Special Guest: Mauro Javier Cárdenas - Episode No. 36

01/24/21 • 64 min

We welcome special guest Mauro Javier Cárdenas, the author of the novels "Aphasia" and "The Revolutionaries Try Again." We discuss his place in the Latin American literary tradition alongside Roberto Bolano and Julio Cortázar; the influence of Thomas Bernhard's prose style; the subject matter of his yet unpublished third novel; why, as a native of Ecuador, he writes in English; Dr. Seuss; SQL queries; Roman Catholicism; and much more. To learn more about Cárdenas and to order his books, visit: https://www.maurojaviercardenas.com/ Music: “Sunday Smooth" by Scott Buckley, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License - www.scottbuckley.com.au.

Previous Episode

Transcreating Volter Kilpi - Episode No. 35

We speak with Finnish translator Douglas Robinson about his "transcreation" of the unfished manuscript "Gulliver’s Voyage to Phantomimia" by Finland's modernist master Volter Kilpi. We talk about Finnish literature, Aleksis Kivi, the "found manuscript" motif in literature, Vladimir Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin, the influence of Nabokov's "Pale Fire" on Robinson's project, the linguistic fun of Rabelais, translation in China, the joy of reading the classical Chinese poets, and much more. More on the book: https://zetabooks.com/all-titles/gullivers-voyage-to-phantomimia-a-transcreation-by-douglas-robinson/ Music: “Sunday Smooth" by Scott Buckley, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License - www.scottbuckley.com.au.

Next Episode

The Calvinism in Our Literature - Audio Essay Edition

Robert Fay's newest audio essay is inspired by an Alexander Theroux piece titled: “Theroux’s Metaphrastes: An Essay on Literature." Robert tries to understand why American fiction remains so linguistically stingy and wedded to "realist" and "minimalist" modes of expression. He looks at America's protestant inheritance, and finds interesting divergences between "Catholic" and "Calvinist" modes of art. You can read a text version of the essay here: https://robertfay.com/2021/02/the-calvinism-in-our-literature/ Music: “Sunday Smooth" by Scott Buckley, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License - www.scottbuckley.com.au.