Last Name	First Name	Language	Annotation
Gai	Mori	Japanese	Mori _gai. The Wild Goose [Gan]. Tr. Burton Watson. The University of Michigan Press. 1995. 166 pp. Cloth: 0-939512-70-X. Paper: 0-939512-71-8. _gai, one of the giants of modern Japanese literature, wrote The Wild Goose at the turn of the century. Set in the 1880s, it was, for contemporary readers, a nostalgic return to a time when the nation was embarking on an era of dramatic change. _gai's narrator is a middle-aged man reminiscing about an unconsummated affair, dating to his student days, between his classmate and a young woman kept by a moneylender. The author's sympathetic and penetrating portrayal of the dilemmas and frustrations faced by women in this early period of Japan's modernization makes the story of particular interest to readers today. Watson has published over 30 translations from Chinese and Japanese literature. He has won Columbia University Translation Center's Gold Medal Award and has twice won the PEN Translation Prize.
Gai	Mori	Japanese	Mori _gai. The Wild Goose [Gan]. Tr. Burton Watson. The Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. 1995. 166 pp. Cloth: 0-939512-70-X. Paper: 0-939512-71-8. _gai, one of the giants of modern Japanese literature, wrote The Wild Goose at the turn of the century. Set in the 1880s, it was, for contemporary readers, a nostalgic return to a time when the nation was embarking on an era of dramatic change. _gai's narrator is a middle-aged man reminiscing about an unconsummated affair, dating to his student days, between his classmate and a young woman kept by a moneylender. The author's sympathetic and penetrating portrayal of the dilemmas and frustrations faced by women in this early period of Japan's modernization makes the story of particular interest to readers today. Watson has published over 30 translations from Chinese and Japanese literature. He has won Columbia University Translation Center's Gold Medal Award and has twice won the PEN Translation Prize.
Gailly	Christain	French	Gailly, Christian. The Passion of Martin Fissel-Brandt. Translated by Melanie Kemp with an introduction by Brian Evenson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Paper: $14.95; ISBN 0-8032-7097-6. Cloth: $45.00; ISBN 0-8032-2180-0. [La Passion de Martin Fissel-Brandt. Editions Minuit, 1999]. Christian Gailly is known for his experimental approach to narrative and a fascination with coincidence and often fantastic encounters or near encounters. The Passion of Martin Fissel-Brandt is concerned with Fissel-Brandt’s search in Asia for his lover Anna, who left him after she suspected that he might have murdered his wife in France. The Passion of Martin Fissel-Brandt is the first of Gailly’s novels to be translated into English. Melanie Kemp is a translator and has taught French literature courses. Brian Evenson is the author of Contagion: And Other Stories, Father of Lies, and Altmann’s Tongue: Stories and a Novella, available in a Bison Books edition.
Gaite	Carmen Martín	Spanish	Carmen Martín Gaite. The Farewell Angel [La Reina de las Nieves]. Tr. Margaret Jull Costa. Harvill. 1999 [Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona, 1994]. 336 pp. Cloth: ISBN 1-86046-357-6. Paper: $25.00; ISBN 1-86046-358-4. The Farewell Angel is a story about storytelling, about the determining power of stories to harm and to heal, to disturb and to redeem. The day he is released from prison, Leonardo learns of his parents' death in a car crash. He returns to their empty town house as a rich young man with a need to reconstruct his life out of fragments. At first he wants to be in the house alone, but in time his thoughts concentrate on the Quinta Blanca, the white house by the cliff edge where his childhood memories remain with his now dead grandmother, who nourished him on stories such as Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen." Carmen Martín Gaite published her first novel when she was only twenty-nine, and with it won the prestigious Premio Gijón. Margaret Jull Costa translated Gaite's novel, Variable Cloud, as well as works by Bernardo Atxaga and Javier Marías. Her translation of Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet made her a joint winner of the Portuguese translation prize.
Galanaki	Rhea	Greek	Rhea Galanaki. The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha: A Novel [O vios tou Ismail Ferik Passa]. Tr. Kay Cicellis. Peter Owen/Dufour Editions [AGRA, 1989]. 1996. 166 pp. Cloth: $29.95; ISBN 0-7206-0965-8. Captured as a prisoner of war during Greece's struggle for independence, Ismail Ferik Pasha is taken from Crete to Egypt. His name, his language, his religion and his identity are transformed, as he rises to become the Minister of War. But he remains haunted by the conflict between the land of his birth and his adoptive culture. Nearly 50 years after being taken captive, he returns to quell an uprising in Crete, and there he dies in battle. Based on historical events, this novel is a timely examination of nationalism and cultural identity, and an attempt to assimilate the Ottoman occupation into the Greek cultural heritage. Galanki's other works include poetry, short stories, and the novel I Shall Sign Louis (1993). She received the Nikos Kazantzakis Prize.
Galanaki	Rhea	Greek	Rhea Galanaki. I Shall Sign as Loui [Tha hypográpho Loui]. Tr. Helen Dendrinou Kolias. Evanston. Hydra Books/Northwestern University Press. 2000 [Agra Publications, Athens, 1993]. 201 pp. Cloth: $26.95; ISBN 0-8101-1737-1. In I Shall Sign as Loui, Rhea Galanaki creates a powerful and passionate story of the life of a historical figure as told through fictional letters. Loui has grown up in western Greece and has been educated in Italy. He befriends Victor Hugo and Edgar Quinet, travels in the same circles as Karl Marx, and participates in the Italian underground and student uprisings in support of Garibaldi. Loui's letters to Louisa cover a lifetime spent traveling across Europe, from Patras and the Ionian Islands to Italy and Paris, and his experiences in the revolutionary movements of 19^th-century Europe and America. Considered Greece's foremost woman novelist, Galanaki is the author of two other novels: The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha and Eleni, or No One. Helen Dendrinous Kolias has translated the autobiography of Elisavet Moutzan-Martinengou.
