My Two Worlds
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Approaching his fiftieth birthday, the narrator in My Two Worlds is wandering in an unfamiliar Brazilian city, in search of a park. A walker by inclination and habit, he has decided to explore the city after attending a literary conference-he was invited following the publication of his most recent novel, although, as he has been informed via anonymous e-mail, the novel is not receiving good reviews. Initially thwarted by his inability to transpose the two-dimensional information of the map onto the impassable roads and dead-ends of the three-dimensional city, once he finds the park the narrator begins to see his own thoughts, reflections, and memories mirrored in the landscape of the park and its inhabitants.
Chejfec’s My Two Worlds, an extraordinary meditation on experience, writing, and space, is at once descriptively inventive and preternaturally familiar, a novel that challenges the limitations of the genre.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Margaret
B. Carson
Professor Margaret Carson grew up in New York City and discovered the beautiful language of Spanish at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. A literary translator from Spanish to English, she has translated the stories, letters, automatic writings and dream narratives of the Spanish surrealist artist Remedios Varo. Her current research is focused on Varo’s notebooks and on the artist’s posthumous life.
She has also written about the gender gap and other gaps in literary translation and co-edited a blog devoted to raising the visibility of women writers in translation (Women in Translation).
Before receiving her PhD, she was a longtime ESL and literacy instructor in adult education programs serving refugees and recent immigrants. She enjoys working with students at all levels to acquire and improve their Spanish, with an emphasis on learning by doing.
Professor Margaret Carson grew up in New York City and discovered the beautiful language of Spanish at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. A literary translator from Spanish to English, she has translated the stories, letters, automatic writings and dream narratives of the Spanish surrealist artist Remedios Varo. Her current research is focused on Varo’s notebooks and on the artist’s posthumous life.
She has also written about the gender gap and other gaps in literary translation and co-edited a blog devoted to raising the visibility of women writers in translation (Women in Translation).
Before receiving her PhD, she was a longtime ESL and literacy instructor in adult education programs serving refugees and recent immigrants. She enjoys working with students at all levels to acquire and improve their Spanish, with an emphasis on learning by doing.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Chejfec’s works have been translated into Portuguese, French and German. He obtained a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation and was a writer based Civitella Ranieri Center.