KYLE KELLAMS: If we limit ourselves to only reading books written in languages we understand, our reading experiences would be narrow. Fortunately, there are translated works of fiction, poetry and more. Our friends at Pearl's Books in Fayetteville, Julia Paganelli Marín and Daniel Jordan, are back, and they have a half dozen translated books. Daniel is suggesting Mount Verity by Therese Bohman, translated from Swedish.
JORDAN: It starts out with the disappearance of a brother. So a young girl, her brother disappears in this cave where there's folklore around this cave where if you tell a lie while you're in there, you disappear. That's kind of like the setup. Her brother is there with some other friends. The friends have different accounts of what happened. It's not lining up. All that's like the setup. But you think it's going to be like a mystery novel based on that, but it's really not. It's a character exploration, I guess, of Hanna, the sister, and kind of like what to do with this grief. That kind of is like unresolved because they never find him. They never have any closure of any kind.
So it's just this kind of thing that goes on throughout her life of wondering if he's out there maybe and her relationship with her parents, how that changed. And she's also, she's an art student. And so learning about how to create in the midst of tragedy and loss and what that does to your understanding of your own grief and stuff like that. So it's a beautiful book. It's short too. I love short books. And it ends at just the right spot. I could have read another 150 pages, but I feel like it ended at just the right spot for that character. And I love that when a book leaves you wanting more, but you just don't get it.
KELLAMS: Yeah. You know, and the name of the book?
JORDAN: It is Mount Verity.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: One of the books I brought is Hooked by Asako Yuzuki. You recognize this book?
KELLAMS: I recognize it. I have not read it, but it's gotten really good reviews, and it has a beautiful cover.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: This book is a Japanese translation, and it's a compelling book about these two women, Eriko and Shoko. Eriko is a Japanese businesswoman, and she is kind of obsessed with having the perfect life, but she doesn't really have any friends. She becomes obsessed with Shoko, who is a lazy housewife and a blogger. She writes about what a terrible housewife she is, and she starts to gain some acclaim because her blog is getting popular because people want to read about a housewife who's not very good at taking care of her home. And she calls her husband the Demon King, and she talks about him in this really sarcastic way. So Eriko becomes obsessed with Shoko, and they have kind of this chance meeting. It's not chance. Eriko is like, "Oh, I think based on where Shoko is writing about, I think she kind of lives in my neighborhood." So she plans to run into her, and it's kind of like this meet-cute. They like each other, but then things go terribly wrong. Because Eriko decides that she has to have Shoko in her life and is willing to do anything to get her there. So she kind of, I mean, she begins stalking her. The book is called Hooked, but then the tagline is "A Novel of Obsession." And I would say this book isn't a horror novel, but it is this kind of psychological novel where it's like, "Oh, which person is going to devour the other?" Because Shoko, it turns out, is not as nice or as vulnerable as she seems.
KELLAMS:And it's called Hooked. Where are you going to take us now?
JORDAN: Spain. So this is Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica, and it's translated by Sarah Moses from Spanish. So this is a short story collection. A lot of people know Agustina Bazterrica from Tender Is the Flesh. Tender Is the Flesh is a horror novel. Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird, I think it's a great intro to her, kind of because it is. She's so versatile. The stories are hilarious on one story, and then the next one is so bleak and dark. And the horror, there's horror throughout the whole book. She's a horror author, but the way that she tells these stories is so different with each story and with each character. And yeah, it's just such a weird book and a fun read. Yeah, I really liked it.
KELLAMS: The name is?
JORDAN: Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird.
KELLAMS: I love that.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: My next book is Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, and this book is translated from the German. It also won the International Booker Prize in 2024, and Jenny Erpenbeck is a wonderful author. She also directs operas. And this book is fascinating because it takes place at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s in East Berlin, and it takes place during the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
KELLAMS: Okay.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: One of the things I really love about a translated book is it kind of drives you to ask more questions. And for me, this book made me ask questions about history that I didn't know. The book unfolds around two main characters, Katharina and Hans. It is a romance, but these two characters meet on a bus. He is 58 years old, and she is 19.
KELLAMS: Ooh.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: I know, gross. Gross. But the question of this book is really interesting because what it does is it places these characters against the historical backdrop and asks how our personal relationships are shaped by the political background, the political stage of our worlds. So Hans was 12 years old when World War II ended, and Katharina has always lived in East Berlin. So they have totally different political perspectives and experiences. And I have to tell you, Kyle, whenever I read this book, the writing is exquisite. It's very melancholy. It's very upsetting. I like an upsetting book.
KELLAMS: Apparently.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: Sometimes.