Galanaki	Rhea	Greek	Rhea Galanaki. I Shall Sign as Loui [Tha hypográpho Louí]. Tr. Helen Dendrinou Kolias. Evanston, IL. Hydra Books/Northwestern University Press. 2000 [Agra Publications, Athens, 1993]. 201 pp. Cloth: $26.95; ISBN 0-8101-1737-1. Considered to be Greece's foremost woman novelist, Rhea Galanaki presents here a powerful and passionate story of the life of a historical figure told through fictional letters. Loui has grown up in western Greece and has been educated in Italy. He befriends Victor Hugo and Edgar Quinet, travels in the same circles as Karl Marx, and participates in the Italian underground and student uprisings in support of Garibaldi. His "letters" cover a life spent traveling across Europe, from Patras and the Ionian Islands to Italy and Paris, and relate his experience in the revolutionary movements of the mid-19^th century. Galanaki's previous novels include The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha and Eleni, or No One. Helen Dendrinou Kolias has previously translated the biography of Elisaver Moutzan-Martinengou.
Galdós	Benito Pérez	Spanish	Benito Pérez Galdós. Nazarín. Trs. Robert S. Rudder and Gloria Arjona. Latin American Literary Review Press/Consortium Books Sales & Distribution. 1997. 200 pp. Paper: $15.95; ISBN 0-935480-75-7. Nazarín is the humorously told adventure of a pure man--a defrocked priest with two penitent prostitutes as his only companions--journeying barefoot and poor through an impure world. On a spiritual quest to follow the difficult path of a good Christian life, Nazarín wanders amongst the man-made miracles of the technological age seeking spiritual enlightenment through a medieval understanding of mysticism.
Galindo	Sergio	Spanish	Sergio Galindo. Otilia's Body [Otilia Rauda]. Trs. Carolyn and John Brushwood. University of Texas Press. 1994 [1986]. 225 pp. Cloth: $37.50; ISBN 0-292-72769-0. Paper: $15.95; ISBN 0-292-72770-4. Winner of Mexico's Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1986, Otilia's Body is here translated into English for the first time. The novel unfolds the drama of a sexually liberated woman's obsession with an outlaw lover, played against the backdrop of events in Mexican history from 1910 to 1940 as they affected conservative, provincial society in the state of Veracruz. Galindo and his contemporaries initiated "intimist" fiction in Mexico, and Otilia's Body is noteworthy for its penetratingly described characters who transcend the limits of time and place to become universally recognizable. Winner of both the José Fuentes Mares Prize and the Mariano Azuela Prize, Galindo was the author of 13 novels and many shorter works. Translator Carolyn Brushwood's works include Galindo's The Precipice. John Brushwood's writings include Mexico in its Novel, also published by UT Press.
Galvão	Patriícia	Portuguese	Patrícia Galvão (Pagu). Industrial Park [Parque Industrial]. Trs. Elizabeth and K. David Jackson. University of Nebraska Press. 1993. 153 pp. Cloth: ISBN 0-8032-2147-9. Paper: ISBN 0-8032-7041-0. The Brazilian Galvão's novel's "...treatment of race and class compared favorably with that of proletarian novels of the same period by Jorge Amado but added a valuable urban, feminist perspective that had not been available before." Her work presents "the failures of early industrialization through the stories of individual women and by daring to treat issues of abuse of workers, political confrontation, and sexual exploitation.... She portrayed city life in short, expressive, simple and concise scenes" (Introduction).
Gambaro	Griselda	Spanish	Griselda Gambaro. Information for Foreigners. Ed. and Tr. Marguerite Feitlowitz. Northwestern University Press. 1992. 175 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-8101-1033-4. Each of the three plays in this collection represents a critical period in Argentina's sociopolitical turmoil, and a critical point in the development of Gambaro's own voice. The title play, Information for foreigners (1972), deals with the theme of random and meaningless "punishment" at the hands of an oppressive regime, and the unwillingness of its citizens to accept the truth or to intervene. Griselda Gambaro. Bad Blood [La malasangre]. Tr. Marguerite Feitlowitz. Dramatic Publishing. 1994. 69 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-87129-458-3. This play by one of Argentina's most prominent writers has become a classic. The play was originally performed in Buenos Aires in 1982, during the last days of the military regime responsible for the "Dirty War," in which some 30,000 citizens were tortured and disappeared. It provides an "unblinking insight into what becomes of people under an arbitrary tyranny...."
García	Carlos Ernesto	Spanish	Carlos Ernesto García. Even Rage Will Rot [Hasta la cólera se pudre]. Tr. Elizabeth Gamble Miller. Cross-Cultural Communications [seuBa edicioneS, 1994]. 1994. 48 pp. Cloth: $15.00; 0-89304-162-9. Paper: $5.00; 0-89304-163-7. Latin American Writers Chapbook 5. Bilingual collection of works written in exile by this Salvadoran poet. "In his poems the experience and emotions of the years both in El Salvador and in his travels in Europe are evoked through carefully selected images....The poet's sense of irony, tender humor, and compassion permeates the substance of his poetry, which often carries the burden of the tragic and even macabre..." (Miller).
