Landscape with Dog: “Her deft sense of psychological insight and poetic language… give us portraits of the intimate and the abstract”
Friday, February 12th, 2010Landscape with Dog and Other Stories is featured today at Three Percent, as one of the works of fiction longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award—here’s an excerpt:
From the very first story, there is a familiarity that draws the reader in, that reminds of something comforting. But Sotiropoulos layers on top of that security a sense of foreboding. There is an ambiguity to her scenes and to her characters so that we are left to question our own instincts. She infuses the narrative of each story with a controlled terror that makes characters’ relationships seem like they could snap at any moment. Yet, she never gives us that release or makes it that easy for the reader, that definitive. The beginnings, middles and ends are blurry and we are left to decide where the story began and ended. This is not to say that the stories in this collection are not definitive, they are. They present the moments in life that fall into the grey area, that at one point may look white and then years later, pitch black. This requires a very deliberate prose, a deep understanding of narrative tension and skilled working knowledge of human behavior. Even more impressive is that Karen Emmerich’s translation lets all of Sotiropoulos’ style and depth showcase itself in a sparse fluidity. …
Read the rest here—