KELLAMS: Some obsessions.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: But I think I got about three-quarters of the way through this book, and the writing was so upsetting. I was like, "This book is making me so upset. I must finish it, or I must put it down."
KELLAMS: Oh, I see. Right. It's like I eat fish or cut bait, right?
PAGANELLI MARÍN: Right. And I'm so glad I finished it. The last 20 pages of this book, I felt like my whole body was on fire. I was compelled to stand up and finish reading the book.
KELLAMS: And the book is?
PAGANELLI MARÍN: The book is Kairos.
KELLAMS: What's your third book?
JORDAN: Okay. My third book is On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia. This one's translated by Padma Viswanathan, yes, local author and translator. So this book is excellent. It's also short and slim. It's so bleak and dark, and not a lot of hope that you find in these pages, but it's for fans of Cormac McCarthy, but maybe a little less verbose, so a little more direct. It's about bad people that don't have a lot of redeeming qualities, that then encounter worse people. So it's not one to read when you're feeling super down, but it's a great novel. It's beautifully written.
KELLAMS: From Portuguese, right?
JORDAN: Yes, yes. And so, you know, I couldn't tell where it was set when I started reading it. It feels like a Western. It feels like it's set in a prison, a penal colony in Brazil. But you don't know the country or where it's set. So yeah, reading it, it just felt like an old-timey Western. Like Cormac McCarthy, you know.
KELLAMS: Is it in stock again? Because I know when Padma first got nominated for the Booker, I tried to buy it, and it was hard to get physically. It's online, but is it back on shelves?
JORDAN: I think so, yeah. I mean, yeah, I got my copy from Pearl's.
Kellams: Okay. And of course, she's a member of the University of Arkansas faculty.
JORDAN: Yes.
KELLAMS: A Fayetteville resident, and her husband, Geoffrey Brock, also a translator. All right. The name again is?
JORDAN:On Earth As It Is Beneath.
KELLAMS: Please tell me you have something that's just delightful and whimsical.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: Kyle, you know, it's not whimsical. I did, yeah, I brought some serious books this time. Last time I brought some sapphic romance. So this time I was like, "Oh, serious books this time." I actually did bring a book that is a queer romance, but there's like a really interesting story behind it. So this book is called She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, and the translator is Izidora Angel. This book is really interesting. It is translated from the Bulgarian, and it takes place in Albania and Bulgaria. And it is set surprisingly in 2018. It is about a sworn virgin. And this idea of the sworn virgin is when a woman promises that she is a virgin, and she takes a vow of celibacy, and then she gets to live as a man for the rest of her life. And she gains all of the rights of men in this society. And this is based on the laws of the Kanun. And this is not like a fairy tale. It sounds like this idea is fictional, but this is an actual thing in Bulgaria, and then some of the surrounding region as well.
KELLAMS: So the sworn virgins are then given the privileges of men in the society, except, I'm imagining the ability to have romantic love.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: Yes, absolutely. So in the book, this character, rather than be married in an arranged marriage, chooses to become a sworn virgin, but that has some other consequences in her life because, like other cultural restrictions, there are these blood feuds between the families. So she loses her brother to exile. She loses her father, who is killed because she chooses not to marry, this man, and she chooses to become a sworn virgin. And then her mother dies shortly after. So "she who remains" refers to the woman herself, left alone in her life. But then we also have this word "remains," which is about death, right? She actually takes on a new name, and the book begins, she's called Bekija, but she becomes Matija as soon as she becomes this sworn virgin.
But the book, I think, is very serious, but it is also really interesting and hopeful, because I think, reading an interview with the translator, Izidora Angel, the book is this queer love story. But gay marriage is banned in Bulgaria. So whenever this book came out in 2018, it was kind of a way of tucking a lesbian love story into a shell, to kind of usher it in, in this, this more sensational story of the sworn virgin. So whenever this book came out in Bulgaria, it was like a really big deal. And it's a big deal now, too, as the book has come into English in 2026. The book is also being turned into a film.
KELLAMS: And again, this is, I know it was first written in 2018, but it's a contemporary story?
PAGANELLI MARÍN: It is. Yes, it is a contemporary story. It is not a historical tale. It takes place in 2018.
KELLAMS: What I don't know about Bulgaria could fit into a stadium.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: So yeah, I felt that way too. I think, yeah, what I love about translated literature is it really does push you into being like, okay, ask another question, ask another question. And I think I always really appreciate that when a book pushes me in a way that I didn't know it would. I actually have an excerpt from this book that I would love to share.