Gatsos	Nikos	Greek	Nikos Gatsos. Amorgos. Tr. Sally Purcell. Anvil Press Poetry/Dufour Editions. 1998. 60 pp. Paper: $16.95; ISBN 0-85646-302-7. Nikos Gatsos's profoundly mysterious and magnetic poem Amorgos, named after a Greek island he never visited, is the single work on which his reputation rests. Written during the Nazi Occupation, the poem is an incantation on the theme of loss and hope—a unique blend of surrealism, symbolism and folk song that is both lyrical and erotic, sometimes celebratory and sometimes bitter. Although it was hugely influential on the postwar generation of Greek poets, Gatsos abandoned poetry after its publication in 1943 and wrote only popular songs, for which he was later renowned. Sally Purcell's translation of Amorgos has twice appeared in limited editions from Other Poetry Editions, Hay-on-Wye (1980) and Zodion Press, Athens (1986). The only changes that have been made are slight adjustments in hyphenation and punctuation, and bringing the translated paragraphing into line with that of the Greek text.
Gatsos	Nikos	Greek	Nikos Gatsos. Amorgos. Tr. Sally Pucell. London. Anvil Press Poetry/Dufour Editions. 1998 [1943]. 64 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-85646-302-7. Nikos Gatsos's mysterious and magnetic poem, Amorgos, named after a Greek island he never visited, was written during the Nazi occupation and is the single work upon which his reputation rests. It was much admired by Nobel laureats Odysseus Elytis and George Seferis, and was influential on the post-war generation of Greek poets. However, after its publication, Gatsos abandoned poetry and wrote only popular songs. He also translated poetry and plays by Lorca, O'Neill, Strindberg, de Vega, Genet, and Tennessee Williams into Greek. Sally Purcell's translation of Amorgos has twice appeared in limited editions published in England (1980) and Athens (1986). This volume adjusts minor inconsistencies in hyphenation and punctuation, and brings the paragraphing into line with that of the Greek text.
Gelman	Juan	Spanish	Juan Gelman. Unthinkable Tenderness: Selected Poems. Ed. and Tr. Joan Lindgren. University of California Press. 1997. 188 pp. Cloth: ISBN 0-520-20586-3. Paper: ISBN 0-520-20587-1. Here is the chanticleer of the city of Buenos Aires. Juan Gelman does not imitate the tango; he contains it. His are pure words, and never innocent: certainties that dwell in doubt, liberties that live imprisoned, and a celebration of life from the exact center of death.
Genis	Alexander	Russian	Alexander Genis. Red Bread. Moscow. Various translators. Glas. US Distributor: Ivan R. Dee. 2000. 192 pp. Paper: $14.95; ISBN 15-7172-0050-1. Glas New Russian Writing, vol. 24. One of the best essayists writing in Russian today, Alexander Genis inhabits that stimulating borderland between the civilizations of Russia and America. Each of the essays in Red Bread represents an existing book or manuscript in Russian. "The View from the Window" (tr. Natalie Roy) is taken from a series of comparative cultural studies of America and Russia at the end of the 20^th century; "Red Bread" (tr. Matthew Guenther, Lisa Conathan, Beth Cassavell, John C. Smith, and Lev Loseff) is an excerpt from the Culinary History of Soviet Russia; "USA from A to Y" (tr. Anthony Perry) comes from Genis's cultural dictionary of America; "Brodsky in New York" (tr. Jamey Gambrell) belongs to a series on contemporary Russian and world literature; and "Darkness and Silence"(tr. Seth Graham) is a poem-essay combining Eastern and Western perceptions of life that was published by itself in an illustrated edition. Glas, published approximately four times each year, offers the best of contemporary Russian writing in English translation, edited by Natasha Perova in Moscow and Arch Tait in England, and published in a trade paperback format.
Germain	Sylvie	French	Sylvie Germain. The Book of Tobias [Tobie des Marais]. Tr. Christine Donougher. Sawtry, U.K. Dedalus. U.S. Distributor: Subterranean. 2000 [Editions Gallimard, 1998]. 196 pp. Paper: $12.99; ISBN 1-873982-39-9. Dedalus Europe 200: Contemporary European Fiction in Translation. The Book of Tobias sees Sylvie Germain return to France and a strong story line after the atmospheric "bleak" novels of her Prague cycle. This book has the gritty realism, emotional power, rich imagery, and religious symbolism that has made her universally admired in the English-speaking world. Earlier novels by Germain include The Book of Nights (U.K. 1992; David Godine, 1993),The Medusa Child (U.K. 1994; U.S. 1998), The Weeping Woman on the Streets of Prague (1998), Infinite Possibilities (1998), Night of Amber (U.K. 1996; David Godine, 2000), and Days of Anger (U.K. 1993; forthcoming David Godine). Dedalus will publish L'éclat du sel, also translated by Christine Donougher, in 2002.
Germain	Sylvia	French	Sylvie Germain. Night of Amber [Nuits-d'ambre]. Tr. Christine Donougher. Boston. Verba Mundi Original by David R. Godine. 2000 [Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1987; Dedalus, Great Britain, 1995; 1999]. 336 pp. Cloth: $23.95; ISBN 1-56792-090-X. First American Edition. The sequel to Sylvie Germain's acclaimed The Book of Nights (Godine, 1993), which this present work brings to conclusion, Night of Amber continues the grotesque, fantastic, and riveting story of the Peniel family. The hero of the story is Charles-Victor, whom everyone would call Night-of-amber-Wind-of-fire. His lonely childhood lands him in Paris during the May 1968 riots, where he becomes involved with a band of dangerous companions in a whirlwind situation that spins uncontrollably into sadism, murder, and ultimately, redemption. Christine Donougher's translation of The Book of Nights won the Scott-Moncrieff Translation Prize. She has also translated works by Françoise Sagan, Camillo Boito, and Jan Potocki.
