Why Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Should Win the Best Translated Book Award

As the run-up continues to the announcement of the Fiction Shortlist for the Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) on April 15, Prague-based critic Michael Stein has written a striking review explaining why Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop deserves to win. He really nails it:

“Reading The Devil’s Workshop you come up against a remarkable and frightening historical reality: that the memory of the mass killings of World War II is most flawed, faded and even purposefully obscured precisely in those places where it was the most severe.”

No other reviewer has honed in so sharply on what makes the novel unique, topical, and, yes, entertaining:

“Here you have a book that deals with genocide and totalitarianism, so you can imagine a number of stylistic approaches: stark, steely prose to reflect a cold and painful reality; or pages without paragraph breaks, breathless, an unyielding barrage of images; or labyrinthine sentences to combat the inadequacy of memory so evidently on display here. But Topol has thrown all these assumptions out the window and written a book which is both entertaining and extremely beautiful. In fact, it would be the most unlikely (and undesirable) request at a bookstore counter ever made, but if someone were to ask for a fun book about genocide The Devil’s Workshop would be my pick.”

The BTBA is presented each year by Three Percent, the online magazine of Open Letter Books, a nonprofit publisher of international literature at the University of Rochester. Prize money for the award comes from Amazon. Finalists for the fiction award will be announced on April 15.

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Named to BTBA 2014 Longlist

Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop, published by Portobello Books, was named yesterday as one of twenty-five titles on the Best Translated Book Award Fiction Longlist. The news was also reported in the Los Angeles Times.

The BTBA is presented each year with great fanfare by Three Percent, the online magazine of Open Letter Books, a nonprofit publisher of international literature at the University of Rochester. Prize money for the award comes from Amazon.

Last fall, Daniel Medin, one of nine judges for the 2014 BTBA for Fiction, described The Devil’s Workshop as one of “three titles [he] delighted in” while reading books for the prize, writing:

“. . . in the novel’s second part, the humor grows corrosive. When Czech authorities finally shut down Lebo’s commune, the narrator flees to Belarus where he has been recruited as an expert on ‘revitalization of burial sites’. The remainder of The Devil’s Workshop comprises a surreal descent into that country’s lethal past. Topol’s narrative here is defiantly unrealistic, and many developments are intentionally improbable. But their essence remains authentic. In fact, it is these phantasmagoric passages that allow Topol to pilot the reader through treacherous historical terrain without resorting to customary pieties.”

Over the next few weeks, each of the books will be highlighted on the Three Percent blog, and the finalists will be announced on April 15.

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Contender for Best Translated Book Award

Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop, published by Portobello Books, is in the running for the Best Translated Book Award, presented each year by Three Percent, the online magazine of Open Letter Books, a nonprofit publisher of international literature at the University of Rochester.

Daniel Medin, one of nine judges for the 2014 BTBA for Fiction, posted contenders for his shortlist yesterday on the Three Percent blog, naming The Devil’s Workshop as one of “three titles [he] delighted in.” (The other two were Ottilie Mulzet’s translation of László Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below and Ina Rilke’s translation of Hella Haasse’s The Black Lake.)

Medin wrote in his post:

“. . . in the novel’s second part, the humor grows corrosive. When Czech authorities finally shut down Lebo’s commune, the narrator flees to Belarus where he has been recruited as an expert on ‘revitalization of burial sites’. The remainder of The Devil’s Workshop comprises a surreal descent into that country’s lethal past. Topol’s narrative here is defiantly unrealistic, and many developments are intentionally improbable. But their essence remains authentic. In fact, it is these phantasmagoric passages that allow Topol to pilot the reader through treacherous historical terrain without resorting to customary pieties.”