KELLAMS: Please.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: So the book is really interesting because it kind of starts in flashbacks, and then you realize the present-tense story is the main character telling her story to a journalist who's come to interview one of the last sworn virgins. And I have to say, the book is written, the author, Rene Karabash, is a filmmaker and poet as well as a novelist. So the book is in this kind of stream-of-consciousness writing. The author did two years of research and then wrote the whole book in two months. And she said it just kind of poured out of her. And what's also interesting is that the translator reports a very similar kind of almost possession in the translating, where it just kind of overcame her, and she, the book also poured out of her, which is fascinating. But here is, here's a brief chapter where you hear her engaging with the journalist who's come to interview her for the first time.
"The guest. Are you recording? Now are you recording? I remember every word of the oath, Mrs. Journalist. And I don't think it was something I had to learn by heart before I spoke it in the church. I've attended so many advents of transition in other villages too. You absorb the oath whether you like it or not. Something like those burial hymns. The same dirge at every funeral. Only the musicians change out when one dies and another comes to take his place. If you were to listen to the same funeral chant every other day, you'd learn it too. A lot of men die here because of those blood feuds. The blood tax. Everything revolves around the Kanun. And according to the Kanun, a guest is held in the highest regard. You now are my guest, and you are of the utmost importance. The guest is revered here in Albania. The guest comes first, and then the family. The house belongs to God and the guest. If someone were to knock on the Albanian's door, he is bound by duty to welcome him, feed him. The wife washes the guest's feet, makes his bed, and lays the fire in the stove. The following day the guest is seen off, and if it so happens that someone should be waiting outside to ambush the guest and kill him. What I mean is where someone to kill your guest outside your front door after you've seen him off, but before the guest has turned his head. If your guest were still to be looking at you, you would be bound to avenge his murder. It is your duty to spill blood in the name of your guest. Do not be afraid. No one here wants to kill you. You're not in a blood feud with anyone in the village. And besides, you're a woman. Women don't enter into blood feuds. No one will seek revenge against you because you haven't killed anybody. And you're a woman, right? And you're my guest, Mrs. Journalist. You stay here for as long as you'd like. That's how it is in the Kanun. You haven't killed anyone. And neither have I. I haven't killed anyone."
PAGANELLI MARÍN: It's an excellent book. It is like a very intense read, but the end has hope in it.
KELLAMS: Okay, good. I'm glad.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: I feel like I need to say, whenever I recommend a very intense book, it's like, "This is why you can handle this book." And it is because this end is hopeful.
KELLAMS: Yeah. One reason I love, I'm a big fan of murder mystery novelists from Iceland. Arnaldur Indriðason, I think, is how you might pronounce it if you want to get close. And he has these Detective Erlendur mysteries. But the thing about writing a series of murder mysteries set in Iceland, where they have maybe two homicides a year, is that you have to explore other things than murder. And several of the murder mysteries end up: it wasn't a murder. It was a suicide. It was an accidental death. One took place at the Icelandic Embassy in Berlin, and that allows him to explore much more about the country and its history.
And one other thing, these books that you've mentioned, they're shelved, not in international literature, right there among the others.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: Yeah, absolutely.
KELLAMS: Which I love.
JORDAN: Yeah, yeah.
KELLAMS: So it's easy to kind of stumble across.
JORDAN: Yes.
KELLAMS: Yeah, yeah. What's coming up at Pearl's? What's up next?
PAGANELLI MARÍN: Kyle, we have a Frank Stanford panel on Aug. 6. This is a really exciting panel that we're putting together. James McWilliams, the author of "The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford," as well as poet Cody-Rose Clevidence, who's a local poet, incredible work, and then documentarians Z.D. Harrod and John Burcham Erwin, who are working on a Frank Stanford documentary, are all going to be on this panel. And you're moderating for us?
KELLAMS: Yes. And I think if you're really into the work of Frank Stanford, you're going to enjoy it. And if you've never heard of Frank Stanford, I'd encourage you to come, because I think we're going to cover a lot. It's going to be amazing. I'm really thrilled.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: And that's going to be at the bookstore on Aug. 6 at 6:30 p.m. Thank you both again.
KELLAMS: Thank you both again.
JORDAN: Thank you, Kyle.
PAGANELLI MARÍN: This was fun.
KELLAMS: Julia Paganelli Marín and Daniel Jordan from Pearl's Books in downtown Fayetteville made their books-in-translation recommendations from inside the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio at KUAF last week.
Those recommendations included Mount Verity by Therese Bohman; Hooked: A Novel of Obsession, by Asako Yuzuki; Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica; Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck; On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia; and She Who Remains by Rene Karabash.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