Ghanem	Fathy	Arabic	Fathy Ghanem. The Man Who Lost His Shadow [al-Rajul alladhi faqada zillub]. Tr. Desmond Stewart. The American University in Cairo Press/Columbia University Press. 1995. 352 pp. Cloth: $40.00; ISBN 977-424-347-1. This novel tells the story of Yusif Abdul Hamid, a young and ambitious Cairo journalist, through the eyes of four people in turn: Mabruka, the young peasant girl who marries Yusif's aging father while strongly attracted to Yusif; Samia, a minor actress, whom Yusif lives with and almost marries but in the end rejects; Muhammad Nagi, the newspaper editor who then marries Samia and who is pushed out of his job by Yusif; and finally Yusif himself, editor-in-chief of al-Ayyam, a stranger to himself. Ghanem has been editor of Sabah al-Khair and editor-in-chief of al-Gumhuriya.
Giardinelli	Mempo	Spanish	Mempo Giardinelli. The Tenth Circle [El décimo infierno]. Tr. Andrea G. Labinger. Pittsburgh. Latin American Literary Review Press. 2001 [Editorial Colibri, Mexico, 1999; Editorial Planeta, Argentina, 1999]. 93 pp. Paper: $13.95; ISBN 1-891270-10-9. Series: Discoveries. Argentinian Mempo Giardinelli is a renowned author who has been published in Spanish in the United States with great success. His new novella, The Tenth Circle, is similar in content and theme to the best-selling Sultry Moon (1998), Giardinelli's first novel to be translated into English that was originally published in 1983. It details a crime spree, including multiple murders, undertaken by "respectable" businessman Alfredo Romero and his adulterous lover Griselda.
Gilliams	Maurice	Dutch	Maurice Gilliams. Elias, or The Struggle with the Nightingales. Tr. André Lefevere. Sun & Moon Press/Consortium Book Sales. 1995. 126 pp. Paper: $12.95; ISBN 1-55713-206-2. Elias was published in 1936 as the first part of a trilogy that includes Winter in Antwerp (1953) and A Wedding at Elsinore (1982). It is the story of the young Elias, who, sent to live within a large, mysterious house of aunts and uncles, grows up, less under the tutelage of the adults than that of the older cousin, Aloysius. While this is in many ways a traditional story of childhood, in Gilliams' hands the tale becomes transformed into a world of dark and foreboding adults who hover over in supposed love, while the children discover love within themselves.
Girondo	Oliverio	Spanish	Girondo, Oliverio. Scarecrow and Other Anomalies. Bilingual. Translated by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert with an anti-preface by Karl August Kvitko. Riverside, CA: Xenos Books, 2002. 192 pp. Paper: $15.00. ISBN 1-879378-21-3. This volume is a bilingual edition and first-time English translation of works that inspired the film The Dark Side of the Heart (1994) which was directed by Eliseo Subiela. Included in the collection are“Invitation to Vomit,” “It’s All Drool,” and “Lunarlude.” The book contains all of the most fantastic symbolist, futurist, cubist, surrealist, expressionist, anarchist, dadaist, existentialist, and post-modernist compositions that are possible in a single volume.
Glissant	Edouard	French	Edouard Glissant. The Fourth Century [La Quatrième Siècle]. Tr. Betsy Wing. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. 2001 [Gallimard, 1997]. 295 pp. Cloth: $40.00; ISBN 0-8032-2174-6. Paper: $20.00; ISBN 0-8032-7083-6. The Fourth Century tells of the quest by young Mathieu Béluse to discover the lost history of his country, Martinique. Aware of the officially recorded version he learned in school omits and distorts, he turns to a quimboiseur named Papa Longoué, who knows the oral tradition and its relation to the powers of the land and the forces of nature. He tells of the love-hate relationship between the Longoué and Béluse families, whose ancestors were brought as slaved to Martinique. Upon arrival, Longoué immediately escaped and went to live in the hills as a maroon; Béluse remained in slavery. The intense relationship that had formed between the two men in Africa continued and came to encompass the relations between their masters, or in the case of Longoué, his would-be master and their descendents. The Fourth Century closes the gap between the families as Papa Longoué, last of his line, conveys the history to Mathieu Béluse, who becomes his heir. One of the foundational figures of Francophone literature, Edouard Glissant also wrote Black Salt: Poems and Poetics of Relation, which were also translated by Betsy Wing.
Godbout	Jacques	French	Jacques Godbout. The Golden Galarneaus [Le temps des Galarneau]. Tr. Patricia Claxton. Coach House Press/Ira Silverberg Communications [Éditions du Seuil, 1993]. 1995. 128 pp. Paper: $11.95; ISBN 0-88910-487-5. It was 25 years ago, during a spell in a psychiatric hospital, that François wrote his best-selling book about his life as a hot-dog vender. He is now fiftyish and cured, and is employed as head security guard at the Garland Mall, a job that allows him to observe humanity and also to read a lot. François dreams of being reunited with his two brothers─Jacques, now in Paris, where he is busy writing his great novel, and Arthur, who is either a charlatan or terrorist according to the moment. Instead, the ever romantic François is caught up in a chaotic sequence of events: having married in Paris, he separates in Montreal, falls in love in Philadelphia, steals art in New York, and flirts with space travel in French Guyana where, at last, his brothers are supposed to join him. Godbout has published more than 20 books; only three have been published in English, including Knife on the Table (1968), Hail Galarneau! (1970), and Dragon Island (1978).
