Greetings readers. Issue 18 kicks off with a short story by Jess Mowry, author - among other novels - of the ultimate post-rap classic Way Past Cool. In his story "One Way" we follow a 13-year-old black runaway from Fresno, California, who ends up in Oakland on his way to San Francisco. The story has appeared in other versions - it's one the author likes to rework - but here we have the latest. TBR is proud to be the first to publish Mowry in Spanish. He’s been published in eight other languages and we hope his novels make it into Spanish someday soon. Also from the U.S. we have short fiction from two new writers, Richard Weems and Adam Blackwell, who offer quirky and amusing pieces that captured our attention. Ditto for the 487-word "post card" story from Deirdre Maultsaid, a Canadian writer presently living in Seville, Spain. All available in Spanish as well.
And
from here in Barcelona it is a pleasure to introduce 27-year-old Javier
Calvo, a literary critic for El País, whose fiction
debut (translated by Graham Thomson) gives us a jaundiced view of
the Simpsons. In poetry we have two poems in translation from Catalan poet Dolors Miquel, taken from her latest collection Despeinados, due out this September. Our quiz this issue is on Faulkner. Give it a whirl. The winner receives a free book or a weekend stay with the Snopes' clan. No winners on our Borges Quiz from last issue, sorry to say, but a close call from Ted McCombs. Click here for the answers. In book reviews we have Pastoralia by George Saunders, whose 1995 collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is an all-time Barcelona Review favorite. The eagerly awaited second collection lives up to the first and is quickly making the rounds of Barcelona. We were also very much taken with Rachel Resnick’s debut novel Go West, Young F*cked-Up Chick and, in fictional biography, Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, another favorite author who - just when you think nothing more can be said about Marilyn Monroe - delivers big time with a personal portrayal which gets to the heart of the heart of the myth. Other books reviewed are listed under contents. We’ll be back around the first of July. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our offerings and we welcome your response. Saludos, Jill Adams, Editor |
