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The aesthetic adventures of a mad mushroom hunter
About the author
François Dominique is an acclaimed novelist, essayist, poet, and translator. He has received the Burgundy Prize for Literature and is the author of eight novels, including
Aseroë (forthcoming from Bellevue Literary Press in September 2020) and
Solène, winner of the Wepler Award and Prix littéraire Charles Brisset. He has translated the poetry of Louis Zukofsky and Rainer Maria Rilke and is the cofounder of the publishing house Ulysses-Fin-de-Siècle. He has also taught law and political science at the University of Burgundy.
Richard Sieburth, emeritus professor of English, French, and comparative literature at New York University, is an essayist, editor, literary scholar, and award-winning translator working in several languages. His translations from the French include works by Gérard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Michel Leiris, Henri Michaux, and Antonin Artaud. His essays and translations have appeared in the
New York Times Book Review,
Times Literary Supplement,
New York Review of Books,
Paris Review,
Bookforum,
Harper's Magazine,
Poetry,
Conjunctions, and elsewhere.
Howard Limoli (1933-2013) was the translator of works by Marguerite Duras and of the poetry of Tristan Tzara. For thirty years he taught in the Foreign Language Department of Sonoma State University in California.
Summary
The aesthetic adventures of a mad mushroom hunter
Foreword
Co-op availableSignificant bound galley mailing to media and booksellers, including bound galley promotional offer through the American Booksellers Association’s “Advance Access” program. Additional digital review copy distribution to media, booksellers, and librarians through EdelweissNational print and online media campaignsPublication coincides with National Mushroom Month and National Translation MonthAuthor appearances in San Francisco, CA and New YorkSimultaneous eBook publication and promotionPostcards availableEarly outreach and giveaways through LibraryThingPromotion through BLP’s social media channels and website: www.blpress.orgMarketing and publicity efforts supported by Molly Mikolowski of A Literary Light
Additional text
Big Other Book Award Finalist
World Literature Today “Notable Translations of the Year” selection
“Fiercely original.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Full of wonder. . . . Aseroë is a lyrical contemplation of how words affect reality.” —Foreword Reviews
“[An] enigmatic and radiant book.” —Maurice Blanchot
“This over-the-top, extraordinary novel, in its no less stupendous translation, begins with a mycological intimacy that brings to mind the great mushroom scenes of the film Phantom Thread. How not to be aroused by this whopping treat of verbal virtuosity?” —Mary Ann Caws, author of The Modern Art Cookbook and Creative Gatherings: Meeting Places of Modernism
“A singular novel. Aseroë’s storyteller speaks from within the grasp of mysterious and urgent preoccupations. Yet his confident narration, rich in colorful, familiar detail, and sensitively and gracefully rendered into English by master translator Richard Sieburth, assures us of his obsessions’ importance to him and, within his brilliant and bizarrely convincing world, increasingly to us.” —Lydia Davis, author of Can’t and Won’t and Essays One
What a wonderful piece of writing! What an exhilarating adventure! What a madcap exploration of mushrooms, paintings, Rimbaud, the legend of Orpheus, and the mazes of a poet’s mind, in a jigsaw puzzle of a book that ultimately (like Alice’s Wonderland) makes absolute sense!” —Alberto Manguel, author of The Library at Night and Fabulous Monsters: Dracula, Alice, Superman, and Other Literary Friends
“An immensely pleasurable read.” —Pascal Quignard, Prix Goncourt award–winning author of The Roving Shadows
“In this book oblivion is daylight.” —Éric Vuillard, Prix Goncourt award–winning author of The Order of the Day
“A book filled to the gills with a veritable feast of literary ingredients. To read Aseroë is to experience a kind of inebriation as we drink in the intelligence and the talent of its author.” —Marie Étienne, La Quinzaine Littéraire
“Ranging from the mysterious mushroom known by the name of Aseroë to Giorgione’s painting The Tempest, while meditating on the millions made off the work of Rimbaud, [Aseroë] offers a series of astonishing and detailed variations on the theme of the figures of forgetfulness.” —Claire Devarieux, Libération
