May is book's month in Uruguay, May 26th being National Book's Day. I promised to release my books freely in a #FediverseEdition proposal.
I expected to do that in their original language (Spanish).
Translation is a full time professional job which I am not prepared to do. However, some LLM helped me improve a bit my amateur translation attempt of my opera prima The Hungarian Soprano.

The main story is a nonlinear chronology which mirrors the dissonant harmonies of La Traviata.
Its structure forces the reader to become the investigator, piecing together a conspiracy the text refuses to spell out.

It is a historical fiction work covering espionage, arms traffic, government cover-ups spanning South America and Europe during the Yugoslavian wars.

The prose’s clinical tone (dates, decrees, serial numbers) sharpens the horror, making The hungarian soprano's death feel not like fiction, but like history’s darkest aria.

Six more parts await inside covering #fanaticism, #prejudice, #mystery, #psychedelia, #medicaldrama, #travel, #alcoholism, #friendship, #africa, #trans, #MedecinsSansFrontieres, #southamerica, #Brazil, and more.

Hope you enjoy it. If you feel like #commenting, #sharing or #rating it, thanks in advance.

Completely #free. This book is distributed under a Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

cloud.undernet.uy/s/jxozFDWGZc…

Entirely written in #FOSS.

#uruguay #bookstodon #books #epub #TheHungarianSoprano #operaprima #fiction #historicalfiction #Latex #calibre

📚 Reseña: «El mago de Oz» de L. Frank Baum

✨ Igual que me pasó con «Alicia en el país de las maravillas», conocía el cuento pero era la primera vez que lo leía. Y bueno, igual que me pasó con Alicia, me ha parecido un cuento muy bonito, con una historia y unos personajes entrañables.

✨ Creo que es uno de esos cuentos que, aunque estén hechos para niños, son perfectamente disfrutables a cualquier edad.
Además la versión que he leído es la de la colección de Historias maravillosas, con una edición preciosa y las ilustraciones de W. W. Denslow, muy bonitas y que sin duda enriquecen muchísimo el cuento.

✨ Conclusión: pues qué voy a decir, una historia muy bonita que si aún no habéis leído os recomiendo mucho.

#TKZme #booktodon #bookstodon #literaverso #resena

Acabo de enterarme de que la editorial Pato ha abierto recepción de manuscritos hasta el 30 de junio, y como veo que aceptan no inéditas estoy valorando fuertemente enviarles #ProyectoAltaran.

Para ello solo tendría que:
-Acabar al menos la primera fase de corrección de la tercera novela (#ProyectoAltaran3). Por si acaso, porque tal y como está ahora es ilegible
-Revisar la primera novela (la que enviaría a la editorial), porque tal vez tenga que incluir algún cambio.
-Hacer la propuesta editorial.
-Hacer un mapa todo bonito de Altaran para incluirlo en la propuesta editorial (no es obligatorio pero me gustaría poder hacerlo).
-Lo de conseguir algún beta que pueda/quiera leer las tres novelas (o como mínimo la primera) en ese tiempo ni me lo planteo. De la primera al menos sí tengo opiniones de gente que la ha leído.

Y todo eso antes del día 30 de junio. Quiero creer que me dará tiempo pero no sé si estoy siendo demasiado optimista

Por si también os interesa, aquí os dejo el enlace a su web con todas las bases. La recepción está abierta desde el día 3 de mayo, así que ya podéis enviarles cositas. ¡Mucha suerte si os animáis!

patoediciones.com/manuscritos/

#booktodon #bookstodon #literaverso

I recently enjoyed Edith Wharton's "The Custom of the Country". With its settings in the US and France, this 1913 work bears some thematic resemblance to the international novels of Henry James. Wharton's work, though, does not foreshadow the modernist use of stream of consciousness as does the later work of James; stylistically, Wharton is working with in the tradition of realism, so that one can associate her with William Dean Howells as much as with James.

Writing in this realist tradition and, as one might expect from the author of a pioneering work on interior decoration, scrutinizing in detail dwellings and their contents, Wharton narrates the merciless struggle of midwestern transplant to New York Undine Spragg for upward social mobility. Architecture, furnishings, decor, dress, and accessories not only reflect social and psychological states but also serve to pivot the plot.

I suspect Americans and Europeans, men and women, and young and old will react variously to the novel. I was impressed by its shrewd observation of manners and mores, impressed by its wit and irony, and gripped by the narrative of the odious protagonist's irrepressible social ascent. I remember reading somewhere that "Downton Abbey" creator and beneficiary of a Conservative title hand-out Julian Fellowes was rooting for Undine all the way; that tells us as much about Tory peers as Wharton's work.

I bought the Penguin Classics edition, pictured in this post. I recommend purchasing another edition, as pages fell out of this brand new book as if it were a cheap pulp paperback of old. What a disappointment!

#TheCustomOfTheCountry #EdithWharton #Realism #Books #AmericanLiterature #USLiterature #Novels #Bookstodon #LiteratureInEnglish #PenguinBooks
#InternationalNovels

I've just finished Alfred Döblin's "Berlin Alexanderplatz". In spite of its reputation as a difficult book, it gripped me, and I can quite see why it sold well when it was first published in 1929. I was reminded of John Dos Passos' "Manhattan Transfer" and "USA' trilogy. Read it if you have any interest in modernism, modernity, cities, Berlin, crime, Weimar Germany, the world between the wars...don't read it if you can't deal with stomach churning scenes of violence against women.

My German is not and never will be anywhere good enough to deal with the original text, so I turned to the 1931 translation by Eugene Jolas. This version has been much criticised for its rendering of Berlin working class speech into the colloquial American English of the twenties, but that choice struck the right note with me. The Berlin of the twenties does seem to me much more like Chicago or New York than Paris or London - a city without centuries of history but bursting with the sounds of streetcars, boxing commentators, ads, wisecracks...the sounds of modernity. US English does seem to be the English of the twentieth century city.

I looked at the more recent and widely praised Michael Hofmann translation, which employs a vaguely cockney sounding English - perhaps I am being unfair, because I only read brief extracts, but I found myself thinking of Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins"!

Although the novels that Döblin wrote before "Berlin Alexanderplatz" don't sound like my cup of tea, I would be interested to read his tetralogy "November 1918: A German Revolution". Is a good translation of those books available?

Image: Mario von Bucovich -- Berlin --Kaufhaus Tietz -- Alexanderplatz -- 1928 -- Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain

#AlfredDöblin #BerlinAlexanderplatz #Books #Bookstodon #GermanLiterature #Modernism #Modernity #Translation #November1918AGermanRevolution #MichaelHofmann #EugeneJolas #Novel #Cities #Berlin