Goethe	Johann Wolfgang	German	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Wilhelm Meister's Theatrical Calling [Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung]. Ed. James Hardin. Tr. John R. Russell. Camden House, Inc. 1995. 250 pp. Cloth: 1-57113-018-7. This book is the first modern English translation of the long-lost original version, only discovered in 1910, of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. At its center stands the theater. In following its youthful protagonist, we are systematically exposed to its many manifestations which characterize its development: from marionettes and child's play through acrobatics, vaudeville and circus down to court theater and, ultimately, modern theater reflecting middle-class, urban life. Goethe's work on the novel was interrupted in the late 1780s, and he later abandoned it. The Calling provides much material not found in the Apprenticeship and an entirely different view of the protagonist's family. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Collected Works, Vol. 2: Faust I & II. Ed. and Tr. Stuart Atkins. Princeton University Press. 1994. 329 pp. Cloth: ISBN 3-518-03055-8. Paper: ISBN 0-691-03656-X. Goethe's most complex and profound work, Faust was the effort of the poet's entire lifetime and can be read as a document of his moral and artistic development. The language of this completely new translation is present day English, and Goethe's formal and rhythmic variety is reproduced in all its richness. A short essay affords the reader an understanding of Goethe's considerations as he composed the drama over six decades, and the notes elucidate allusions that may be obscure to an English reader. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Collected Works, Vol. 4: From My Life Poetry and Truth (Parts One to Three) [Aus meinem Leben]. Eds. Thomas P. Saine and Jeffrey L. Sammons. Tr. Robert R. Heitner. Princeton University Press. 1994. 512 pp. Paper: $18.95; ISBN 0-691-03797-3. Covering the period from his birth in 1749 to his departure for Weimar in 1775, Goethe recalls his childhood and youth as the son of well-to-do, middle-class parents, his education and literary awakening, early loves, and the creation and reception of works from his Sturm und Drang years. Not merely an account of Goethe's own life, this book also explores the influences of his early years─friends, mentors, famous personages of his time, intellectual movements, cities, and historical events─to draw a lifelike picture of his time. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe: The Collected Works: Vol. 8: Verse Plays and Epic. Eds. Cyrus Hamlin and Frank Ryder. Trs. Michael Hamburger, David Luke, and Hunter Hannum. Princeton University Press. 1995. 318 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-691-04343-4. This volume presents the four plays and the narrative poem that, along with Faust, established Goethe as one of the masters of European verse drama and epic. These works in particular display a balance between poetic form and ethical sensibility that characterizes much of Goethe's work during the era of Weimar Classicism. Here we are offered new translations of the dramas Iphigenia in Tauris, Torquato Tasso, The Natural Daughter, and Pandora and of the epic poem Hermann and Dorothea. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe: The Collected Works: Vol. 9: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Ed. and Tr. Eric A. Blackall. Princeton University Press. 1995. 387 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-691-04344-2. Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, a novel of self-realization greatly admired by the Romantics, has been called the first Bildungsroman and has had a tremendous influence on the history of the German novel. The story centers on Wilhelm, a young man living in the mid-1700s who strives to break free from the restrictive world of economics and seeks fulfillment as an actor and playwright. Along with Eric Blackall's fresh translation of the work, this edition contains notes and an afterword by the translator that aims to put this novel into historical and artistic perspective for 20th-century readers while showing how it defies categorization.
Gogol	Nikolai	Russian	Nikolai Gogol. Plays and Petersburg Tales. Ed. and Tr. Christopher English. Oxford University Press. 1995. 358 pp. Paper: $6.95; ISBN 0-19-282881-9. In these tales Gogol guides us through the elegant streets of St. Petersburg, said to be "built on bones" as so many perished in its construction. Something of the deception and fury of the city's creation seems to lurk beneath its harmonious facade, however, and it confounds its inhabitants with false dreams and absurd visions. St. Petersburg is also the setting for "Marriage," Gogol's satire on courtship and cowardice. Finally, for "The Government Inspector," a great comedy, we move to the provinces, although even here St. Petersburg's preoccupation with status and appearances makes itself felt.
Gogol	Nikolai	Russian	Nikolai Gogol. The Collected Works of Nikolai Gogol. Tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Vokokhonsky. Vintage Classics/Random House. 1999. 839 pp. Paper: $15.00; ISBN 0-679-43023-7. When Gogol left his Ukrainian village in 1828 to seek his fortune in St. Petersburg, he began composing these marvelous stories—tales that combine the wide-eyed, credulous imagination of the peasant with the sardonic social criticism of the city-dweller. Collected here are Gogol's finest tales, from the demon-haunted "St. John's Eve" to the strange surrealism of "The Nose," the heartrending trials of the copyist in "The Overcoat", and those of the delusional clerk in "The Diary of a Madman." The stories are arranged chronologically in two sections: Ukrainian Tales and Petersburg Tales. Translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky bring the same clarity and fidelity to the original that they brought to their translation of Gogol's classic novel Dead Souls and to their award-winning translations of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Demons.
Gombrowicz	Witold	Polish	Witold Gombrowicz. Trans-Atlantyk. Trs. Carolyn French and Nina Karsov. Yale University Press [Institut Littéraire SARL, 1970]. 1994. 122 pp. Cloth: ISBN 0-300-0538403. Trans-Atlantyk is a semi-autobiographical, satirical novel that throws into heightened perspective all of Gombrowicz's major literary, philosophical, psychological, and social concerns. It is based on the author's experience of being caught in Argentina at the outbreak of World War II. The narrator finds himself alone, without family and friends, at odds with the Argentinian literary world and with Polish emigré society. Throughout the book, Gombrowicz ridicules the self-centered pomposity of the Polish community in Argentina. More than this, he explores with prophetic vision the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world. Gombrowicz's other novels, Ferdydurke, Pornografia, and Cosmos, his plays, and his three-volume Diary have been translated into over 30 languages.
