enard – Three Percent

Today: Reading the World w/ Charlotte Mandell

N. J. Furl — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:43:01 +0000

To all those in the Rochester area, don’t forget that—today at 5:00 p.m. at the University of Rochester—celebrated French translator Charlotte Mandell (Balzac, Flaubert, Proust, et al.) will be reading from her new translation of Zone by Mathias Énard (a 517-page, one-sentence novel, forthcoming from Open Letter) and talking about the art of translation.

Here’s the .

Or just click on the flyer below to get all the primary details.

"It has a lot of commas."

N. J. Furl — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:38:32 +0000

The french novel Zone by Mathias Énard has been receiving some early press for a few reasons.

1. We’re publishing it (with an English translation by Charlotte Mandell) in spring 2010.
2. It’s about 500 pages.
3. It’s about 1 sentence.

The Chicago Tribune just ran an , including some helpful references to other long sentences with which you may be familiar. Within the article, Chad helpfully describes this incredible book:

Open Letter Books at the University of Rochester has purchased the rights to the book and expects to publish a translation by Charlotte Mandell in spring 2010, according to Chad Post, the press director.

But is the record-setter gibberish? Not at all, says Post.

“It’s told from inside this guy’s mind as he takes a train trip,” he says. “It has a lot of commas.”

Intrigued? Here’s a little excerpt.