Why This Book Should Win – Works by BTBA Judge Scott Esposito

Monica Carter — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 11:03:22 +0000

This post is courtesy of BTBA judge, Scott Esposito. Scott Esposito blogs at and you can find his here.

– Edouard Levé, Translated byJan Steyn
Dalkeyy Archive Press

You really have to be impressed with the fact that Edouard Levé has had three books translated into English, and all three of them have hit the Best Translated Book Award longlist. Very few writers have had that honor.

I think what this points us toward is the fact that, despite some similarities among his books, each time Levé is doing something new and different. This, to me, is what book awards should be all about: awarding authors who show an incredible range, are willing to continually take risks, resist falling into patterns, and overall produce amazing results from original ideas.

Levé did all of these things consistently throughout his too-brief career, and if he were here now I’m sure he would still be doing just that. Works was his first book, and maybe his best. It’s simply just a bunch of descriptions of possible artworks that someone might make. Of course, a lot of people could come up with an idea like that for a book, but how many people could turn that idea into a brilliantly executed book that tears apart our notions of art while offering some of the most precise, beautiful writing of the year? And who other than Jan Steyn could bring it into such equally precise and beautiful English?

Maybe out of all the titles on the longlist, Works would permit the most rereadings, would still sound the freshest no matter how many times you read it and no matter how long from now you picked it back up. It has broad, fascinating notions about what art is or could be, and it’s loads and loads of fun. Levé was always subversive and comical, even if you couldn’t always tell exactly when he was being deadpan and when he wasn’t.

A book offering all this obviously deserves an award. There’s no other way to look at it.

Neologisms

Chad Post — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:00:35 +0000

This isn’t related to international literature per se, but Erin McKean’s is very interesting. And, maybe, tangentially related to issues translators face. (OK, it’s a stretch, although freeing themselves to come up with new words when necessary, could benefit some translations.)

Funner. Impactful. Blowiest. Territorialism. Multifunctionality. Dialoguey. Dancey. Thrifting. Chillaxing. Anonymized. Interestinger. Wackaloon. Updatelette. Noirish. Huger. Domainless. Delegator. Photocentric. Relationshippy. Bestest. Zoomable.

What do all these words have in common? Someone, somewhere, is using them with a disclaimer like “I know it’s not a real word . . .”

There’s no good reason for the “not a real word” stigma. They all look like English words: they’re written in the roman alphabet, without numbers or funny symbols. They’re all easily pronounced — not a qwrtlg or a gxrch in the group. From a purely functional point of view, they act like words: relationshippy in the sentence “Just come to the conclusion that boys don’t like talking about relationshippy things” behaves in exactly the same way that an adjective like girly would. [. . .]

As she points out, existing in a dictionary isn’t enough, nor is frequency, spellchecker recognition, frequency, or appearing in print. The real point of her piece though is to eliminate the “I know it’s not a real word” sentiment:

Furthermore, those same writers are giving up one of their inalienable rights as English speakers: the right to create new words as they see fit. Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I’m vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I’ve ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that fetch is now the word I want to use to mean “cool.”

So, last week I was talking with David from (an store whose kickassery nature I want to write about in more detail soon) about the need for a word to describe when a great idea gets all f’d up due to incompetence, poor execution, whatever. It happens all the time (I can think of five examples that I encountered over the past couple days) and it would be really useful to have a word to identify this . . . Any suggestions?

words – Three Percent

Why This Book Should Win – Works by BTBA Judge Scott Esposito

Neologisms