The International Library

The International Library Part II: Translating Traditions / Translating the Book of Genesis

Thursday, 1:30 pm EDT - 2:30 pm EDT June 15, 2023

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

The Ticket/Voucher option includes a $10 Bookstore voucher, redeemable toward the featured event book at The Center for Fiction on the night of the event. All registrants will receive a link to livestream the event.

A striking example of translation and its many layers—of language, of myth, of tradition—Mexican author Carmen Boullosa’s The Book of Eve (El libro de Eva) twists, challenges, and ultimately revises a classic tale for a contemporary moment. As Eve, fueled by “fiery disobedience,” tells her own version of the Book of Genesis, she brazenly rejects the stories that have oppressed women across millennia. No, she was not created from Adam’s rib; no, she was not expelled from the Garden of Eden for nibbling a forbidden apple; and no, humanity was not deluged by a great flood. Join translator Samantha Schnee and Boullosa for a conversation about translation twice (and sometimes thrice) over.

About The International Library

Conversations across time, place, and language

Join the American Library in Paris, the Center for the Art of Translation, and The Center for Fiction for conversations across time, place, culture, and literary tradition, with live audiences in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Paris.

At the intersection of theory and practice, past and present, as well as story and history, The International Library celebrates the live diffusion of in-person conversations in the hope of conjuring new possibilities and connecting new audiences across land and sea for a collective, intercultural experience.

Over the course of these conversations, we hope to broach the following questions about writing and translation: Who gets to translate? To be translated? How to translate? And for whom to translate? More broadly, the series will guide readers to think critically about how stories are told, investigating the points of view, the timing of the translations, and the intended or assumed audiences as well as inspiration, philosophy, and craft.

All meetings will be hybrid, taking place in person at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn (1:30pm ET) with audiences at the American Library in Paris (in Paris; 19h30 CEST) and the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco (10:30am PT) for a live streaming experience. Events will run for about an hour.

Please write to Alice McCrum ([email protected]), Melanie McNair ([email protected]), or Leslie-Ann Woofter ([email protected]) with any questions or thoughts.

In Conversation

Carmen Boullosa

Carmen Boullosa

Carmen Boullosa is one of Mexico’s leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. She has published over a dozen novels, two of which were designated the Best Novel Published in Mexico by the prestigious magazine Reforma—her second novel, Before, also won the renowned Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for Best Mexican Novel; and her novel La otra mano de Lepanto was also selected as one of the Top 100 Novels Published in Spanish in the past 25 years. Her most recent novel, Texas: The Great Theft won the 2014 Typographical Era Translation Award, was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Translation Award, and has been nominated for the 2015 International Dublin Literary Award. Boullosa has received numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship. Also a poet, playwright, essayist, and cultural critic, Boullosa is a Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York, and her books have been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian.
Samantha Schnee

Samantha Schnee

Samantha Schnee is a 2023 National Endowment of the Arts Literature Fellow in Translation, supporting her work to render Boullosa’s Gijon Prize winning novel, El complot de los románticos, into English as Dante Hits the Road. Her translation of Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize. She is the founding editor of Words Without Borders.

Photo Credit: Anita Staff

Featured Book

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The Book of Eve

By Carmen Boullosa

Published by Deep Vellum

Translated by Samantha Schnee

PURCHASE

What if everything they’ve told us about the Garden of Eden was wrong? Faced with what appears to be an apocryphal manuscript containing ten books and 91 chapters, Eve decides to tell her version of the story of Genesis: she was not created from Adam’s rib, nor is it correct that she was expelled for taking the apple from the serpent; the story of Abel and Cain isn’t true, neither are those of the Flood and the Tower of Babel…

In brilliant prose, Carmen Boullosa offers a twist on the Book of Genesis that dismantles patriarchy and rebuilds our understanding of the world—from the origin of gastronomy, to the domestication of animals, to the cultivation of land and pleasure—all through the feminine gaze. Based on this exploration, at times both joyful and painful, The Book of Eve takes a tour through the stories we’ve been told since childhood, which have helped to foster (and cement) the absurd idea that woman is the companion, complement, and even accessory to man, opening the door to criminal violence against women. Boullosa refutes this entrenched, dangerous perspective in her foundational and brazen feminist novel.

About Our Partners

The American Library in Paris was established in 1920 under the auspices of the American Library Association with a core collection of books and periodicals donated by American libraries to United States armed forces personnel serving their allies in World War I. The Library has grown since then into the largest English-language lending library on the European continent. The Library celebrates the written word and the life of the mind. Through our evolving collections and innovative cultural programming, we promote knowledge, inspire lifelong learning, and promote a sense of community. We are a welcoming home for the thoughtful and curious in Paris.

Founded in 2000, the Center for the Art of Translation is a literary nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Our publications, events, and educational programming enrich the library of vital literary works, nurture and promote the work of translators, build audiences for literature in translation, and honor the incredible linguistic and cultural diversity of our schools and our world.