Here is how one reviewer for the New York Times describes the set up for The Extinction of Irena Rey: "The novel begins with a famous Polish author gathering her eight translators to her home on the edge of Bialowieza, a primeval forest that has been the site of controversial logging by the Polish government. The author, Irena, convenes the summit to begin translating her latest epic, “Grey Eminence.” Identified at first by only their languages (funny) — English, French, German, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian — the translators know the ritual well. The entourage is powered by a kind of lust for “Our Author” and a loyalty that borders on pathology. Soon, though, precedent collapses: This time, Our Author is erratic, confounding and, it turns out, missing. She vanishes, tipping the novel into a mystery that cartwheels through a series of revelations, each more implausible than the last."
Join us on Thursday evening, June 26th at 6:30pm, for an interview with author Jennifer Croft. "Croft is the winner of the 2018 Man Booker International Prize alongside Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, and winner of the 2023 Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. Her first English-language novel (after her 2019 memoir, Homesick, which started its life as a Spanish-language novel), The Extinction of Irena Rey takes the form of a translation by the aforementioned fictional Alexis. The novel she's translated was originally called Amadou, for reasons that become clear as you read it, and was written in Polish by a fellow translator, Emi, who is actually Argentinian." (NPR)
Feel confused or lost? Come meet the author/translator Jennifer Croft, and get all your questions answered!