Grass	Günter	German	Günter Grass. Cat and Mouse: And Other Writings. Ed. A. Leslie Willson. Continuum Books. 1994. 293 pp. Cloth: $29.50; ISBN 0-8264-0732-3. Paper: $14.95; ISBN 0-8264-0733-1. The German Library, Volume 93. This volume features two important works: Cat and Mouse (Tr. Ralph Manheim) and The Meeting at Telgte, as well as a selection of poems and speeches.
Grass	Günter	German	Günter Grass. My Century [Main Jahrhundert]. Tr. Michael Henry Heim. San Diego. Harvest/Harcourt. 2000 [Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 1999]. 288 pp. Cloth: $30.00; ISBN 0-15-601265-0. Paper: $13.00; ISBN 0-15-601141-7. As both a novel and short-story collection, My Century is one of Günter Grass's virtuoso demonstrations of fiction as a focus on reality. Rendered in a series of postcard moments—which take on a the familiarity of those from a friend—each year of the past century is given a chapter that surprises, entertains, and saddens with the bittersweet of recollection. Yet as year succumbs to year and one narrative voice piles on top of the next, My Cemtury becomes more than individual stories. Throughout his wanderings in that maze, Grass never fails to take on the truth of accepted wisdom as it had been given to us. Günter Grass. Too Far Afield [Ein Weites Feld]. Tr. Krishna Winston. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book by Harcourt. 2000 [Steidl Verlag, Gottingen, 1995]. 672 pp. Cloth: $30.00; ISBN 0-15-100230-4. With his latest novel, Nobel laureate Günter Grass ventures into controversial territory by considering the question of whether the recent reunification of East and West Berlin has been good for Germany, Europe, and the world. Two men, both in their 70s and both employed by Treuhand, the agency in charge of privatizing former East German state enterprises, cope with life in Berlin after the fall of the Wall in 1989. One is trying desperately to save the old open-cabin elevator which has carried the famous and powerful up—and down again—and the other seeks relief from the burdens of office by roller-skating around the corriders at night. Grass writes with the wit, fantasy, literary erudition, and the political acerbity for which he is celebrated, telling a deeply human story laced with equal measures of pain and humor.
Grenier	Roger	French	Roger Grenier. Piano Music for Four Hands [Partita]. Tr. and preface Alice Kaplan. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. 2001 [Gallimard, 1991]. 153 pp. Cloth: $45.00; ISBN 0-8032-2181-9. Paper: $15.00; ISBN 0-8032-7087-9. Piano Music for Four Hands is a novel about music and love set against three generations of French history. At its center is a charming but melancholy pianist named Michel Mailhoc. Having survived a series of bungled love affairs and professional disappointments, he retreats to his family house in the Pyrenees. The bright spot in his life is his grandniece Emma, who becomes his prizewinning student. Struggling with his fervent desire for her success and the fear of losing her, Michel sends Emma into the world of international music stardom that he has renounced for himself. The Mailhoc family saga, stretching from World War I to the turbulent 1960s, is full of sorrow, but the underlying melody remains tender and humorous. Roger Grenier is the author of over 30 books of fiction and criticism, including Another November (Nebraska 1998) and The Difficulty of Being a Dog. He is known for his spare language and melancholy wit and for decades has been a key figure in French letters. Alice Kaplan is the author, most recently, of The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach.
Grossman	David	Hebrew	David Grossman. The Book of Intimate Grammar [Sefer Hadikduk Hapnimi]. Tr. Betsy Rosenburg. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1994. 343 pp. Cloth: $22.00; ISBN 0-374-11547-8. At twelve, Aron Kleinfeld is the ringleader among the boys in his Jerusalem neighborhood, their inspiration in dreaming up games and adventures. But as his friends begin to mature, Aron remains imprisoned for three long years in the body of a child. While Israel inches toward the Six-Day War, and while the voices of his friends change and become strange to him, Aron lives in his child body as though in a nightmare. Like a spy in enemy territory, he learns to decipher the internal codes of sexuality and desire, to understand the unyielding bureaucracy of the human body. Buried between childhood and adulthood, between the pure and the profane, he is like a volcano of emotions and impulses. But like his hero Houdini, Aron still struggles to escape from the trap of growing up. Grossman is also the author of The Yellow Wind (1987) and Sleeping on a Wire (1993).
Gruber	Marianne	German	Gruber, Marianne. Calm. Translated with an afterword by Margaret T. Peischl. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2001. 175 pp. Paper: $18.50. ISBN 1-57241- 099-X. [Windstille. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, 1995]. Calm is the story of the murder of a Slovenian kitchen maid and the search for her murderer. Businessman Pratt comes under suspicion, and the story thereby delves into the basic human issues of alienation, loneliness, aging, and death. Marianne Gruber is the recipient of several distinguished literature prizes. She has written poems, short stories, essays, children’s stories and novels. Calm is her third work to be translated into English, after The Sphere of Glass (1993) and The Death of the Plover and Trace of the Buckskin (1994). Translator Margaret T. Peischl is Associate Professor of German and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has written primarily on nineteenth-century German literature, as well as on Marianne Gruber, and is the translator of the author’s Death of the Plover and Trace of the Buckskin (Ariadne, 1994).
