated from the German by Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick;

• by Emmanuel Merle, translated from the French by Peter Brown;

• by Ovid, translated from the Latin by Julia Dyson Hejduk;

• by Tuvia Ruebner, translated from the Hebrew by Rachel Tzvia Back; and

• by José-Flore Tappy, translated from the French by John Taylor.

Congrats to everyone involved! And tune in this September to learn the names of the five finalists in both categories . . .

This week’s music is “Waste Your Time” from Ex Hex. (Mary Timony’s new band!)

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Kansas City is a fun place that is filled with bar-be-que, concealed weapons, and mechanical bulls. To celebrate this fine heritage, I thought it would be fun if a big group of translators went down to PBR Big Sky (the PBR stands for “Professional Bull Riding,” FYI) to ride a mechanical bull and shoot bullets into the sky try on cowboy hats.

To make this more interesting, I thought this could be the first of the “Feats of Translators” series here at Open Letter Books. See, rather than spending all this time reading and evaluating books, I think we should institute a new editorial policy whereby certain books are published based on which translators win particular contests. Like, you know, a scavenger hunt, or a Words With Friends tournament, or bull riding . . .

Based on the enticing possibility of having a book published by Open Letter, about 100 9 of us went to PBR and rode that bull. Actually, all of us rode the bull except for Scott Esposito, who decided that he wasn’t “manly” enough. (Which is maybe why he overcompensates at the beginning of this video by yelling “F*&^ you, Chad Post!” Some people . . . )

There are videos of all the riders, but I thought I’d just post mine since I decided that I won. (Our “timekeeping” sort of malfunctioned, so I win by default of having gone first. Publisher’s rules!)

Enjoy. And yes, “Wild Thing.”

Just in case I don’t have time to post (which is quite possible, since I talk to much and stay up too late), over the rest of the week I’m going to rerun our well-regarded “Making the Translator Visible” series, which came out of ALTA Pasadena.

These pieces are also contained in my ebook, “The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translation, and the Future of Reading,” which can be purchased for $2.99 at and the iBookstore. (And as a reminder, all the proceeds from the sales of this book go directly to supporting translators.)

Anyway, hopefully I’ll see some of you in Kansas City. And if not, I’ll let you know about all the fun and games over the next couple weeks.

So, in a blogging version of an “under construction” full-motion jpg, I thought I’d just give a brief preview of what we have planned for this week along with a few notes about my undying love of ALTA . . .

I guess for the benefit of anyone who isn’t already jacked into the translation community, it might be worthwhile explaining a bit about what ALTA is. Google will bring you to all sorts of orgs—Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association, American Land Title Association, etc.—this is actually the which is housed at the University of Texas-Dallas and is the only professional organization in America for literary translators.

There are a number of components to ALTA—a listserv for members, Translation Review, Annotated Books Received, so on and on—but the real cornerstone of the organization (for the time being, more on that later this week in one of my over-long, over-written posts) is the annual conference. Held throughout the country (next year it’s in Philly, and then New Orleans Kansas City Banff Nome, Alaska somewhere) in mid-October, it’s an amazing chance for literary translators of all languages and experience levels to come together to talk shop, share experiences, hook up with editors, create support networks, and enjoy the totally ALTA-coolness that comes from bringing together a few hundred over educated, linguistically obsessed, fun people.

I’m going to catch flack from someone(s) for any number of statements that are about to follow, but yeah, well, whatever. First off, ALTA is the best, bar none, conference that I attend on an annual basis. Kicks MLA’s collective academic ass. Makes BEA look boring. Not even Frankfurt is as warm, human, and inviting. This may be a result of my nerdy nature, but damn, hanging out with literary translators is so much fun. Where else can you learn about crazy Chinese signs? (The title of this post can be found outside a baggage claim at a Chinese airport.) And I’ve said this before in more subtle terms, but, well, the women who go into literary translation are awesome. And, as I always love to point out, they also tend to be short like me, which is totally brilliant.

Any one who’s interested in literary translation should definitely “join ALTA.“http://www.utdallas.edu/alta/meminfo.html It’s only $20 for students (and $80 for us old people), and definitely worth it. But I’ll write more about that and the future of ALTA later this week . . .

Speaking of which: in addition to a series of posts about ALTA—the panels, the people, the speeches, the fun—this week we’ll also kick off the “Making the Translator Visible” project. This is something Megan McDowell and I came up with at ALTA and consists of pictures of various translators along with info about their favorite word, translation, and book that needs to be in English. It was a lot of fun putting this together, and I’m excited to start posting about all of the cool translators . . . Also have a few reviews later this week, some stuff about the new issue of Two Lines, some more news about our retranslation of Ilf & Petrov’s The Golden Calf, info about the 2010 Best Translated Book Award (including dates for all the various announcements), previews of December translations and more more more.