| Best Books of 2007: Amazon Top 100 Editors' Pick and a New York Times Book Review choice for one of the 10 Best Books. See more in our Best Books of 2007 Store. | ||
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Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson
$17.82
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Out Stealing Horses: A Novel by Per Petterson
$11.20
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
$14.97
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Man Gone Down: A Novel by Michael Thomas
$6.49
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By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano
$11.16
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Questions for Translator Natasha Wimmer
Natasha Wimmer translated books by Mario Vargas Llosa and Bolaño's good friend Rodrigo Fresán, among others, before tackling Bolaño's two long novels, The Savage Detectives and the upcoming 2666, which have had an immeasurable impact on modern Latin American fiction (and perhaps now on Anglo American writing as well). We asked her a few questions about the process of bringing such a vast and vital book into English.
Amazon.com: How did you come to literary translation, and to translating a work of such prestige? Is the community of Spanish-to-English literary translators small, given Americans' famous lack of interest in translated work?
Wimmer: Luck, really. I lived in Spain when I was little, which is where I learned Spanish, and then I studied Spanish literature in college, but it was a job in publishing--at FSG, the publisher of The Savage Detectives--that made me realize that literary translation was something I could try. Ive been translating now for eight years. My first project was a novel by the Cuban writer Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Dirty Havana Trilogy, and since then Ive worked on books by Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Zaid, Rodrigo Fresán, and Laura Restrepo. When I read The Savage Detectives, I thought it was one of the best novels I had read in any language in years, but I was sure there was no chance I would get to tr