Gruber	Marianne	German	Marianne Gruber. The Death of the Plover & Trace of the Buckskin [Tod des Regenpfeifers. Zwei Erzählungen]. Tr. Margaret T. Peischl. Ariadne Press [S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, 1991]. 1994. 119 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-929497-91-0. Set in a remote Austrian village, both The Death of the Plover and Trace of the Buckskin depict strong-willed individuals who review their flawed lives honestly and courageously and confront their impending deaths with dignity. Both the blind midwife Theresa and the aging farmer Unger are distinguished from their lesser fellowmen by virtue of their integrity and strength of character.
Gruša	Jiri	Czech	Jiri Gruša. The Questionnaire [Dotazník, aneb modlitba za jedno město a příele]. Tr. Peter Kussi. Normal, IL. Dalkey Archive Press. 2000 [Sixty-Eight Publishers Corp., Toronto, 1978; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982]. 278 pp. Paper: $12.95; ISBN 1-56478-227-1. First Dalkey Archive Edition. In his preface, Josef Škvorecký states that the The Questionnaire is a political novel in the same way that Heart of Darkness is one. "There is a skeletal plot which indicates social criticism but it disappears under the living flesh of the book's texture." There is satire, not of the hilarious variety but rather the blackish humor of profound art. And there is poetry—the "magic realism" as the pre-World War II Czech poet Josef Hora demanded it of novelists, which has nothing to do with García Marquez. In the final analysis, the book is a multifaceted examination of the veritable condition humaine, not just the specific situation of the subjects of modern dictatorships which (at least in Europe) disappeared with the fall of communism.
Gstrein	Norbert	German	Norbert Gstrein. The Register [Das Register]. Tr. Lowell A. Bangerter. Ariadne Press [Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1982]. 1995. 265 pp. Paper: ISBN 1-57241-012-4. After years of estrangement, two brothers, Moritz, who gave up an unsatisfying university career teaching mathematics, and Vinzenz, who was a former champion skier, come home to attend the wedding of their former girlfriend Magda. During an uncomfortable confrontation with their sister Kreszenz, and against the background of the festivities that take place the following day, they are forced to come to grips with their past. Memories of shared and individual experiences; revelations of a basic self-centeredness that lies at the heart of their failure to find lasting meaning for their lives; scenes of brief happiness, brutality, loneliness, conflict; a recurring preoccupation with death─all call into question the validity of a modern existence that promotes the cause of the individual at the expense of interhuman relationships. Bangerter's translations include: Margareta Glas-Larsson, I Want to Speak; Peter Marginter, The Baron and the Fish; Jeannie Ebner, The Bengal Tiger and Three Flute Notes; Janko Ferk, The Condemned Judge; Alexander Giese, Lerida or The Long Shadow; and Anna Mitgutsch, In Foreign Cities.
Guanzhong	Luo	Chinese	Luo Guanzhong. Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel [San kuo chih yen i]. Tr. Moss Roberts. University of California Press. 1991. 1096 pp. Cloth: ISBN 0-520-06821-1. In a foreword by John S. Service, the Three Kingdoms "is as important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West...the novel, an important piece of world literature, offers a startling and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought during and after the Han dynasty." Not only does the novel reflect Chinese history, but it shapes attitudes and perceptions of modern-day China. The author lived sometime in the 14th century as a novelist and dramatist and played an important role in the development of Chinese popular fiction. In the acknowledgment, Moss Roberts states that the novel appeared in an abridged version in 1976, but that limited version contained mistakes, which Roberts corrected in his translation of the novel in its entirety. Roberts is a Professor of Chinese at New York University and also translated Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies in 1979. In an extensive afterword, Roberts expands on various aspects of the novel: historical origins of the story, lineage of the Han dynasty, sources for the novel, Chinese fiction, Han nationalism, the Ming dynasty, and Mao Zonaggang's comprehensive inter-textual commentary. Additionally, included at the end of the novel is a descriptive list of the principal characters, a chronology of main events in the novel, and a translated list of Chinese titles, terms, and offices mentioned in the novel. The Notes after the novel encompass 90 pages of historical commentary and in-depth explanations.
Guanzhong	Luo	Chinese	Luo Guanzhong. Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel – Abridged Edition. Tr. and afterword Moss Roberts. Foreign Languages Press/University of California Press. 1998. 488 pp. Cloth: $50.00; ISBN 0-520-21584-2. Paper: $19.95; ISBN 0-520-21585-0. Three Kingdoms tells the story of the fateful last reign of the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) when the Chinese empire was divided into three warring kingdoms. Writing some twelve hundred years later, the Ming author Luo Guanzhong drew on histories, dramas, and poems portraying the crisis to fashion a sophisticated, compelling narrative that has become the Chinese national epic. This abridged edition captures the novel’s intimate and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this masterpiece continues to be widely influential in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, and remains today a great work of world literature. Moss Roberts has also translated an unabridged edition of Three Kingdoms (Californi, 1992), and is the translator and editor of Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (1979).
Guerra	Tonino	Italian	(Romagnole) Tonino Guerra. Abandoned Places. Tr. Adria Bernardi. Guernica. 1999. 155 pp. Paper: $12.00; ISBN 1-55071-030-3. Essential Poets Series 74. In this collection of poetry, Italian screenwriter and poet Tonino Guerra captures the harshness and the magic of a culture and language that have disappeared. The original poems, written in the dialect of the montanari of Santarcangelo di Romagna in the province of Forlì, reflect the mixture of sardonic humor and whimsy for which he is known in his work with film directors such as Fellini and Antonioni. Included in this anthology are poems from four books: Il miele [The Honey], La capanna [The Hut], Il viaggio [The Journey], and Il libro delle chiese abbandonate [The Book of Abandoned Churches]. Translator Adria Barbardi found echoes of her own ancestry in Guerra's verse: "In these poems, I found things. Things? Lost things. Things I was not conscious of having lost, things I did not necessarily miss, but when I found these things, stumbled upon them, brushed against them, had them hurled from the pages at me, I recognized them immediately. They were fragments from somewhere far away, in memory, something like the aroma of rosemary, a smell so powerful, as Guerra writes in Il viaggio, it hits you from behind."
