
February 2016
Father, daughter; author, translator: Homero & Chloe Aridjis discuss The Child Poet at Community Bookstore
Please join us at Community Bookstore in Brooklyn at 7pm, for a conversation between celebrated Mexican poet Homero Aridjis and his daughter the novelist and translator Chloe Aridjis. They will speak about THE CHILD POET, a dream memoir written by Homero Aridjis which animates long-forgotten memories of his childhood that imminent fatherhood helped to uncover.
Find out more »April 2016
José Eduardo Agualusa in conversation with Andy Tepper
Join us on April 15th, 2016 at the Community Bookstore for a conversation with Man Booker Prize finalist José Eduardo Agualusa and Vanity Fair staff writer Andy Tepper. A General Theory of Oblivion explores Angola's tumultuous late 20th century through the character of Ludo, who watches as 30 years of history unfold from socialism to civil war to capitalism. Agualusa is regarded as a leading voice of Angola, the Portuguese language, and world literature.
Find out more »June 2016
A Celebration of Dulce María Loynaz, with James O’Connor & Pablo Medina
Absolute Solitude is the first major English-language translation of the prose-poetry of Dulce María Loynaz, one of Cuba’s most popular poets, who Juan Ramón Jiménez described as “archaic and new, a phosphorescent reality of her own incredibly human poetry, her fresh language, tender, weightless, rich in abandon.” Elevating solitude to ecstatic heights, Loynaz creates a picture of landscapes and private emotion, where the physical, spiritual, and visionary realms of poetry meet. Translator James O'Connor and Cuban writer Pablo Medina join…
Find out more »July 2016
Bastille Day Celebration of French Poetry
Please join New Directions, NYRB Classics, and Archipelago Books for a French Poetry Party on Bastille Day. You’ll find us rejoicing in great, lusty, and revelatory French verse in the courtyard on what we hope will be a hot summer’s night. “Bring glory to the love-drunk folks at home!”—Charles Baudelaire “Love, something crazy comes to mind: I can’t bear being on my best behavior.”—Louise Labé “The only reality is Beauty and its only perfect expression is Poetry. All the rest…
Find out more »A Celebration of Newcomers, with Michael Biggins (trans.) and Gabriel Sanders
Newcomers, the first volume of Lojze Kovacic’s three-part autobiography, opens in 1938 with the expulsion of the Kovacic family from their Swiss home and their eventual resettlement in Slovenia. Kovacic, writing as a 10-year-old, describes his family’s journey with uncanny naiveté and in a style that is clear, direct and moving. Translator Michael Biggins and Gabriel Sanders join us at Community Bookstore to celebrate the first English-language publication of this pivotal Slovenian epic. Michael Biggins has translated works by a number of Slovenia's…
Find out more »October 2016
Peter Wortsman in Conversation with Geoffrey O’Brien about Konundrum: Selected Prose of Franz Kafka
Peter Wortsman, whose translations of selections of Franz Kafka were just highly praised by the BBC, will be joined by poet Geoffrey O'Brien to discuss the new release and muse on all things literary, artistic, and Kafkaesque at Community Bookstore in Brooklyn October 20th, 2016 at 7 pm. Konundrum: Selected Prose of Franz Kafka gathers new translations of stories, journals, and letters by the famous author. Jane Ciabattari of the BBC wrote that Kafka's writings are still “powerfully resonant today,” and she went…
Find out more »January 2017
Elsewhere Editions Story Time Preview
Elsewhere Editions, Archipelago Books' brand-new international children’s imprint, will launch this spring, “devoted to translating imaginative works of children’s literature from all corners of the world.” Ahead of that launch, mastermind editors Jill Schoolman and Kendall Storey offer a special preview of the imprint’s first three titles: Claude Ponti - auteur/illustrateur's My Valley, Roger Mello's You Can’t Be Too Careful!, and Jostein Gaarder's Questions Asked. Join us for this sneak peek of breathtaking children’s books in translation. Following story time,…
Find out more »Raymond P. Scheindlin in conversation with Judith Baumel at the Community Bookstore
