The Extinction of Irena Rey
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- $379.00
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- $379.00
Descripción editorial
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY WALL STREET JOURNAL, ELLE, TOWN & COUNTRY, ELECTRIC LITERATURE, LIBRARY JOURNAL, CRIMEREADS, DOCUMENT JOURNAL, AND WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS * NAMED A MUST READ BY NPR, PEOPLE, VANITY FAIR, NYLON, ALTA JOURNAL, AND DEBUTIFUL
International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist Jennifer Croft's madly brilliant mystery novel of transformation and translation in Europe's last great wilderness.
"Savvy, sly, and hard to classify. A bacchanal." -New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
"Fiercely inventive." -Washington Post
"Knives Out on mushrooms." -Elle
"Could only be written by master of language, a tamer of different tongues. It is brilliant, fun, and absolutely alive." -Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Eight translators gather in the primeval forest home of the world-renowned Irena Rey. They are there to translate her magnum opus together, but within days of their arrival, Irena disappears.
The translators embark on a frantic search, delving into ancient woods filled with strange flora, fauna, and fungi and examining her enigmatic texts and belongings for clues. But doing so reveals secrets they are utterly unprepared for, and they quickly find themselves tangled up in a web of rivalries and desires that threaten not only their work, but the fate of their beloved author herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Translator and memoirist Croft (Homesick) serves up a wickedly funny mystery involving an internationally famous author and her translators. It's 2017 and narrator Emi, who hails from Buenos Aires, is one of eight translators visiting celebrated Polish novelist Irena Ray's house in the ancient Białowieża forest. This is the translators' seventh "pilgrimage" to Białowieża, where they've gathered to put Irena's latest tome into their respective languages. All of them worship Irena, whom Emi calls "Our Lady of Literature," with hilariously slavish devotion. When Irena disappears, so does their collective sanity, and thus begins a twisty detective story. Efforts to track down Irena are interspersed with various "bizarre actions" involving snakes, mythological Slavic creatures, archers, patriots, and attempted murder. Each of the perils is absurdly entertaining in its own way, and the endangered forest's fungi capture Emi's imagination and provide Croft with a magical and metaphor-rich backdrop. Emi's relationships with her colleagues, who are nicknamed for the languages they're translating Irena's novel into, further enliven the narrative as it reaches a poignant denouement. The novel's greatest strength, however, lies in Croft's energetic set pieces, demonstrated most mirthfully in the "catfight" that takes place between Emi and "English," whose footnotes provide her with a juicy opportunity for revenge. This is a blast.
