Frank Wynne | Translator, Writer, Mammal, Fool

“Alex” by Pierre Lemaitre

April 11, 2013 by adminfw

Synopsis In kidnapping cases, the first few hours are crucial. After that, the chances of being found alive go from slim to nearly none. Alex Prévost – beautiful, resourceful, tough – may be no ordinary victim, but her time is running out. Commandant Camille Verhoeven and his detectives have nothing to go on: no suspect, no lead, rapidly diminishing hope. All they know is that a girl was snatched off the streets of Paris and bundled into a white van. [...]

Categories: Book, Crime Fiction, French, Thriller • Tags: Lemaitre, MacLehose Press, Thriller

The Parchment Notebooks – Writings by Pablo Picasso

February 11, 2013 by adminfw

I have been working for several months now on translations of selected writings by Picasso (Curated and edited by the esteemed Picasso scholars Marilyn Cully & Michael Raeburn). The writings range from his childhood ‘newspaper’ La Coruña, to letters spanning half a century to statements both artistic and political, conversations with Brassäi, Jaime Sabartés and Daniel Kahnweiler. It also includes a selection of Picasso’s poetry, much of it written int he mid-1930s when he ‘gave up’ painting, sculpture and ceramics. The [...]

Categories: French, Spanish • Tags: Non-Fiction, Parchment Notebooks, Penguin Books, Picasso, Poetry

Pig’s Foot by Carlos Acosta

January 22, 2013 by adminfw

One day Oscar Kortico wakes to find himself utterly alone in the world. As the sole descendant of his family line he is not sure what to do or where he should go, but in the midst of this uncertainty, he holds fast to what his grandfather always told him: ‘No man knows who he is until he knows his past, the history of his country.’ As he sets out to find the lost village of Pata de Puerco and [...]

Categories: Book, Latin America, Spanish, Translation • Tags: Bloomsbury, Carlos Acosta, Cuba, Pig's Foot, Spanish, Translation, Waterstones

‘A French Novel’ by Frédéric Beigbeder

January 21, 2013 by adminfw

Synopsis Arrested for snorting cocaine off a car bonnet, award-winning author and quintessential dilettante Frédéric Beigbeder reflects on his troubled childhood, while spending a night in the cells. In his most autobiographical book to date, the author of the award-winning ‘Windows on the World’ recounts his stay in police custody, when in January 2008 he was arrested for snorting cocaine outside a Paris nightclub. As he lies in his cell, he revisits his childhood, from the carefree days when his grandfather [...]

Categories: Beigbeder, French, Translation

“Sila’s Fortune” by Fabrice Humbert

January 20, 2013 by adminfw

Synopsis Paris, June 1995. In a restaurant, a waiter is violently attacked by a guest. No-one moves. Neither the Russian couple, nor the wife of the aggressor, nor the two young traders come to celebrate their first jobs on the floor. An event not worth lingering over? All actions have consequences. And on this occasion, the brutality, indifference or cowardice of those present will signal the beginning of their individual undoing. From the fall of the Berlin wall to the [...]

Categories: French, Translation • Tags: France, Humbert, Serpent's Tail

French American Prize Shortlist

January 6, 2013 by adminfw

The Patagonian Hare has been shortlisted for the French-American/ Florence Gould Foundation translation prize. It’s an award for which I’m particularly honoured to be short-listed, since the jury is made up of some of the most talented and distinguished literary translators working in the language. Lanzmann’s powerful, sprawling, sometimes eccentric, always compelling memoir is a chronicle of 20th century France and a moving meditation on the filming of his harrowing film Shoah. Press Release The French-American Foundation and the [...]

Categories: Awards & Nominations, French, Translation • Tags: Lanzmann, Patagonian Hare, Translation Prize

“The Patagonian Hare” is poetically intense in…

August 15, 2012 by adminfw

“The Patagonian Hare” is poetically intense in places, chatty elsewhere, sometimes dragged down by Lanzmann’s resentments and vendettas. The translation by Frank Wynne — whose translation of the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal’s novel “The German Mujahid” I admire — exudes in its punctuation and some untranslated phrases an espresso aroma of the French original, sufficiently to remind you that French is, in fact, the origin.” Paul Berman, New York Times

Categories: Book, French, Translation

“The Blue Hour” by Alonso Cueto

June 2, 2012 by adminfw

Can a son be forgiven for the sins of his father? Adrian Ormache is a prosperous lawyer living in Lima. He has the perfect life: a great career, beautiful wife, two doting and intelligent daughters. But when his mother dies a series of events devastate his entire view of the past, his parents, and his country.Adrian’s mother leaves a letter indicating that she was being blackmailed. Confused, Adrian talks to his brother, who tells him that their long dead father [...]

Categories: Book, Latin America, Spanish, Translation • Tags: Alonso Cueto, Peru, Shining Path