Eduard Màrquez, translated from the Catalan by Lawrence Venuti
Eduard Màrquez lives in Barcelona. He published two books of poetry in Spanish before writing Zugzwang (1995), his first work in Catalan and the source of the fiction that appears above. He has continued writing in Catalan, publishing another collection of short fiction, twelve children’s books, and four novels. His 2006 novel, La Decisió de Brandes (Brandes’s Decision), won three Catalan prizes, the Premi Octavi Pelissi, the Premi de la Critica, and the Premi Qwerty. His work has been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish. This publication in The Brooklyn Rail is his first appearance in English.
Lawrence Venuti translates from Italian, French, and Catalan. His translations include I.U. Tarchetti’s Gothic romance, Fosca, Antonia Pozzi’s Breath: Poems and Letters, the anthology, Italy: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, Massimo Carlotto’s crime novel, The Goodbye Kiss, and Ernest Farrés’s Edward Hopper: Poems, which won the Robert Fagles Translation Prize. His writing about translation has appeared in such periodicals as Asymptote, the Times Literary Supplement, Words without Borders, and World Literature Today. He is the author, most recently, of Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice.
Lawrence Venuti translates from Italian, French, and Catalan. His translations include I.U. Tarchetti’s Gothic romance, Fosca, Antonia Pozzi’s Breath: Poems and Letters, the anthology, Italy: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, Massimo Carlotto’s crime novel, The Goodbye Kiss, and Ernest Farrés’s Edward Hopper: Poems, which won the Robert Fagles Translation Prize. His writing about translation has appeared in such periodicals as Asymptote, the Times Literary Supplement, Words without Borders, and World Literature Today. He is the author, most recently, of Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice.
from Zugzwang
By Eduard Màrquez, translated from the Catalan by Lawrence VenutiNarseu Gàver had read about it somewhere. He grabs a kitchen knife, takes a deep breath and, biting his lower lip, excises the little finger of his left hand at the second phalange. The pain, like a volcanic eruption, flashes through his nervous system.
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