Johnny Lorenz
Idra Novey

together with New Directions publisher

Barbara Epler

 read & discuss their translations of Brazilian author

Clarice Lispector

Wednesday, 23 January, 2013 7:00 PM
The Center for Fiction
17 E. 47th Street New York, NY 10017
(btw Grand Central & Lexington/53rd)

Please RSVP
212-755-6710 or
events@centerforfiction.org

In 2012, New Directions published five books by the Brazilian author Clarice Lispector. One of the most exciting literary publishing events of the year, the project includes four books edited by Benjamin Moser, author of the recent Lispector biography Why This World: Near to the Wild Heart (translated by Alison Entrekin); A Breath of Life (translated for the first time by Johnny Lorenz); Agua Viva (translated by Stephan Tobler); and The Passion According to G.H. (translated by Idra Novey). These were preceded by a new translation by Moser of Lispector’s Hour of the Star. The Bridge Series is excited to present two of the project’s New York-based translators, Johnny Lorenz and Idra Novey, who will read from their work and discuss the project together with New Directions publisher Barbara Epler.

Johnny Lorenz received his doctorate in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is an associate professor at Montclair State. He has published poetry in Rattapallax, Massachusetts Review and Luso-American Literature, and scholarly articles in Interventions, Brasil/Brazil and Luso-Brazilian Review. Recipient of a 2003 Fulbright Scholarship to translate Brazilian poetry, he has published translations in Metamorphoses, Washington Square, Bomb, and Granta’s The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists. His translation of Clarice Lispector’s novel A Breath of Life was published in 2012 by New Directions.

Idra Novey is the author of Exit, Civilian, selected for the 2011 National Poetry Series, and The Next Country. Her poetry has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, in Poetry Magazine, Slate, and elsewhere.  Her most recent translation is Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G.H. She currently teaches at NYU and in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

Barbara Epler grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and joined New Directions as an editorial assistant after graduating from college in 1984. She became Editor in Chief in 1995 and in 2008 she was named Publisher and in 2011 the President.

Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) was a Brazilian journalist, translator and author of fiction. Born in Western Ukraine into a Jewish family who suffered greatly during the pogroms of the Russian Civil War, she was an infant when her family fled for Rio de Janeiro. At twenty-three, she became famous for her novel Near to the Wild Heart and married a Brazilian diplomat. She spent much of the forties and fifties in Europe and the United States, helping soldiers in a military hospital in Naples during World War II and writing, before leaving her husband and returning to Rio in 1959. She completed several novels including The Passion According to G.H. and The Hour of the Star before her death in 1977 from ovarian cancer.

The Bridge Series is the first independent reading and discussion series in New York City devoted to literary translation. It aims to promote public awareness about the art of translation by serving as a regular venue for readings, by both well-established and emerging translators and authors, and discussions on a range of issues related to this important literary art and practice. To receive regular updates, email “subscribe” to: thebridgeseries@gmail.com.

The Center for Fiction, founded in 1820 as the Mercantile Library, is the only organization in the United States devoted solely to the vital art of fiction. The mission of The Center for Fiction is to encourage people to read and value fiction and to support and celebrate its creation and enjoyment. With all our resources, including our exceptional book collection, our beautiful reading room, our expanding website, and our ever-growing array of creative programs, we seek to serve the reading public, to build a larger audience for fiction, and to create a place where readers and writers can share their passion for literature. For more information and for a schedule of events, visit http://www.centerforfiction.org.