João Guimarães Rosa

July 2008 update. See details of the Third Bank flaps here.

In their most recent print catalog, Archipelago announced a new translation of The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa (see my post about that book here). They will use the Portugese title, Grande Sertão. This is exciting news, especially because Archipelago works only with the finest translators (they haven't yet announced who will translate their edition). I'll update this post as more information becomes available.

I've scanned the other works by Rosa in English translation, both from Knopf. Check out the illustrated flaps from The Third Bank of the River.

July 2008 update. See details of the Third Bank flaps here.

If you are impatient to read Rosa, his story "My Uncle, The Jaguar" is contained in the anthology Masterworks of Latin American Fiction, along with stories by Marquez, Infante, Mutis, Carpentier, Cortazar, Felisberto Hernandez, and Ana Lydia Vega. It can be found for pennies (or rather, pennies plus shipping).

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands

Looking at this object I can tell Joao Guimaraes Rosa (excuse the lack of accents) was obviously well-loved by Alfred Knopf. Knopf himself is credited with the author photo, and check out the gorgeous decorations on the spine and front of the book. The whole package is just stunning -- publishing done right!

Robert Nedelkoff mentions in the comments on the Neglected Books site post that New Directions has plans to reprint The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. Please God do it.

If you are searching for this book, I'd suggest waiting for the reprint. This edition goes for hundreds of dollars at the moment. As far as I know, it was never available in paperback.

This post (along with the post below about A Life Full of Holes etc.) completes my scans of titles on "the list." My standard spiel about the list: Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000 (a list which helped me get a job in publishing). He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them). The permanent link for the list on Neglected Books. View all my posts about the list here.



The spine under the dustjacket:
Decoration from front panel:



Jaguar and Other Stories

A Life Full of Holes

I'm trying to tie up some loose ends on the blog. This post (along with the post above about The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) completes my scans of titles on "the list." My standard spiel about the list: Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000 (a list which helped me get a job in publishing). He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them). The permanent link for the list on Neglected Books. View all my posts about the list here.

I plan to re-read A Life Full of Holes soon and I'll post about it extensively. It is one of my holy books.

Nobel Prize winner, close friend of Celan, and out-of-print for years in the US. Apparently Green Integer is bringing out two volumes in March 2008.


I can't tell you much more about Langgasser. Read the flaps.







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Yitzhak Orpaz, The Death of Lysanda, and Cape Editions

Once again: Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000. He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them).

The permanent link for the list.


In the (late?) 60s, the British publisher Jonathan Cape Ltd/Grossman Publishers started an ambitious series of world literature called simply Cape Editions. See the scan below which lists the series up until their 41st title in 1970 (the Orpaz book is their 42nd). I don't know how long they were able to keep it up. I'll do some research on this publisher and especially their titles which have fallen out of print. ***

What a list. Just their French lit in translation causes my jaw to drop: Michel Leiris (Manhood), Roland Barthes, Baudelaire, Alfred Jarry (The Supermale), Francis Ponge (his wild Soap book), Breton, Butor. And then translations from Hrabal, Lichtenberg, Trakl. Incredible. I can't wait to find out who exactly was responsible for this series.

The back cover includes their credo:


***UPDATE, 11/15/07: It seems like Nathaniel Tarn was responsible for these books.
From the Stanford library site for his papers: "After publishing his first volume of poetry Old Savage/Young City in 1964 and a celebrated translation of Pablo Neruda's The Heights of Macchu Picchu in 1966, Tarn decided to concentrate his energies on literature. He served as the General Editor of Cape Editions and the Founding Editor of Cape-Goliard Press in London from 1967 until 1969, then returned to the United States in 1970. Two years later he assumed a professorship in comparative literature at Rutgers, which he held until his retirement in 1985. Today he lives outside Santa Fe, New Mexico."
I recognize Tarn's name from working at the Penn Book Center in the mid to late 90s. The owners were friends with him and frequently stocked his books, which I would flip through. I wish I would have tried to meet him when he lived outside Philadelphia.

Rene Daumal, A Night of Serious Drinking

This post now resides on my other site 50 Watts:

Villy Sorensen

Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000. He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them).

The permanent link for the list.







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The Downfall of the Gods (Modern Scandinavian Literature in Translation)
Harmless Tales
Another Metamorphosis and Other Fictions (European Short Stories Series)
Seneca: The Humanist at the Court of Nero
Strange Stories
Tiger in the Kitchen

Antonio Machado, Juan de Mairena

Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000. He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them).

The permanent link for the list.



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Hans Henny Jahnn, The Ship

***2008 Update: I started a separate blog for Hans Henny Jahnn here: http://kebadkenya.blogspot.com/

Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000. He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them).

The permanent link for the list.

10. The Ship by Hans Henny Jahnn (1894 - 1959)

This book is devastating. Even in the fairly rough English translation, it lodged in my brain and I consider it one of the more powerful and disturbing works of the twentieth century. I first encountered Jahnn in the collection Black Letters Unleashed -- an excerpt from The Ship called "Kebad Kenya," which can be read as a stand-alone story. "Kebad Kenya" is also contained in Thirteen Uncanny Stories. Try to find and read this story! I'll post some of it here soon.

Atlas Press published a translation of Jahnn's 1962 novella The Night of Lead. They say that it "shows Jahnn at his darkest: man is portrayed as the toy of supernatural powers, where his only certainty is a bodily existence which, in turn, is blindly bound to the laws of growth, death and decay and procreation - the major themes of Jahnn’s writing." This description can also apply to The Ship. Even after reading Lovecraft and Thomas Bernhard, I'm tempted to think of Jahnn as the most terrifying author. Bernhard can make me feel a little crazy (finishing Correction was one of the more masochistic things I've ever done, and I grew up on gore movies), but he's often hilarious. Jahnn isn't very funny. He's bleak and unrelenting bizarre.





Back cover of Thirteen Uncanny Stories:




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The Case of Hans Henny Jahnn: Criticism and the Literary Outsider (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)
The ship

Thomas Bernhard, Gathering Evidence

Brad, the editor of the great Neglected Books site [neglectedbooks.com], posted an annotated list of 20 out-of-print books I made in June of 2000. He added links to all the book titles. I'm going to post images of the books discussed (if I still have them).

The permanent link for the list.

9. Gathering Evidence by Thomas Bernhard.






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