Guillén	Nicolás	Spanish	Nicolás Guillén. New Love Poetry/Nueva poesía de amor. Ed. and Tr. Keith Ellis. University of Toronto Press. 1994. 159 pp. Cloth: $45.00; ISBN 0-8020-0427-X. Bilingual. In 1966 Guillén, the acclaimed National Poet of Cuba, wrote a book of 15 poems dealing with a rupture in his affair with Sara Casal, to whom he dedicated the book. Expressing a profound sense of loss, Guillén's poems take the form of a conversation with the absent loved one, and also a series of subtle dialogues with figures in world literature, including Dante, Malherbe, Bécquer, Neruda, and Rulfo. As an epilogue, Ellis includes a previously unpublished sonnet by the Cuban poet Eliseo Diego, "A Sara Casal." This book is beautifully illustrated with 13 drawings by the Cuban painter Ernesto García Peña.
Guillén	Jorge	Spanish	Jorge Guillén. Horses in the Air and Other Poems. Tr. Cola Franzen. Intro. Willis Barnstone. City Lights. 1999 [Centro de Creacíon y Estudios Jorge Guillén, Valladolid, 1987]. 242 pp. Paper: $15.95; ISBN 0-87286-352-2. Jorge Guillén, one of the great poets of the Generation of '27, went into voluntary exile during the Spanish Civil War and spent many years in the U. S. and in Latin America. After the death of Franco, he returned to live in Spain until his death in 1984. Many poems in Horses in the Air were written in America, and most have never before been translated into English. Guillén's view of Europe from the New World, his experience as an exile and an immigrant, as well as his encounter with Spanish America provide insights into our shared culture that are fresh and relevant today. Willis Barnstone says of Franzen's translation, "It is enough to read and forget that hers is not the original. In giving us such splendid versions, she fulfills Octavio Paz's axiom that an original text is a translation and a good translation is an original text."
Guillevic	Eugène	French	Eugène Guillevic. Carnac. Tr. John Montague. Intro. Stephen Romer. Newcastle upon Tyne. Bloodaxe Books/Dufour Editions. 2000 [Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1961]. 160 pp. Paper: $21.00; ISBN 1-85224-393-7. Bloodaxe Contemporary French Poets 9. Although he was born in Brittany, Eugène Guillevic (1907-1997) never learned the Breton tongue. However, his personality is deeply marked by his feeling of oneness with his homeland. His poetry has a remarkable unity, driven by his desire to use words to bridge a tragic gulf between man and an often hostile environment. For Guillevic, the purpose of poetry is to arouse the sense of Being by reducing language to its essentials, placing words on the page "like a dam against time." A single poem in several parts, Carnac evokes the rocky, sea-bound unfinished landscape of Brittany with its sacred objects and its great silent sense of waiting. Irish poet John Montague has also translated Francis Ponge's Selected Poems with Margaret Guiton and C. K. Williams (Wake Forest University Press).
Gunnarsson	Ólafur	Icelandic	Ólafur Gunnarsson. Trolls' Cathedral [Tröllakirkja]. Trs. David McDuff and Jill Burrows. Dufour Editions [Forlagid, 1992]. 1997. 294 pp. Paper: $14.95; ISBN 1-899197-30-3. The year is 1953. Sigurbjörn Helgason, the architect, yearns to create a cathedral echoing the shapes of the landscape, the arc of a seabird's wing, the hollows of a cliff-face cave. Yet his current project, plagued by doubt and debt, is for the first franchised department store in Reykjavik. His family can celebrate as the leases on the shop space are finally taken up, but a single seemingly random act, an assault on the young boy in the unfinished shell of the store, will destroy each of them. Obsessions, dreams, and memories lead, inevitably, to violence. McDuff has translated Gunnarsson's novel Gaga (Penumbra Press, 1987).
Gustafsson	Lars	Swedish	Lars Gustafsson. Elegies and Other Poems. Sel. and tr. Christopher Middleton, with Yvonne L. Sandstroem, Bill Brookshire, and Philip Martin. New York. New Directions. 2000. 80 pp. Paper: $13.95; ISBN 0-8112-1441-9. Elegies is Lars Gustafsson's first major collection of poetry in English translation in more than a decade. One of Sweden's most prolific and most frequently translated men of contemporary letters, his verse reflects the playful erudition and imaginative philosophizing that give his fiction its unique appeal. Elegies is a companion to his popular collection, The Stillness of the World before Bach (New Directions, 1988). As in that volume, editor Christopher Middleton has selected work from several of the poet's books and has included his own translations as well as those of Yvonne Sandstroem, Bill Brookshire, and Philip Martin.
Guyotat	Pierre	French	Pierre Guyotat. Prostitution: An Excerpt. Tr. Bruce Benderson. Red Dust [Editions Gallimard, 1975]. 1995. 32 pp. Paper: $4.00; ISBN 0-87376-081-6. An excerpt from Pierre Guyotat's ground-breaking novel of sexual reductionism and linguistic purification, one of the most radical attacks on the power of civilized language ever attempted. Guyotat's other works include Tomb for Five Hundred Thousand Soldiers (1967), Eden, Eden, Eden(1970), and Le Livre (1984). Benderson co-translated Philippe Sollers' Event.