Named after Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s own sharp self-description, Vulture in a Cage is the most extensive collection of the 11th century Hebrew poet’s works ever to be published in English. Weighty poems of praise, lament, and complaint sit alongside devotional poetry, love poetry, descriptive meditations on nature, and epigrams. Raymond P. Scheindlin, translator and editor of Vulture in a Cage, will sit down with Judith Baumel, poet, critic, translator and director of the Creative Writing Program at Adelphi University, to discuss the life and work…
Find out more »September 2017
Donald Nicholson-Smith and Christopher Winks at Community Bookstore
Join us Thursday, September 28th at Community Bookstore to hear Donald Nicholson-Smith and Christopher Winks discuss Abdellatif Laâbi and Victor Serge and examine these writers' enduring influence and ability to keep writing under repressive regimes. In Praise of Defeat, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, is the first English-language collection of Abdellatif Laâbi's poetry, spanning six decades of political and literary change, innovation, and struggle from one of the central writers and thinkers in contemporary Maghreb letters. The Russian Victor Serge’s A Blaze in a Desert:…
Find out more »May 2018
Hanne Ørstavik in conversation with Kerri Arsenault at Community Bookstore
Join us for a conversation between Norwegian author Hanne Ørstavik and Kerri Arsenault of the National Book Critics Circle about Ørstavik's novel Love. We hope to see you there!
Find out more »September 2018
Héctor Abad with Michael Greenberg at Community Bookstore
Colombian novelist, essayist, journalist, and editor Héctor Abad visits Community Bookstore in Brooklyn to discuss his novel The Farm with journalist and author Michael Greenberg. A Q&A and book signing will follow the discussion. Héctor Abad is one of Colombia’s leading writers. Born in 1958, he grew up in Medellín, where he studied medicine, philosophy and journalism. In 1987, his father was murdered by Colombian paramilitaries, an event he reflected on 20 years later in Oblivion: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus…
Find out more »October 2019
Ida Jessen at Community Bookstore
Join us for a conversation and reading with Ida Jessen at Community Bookstore in Park Slope. Ida will present her new novel, A Change of Time. Ida Jessen is widely considered to be the master of psychological realism in contemporary Danish fiction. Having made her debut with the short-story collection Under Sten (Under Stone) in 1989, Jessen’s breakthrough came with the trilogy: Den der lyver (The One Who’s Lying; 2011), Det første jeg tænker (The First Thing I Think Of; 2006), and Børnene (The Children; 2009). The…
Find out more »April 2022
Armine Kotin Mortimer and Martha Cooley discuss Impossible Love, hosted by Community Books
Join Armine Kotin Mortimer and Martha Cooley as they discuss Christine Angot's An Impossible Love, hosted by Community Books. This event will take place virtually on April 19th at 7:30pm ET. Register for the event here. An Impossible Love by Christine Angot describes the inevitable encounter of two young people at a social ball in early 1950s France: Rachel and Pierre, Angot’s mother and father, whose love is unusually acute. Equal parts subtle and suspenseful, Angot the author carves Angot…
Find out more »July 2022
Philip Roughton, Will Chancellor and Ezra Goldstein discuss Salka Valka
Join a virtual conversation between Will Chancellor, Ezra Goldstein and Philip Roughton celebrating his translation of Halldór Laxness's Salka Valka - a feminist coming-of-age tale, an elegy to the plight of the working class, and a poetic window into the arrival of modernity in a tiny industrial town. The event is hosted by Community Bookstore and will take place via Zoom on Sunday, July 19 at 5pm EST. Philip Roughton has translated the work of Halldór Laxness, Jón Kalman…
Find out more »November 2022
Maureen Freely and Merve Emre in conversation about Dawn
Join us for a virtual discussion about our new release - Sevgi Soysal's stunning 1975 novel Dawn. The book will be presented by the translator Maureen Freely, in conversation with Merve Emre. The event is hosted by Community Bookstore, in partnership with the Third Place Books and the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith. It will take place on November 17th at 6pm EST via Zoom. You can register here. Maureen Freely is a writer, translator, senior lecturer at Warwick University,…
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