Jeffrey Zuckerman

presents

The Living Days by Ananda Devi

in conversation with ANNABEL L. KIM

This event includes a book signing

Date

Nov
22
Friday
November 22, 2019
7:00 PM ET

Location

Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

This event is free; no tickets are required.

Harvard Book Store welcomes editor and translator JEFFREY ZUCKERMAN for a discussion of his experience translating ANANDA DEVI's acclaimed novel The Living Days for an English-reading audience. He will be joined in conversation by ANNABEL L. KIM, Harvard professor and scholar of French fiction.

About The Living Days

A chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, a seventy-five-year-old white British spinster, and Cub, a thirteen-year-old Jamaican boy from Brixton. Mary clings increasingly to phantoms as dementia overtakes her reality, latching on to Cub and channeling her remaining energy into their relationship. But their macabre romance comes to a horrific climax, as white supremacy, poverty, and class conflict explode on the streets of London.

Through exquisite juxtaposition, Ananda Devi uses alluring prose to confront the tensions of an increasingly nationalistic metropolis, and to examine the queasy nature of desire muddled with power.

Praise for The Living Days

"Beautifully written, visceral, and ecstatic. Unafraid, as angels might be, to bear witness to the force of entropy pulling us all toward death." —Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young

“Jeffrey Zuckerman’s translation is perfect in its power and precision, a magnificent gem.”
—Jennifer Croft, translator of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

"The finest Mauritian novelist at work today, Ananda Devi has long been the francophone saint of the outcast, the oppressed, and the derelict. This fluid translation of one of her darkest works gives the reader a glimpse at her profound talent and her unique ability to synthesize political rage with poetic lyricism." —Adam Hocker, Albertine

Annabel L. Kim
Annabel L. Kim

Annabel L. Kim

Annabel L. Kim is Assistant Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard. A specialist of the modern and contemporary French novel, she has published on Nathalie Sarraute, Monique Wittig, Anne Garréta, Daniel Pennac, and Marie Darrieussecq. She is the author of Unbecoming Language: Anti-Identitarian French Fictions (The Ohio State University Press, 2018) and is currently working on her second book, tentatively titled Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon.

Jeffrey Zuckerman
Jeffrey Zuckerman

Jeffrey Zuckerman

Jeffrey Zuckerman is the digital editor for literature of Music & Literature magazine. He previously translated Ananda Devi's Eve Out of Her Ruins and his other translations include Jean Genet's The Criminal Child

Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 2 minutes

As you exit the station, reverse your direction and walk east along Mass. Ave. in front of the Cambridge Savings Bank. Cross Dunster St. and proceed along Mass. Ave for three more blocks. You will pass Au Bon Pain, JP Licks, and TD Bank. Harvard Book Store is located at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton St.

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