Contributions by Javier Calvo

Javier Calvo is a novelist and literary translator. He has published seven works of fiction, including Corona de flores (Crown of Flowers, Mondadori 2010, Silverio Cañada Memorial Prize) and El jardín colgante (The Hanging Garden, Seix Barral 2012, Premio Biblioteca Breve). His novels have been translated into French, Italian, English and German. (Photo: Laura Rosal)

Revealing the local

Published on May 5th of 2013 by Mara Faye Lethem, Javier Calvo and Addie Leak in Translator’s Notes.

translated by Addie Leak

The vicissitudes of literary endogamy can be highly enigmatic; in some cases, they can be equally wonderful. Javier Calvo, the most prolific and delightfully eccentric of Spain’s contemporary novelists, also happens to be the translator of David Foster Wallace, J. M. Coetzee, Michael Chabon, H.G. Wells, among others. Here he discusses the market for translations in English and in Spanish with fiction-writer and translator Mara Faye Lethem. A native New Yorker now living in Barcelona, Mara is Javier’s wife, the mother of his children, and his translator. She is also the sister of Jonathan Lethem, a writer introduced to Spanish-language readers by his brother-in-law, Javier. Following this conversation, we are pleased to present an excerpt from Javier’s latest novel, The Hanging Garden, awarded the Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve Prize, in Mara’s translation.

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