The Absolute Reader

The Absolute Reader

by Miri Ben Simhon
translated by Lisa Katz

20pp, paper 

Toad Press, 2020. $5.00 

cover art by Yair Aa

You can purchase a copy of The Absolute Reader here.

Miri Ben Simhon was born in Marseille in 1950 to Moroccan parents on their way to the new state of Israel. Her work, said by one critic to “strike the reader’s heart with wonder and sorrow,” appeared in three books published by mainstream Israeli presses during her lifetime, and one posthumous edition; in 2018 these were gathered into a volume including previously unpublished poems. All of Ben Simhon’s books received critical attention in Israeli newspapers when they were originally published, and a film has been made about her life and work. She died in 1996.

Lisa Katz (b. New York, in Jerusalem since 1983) is a translator of book-length works by Israeli poets Agi Mishol, Admiel Kosman and Tuvia Ruebner. Editor of the Israeli pages of Poetry International Archives, she has served as the the Rotterdam-based site’s interim central editor since 2017. Translator-in-residence at the University of Iowa MFA in Literary Translation in 2017, she taught most recently at Ben Gurion University. Her chapbook Are You With Me is available from Finishing Line Press and her poetry, in Hebrew translation, was published by the Am Oved Press.

Read a poem included in The Absolute Reader, "I have never needed God," in the July/August 2016 issue of Poetry Magazine.

Tune into a short reading and discussion of The Absolute Reader presented by Marcela Sulak for Israel in Translation. 

New translations for 2020!

We are so happy to share that the Toad Press International chapbook series will publish two new translations this year:

A Musical Education, poems by Yaki Setton 

translated by Sergio Waisman

The Absolute Reader, poems by Miri Ben Simhon

translated by Lisa Katz

Look for these titles in Summer / Fall 2020.  
 
Thank you to all who submitted your work -- we are grateful to have been able to read and consider so many of your wonderful translations during our open reading period!

For the Seals

For the Seals

by Juan Manuel Sánchez 

translated by Jesse Lee Kercheval and Ruth Llana

19pp, paper 

Toad Press, 2019. $5.00 

cover art by Silvia Recharte Hilares

You can purchase a copy of For the Seals here.

Juan Manuel Sánchez was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1983. In 2010, his book Para las Focas / For the Seals won the first prize in poetry from the Casa de los Escritores del Uruguay. He currently works at the Museo Figari, and also as a teacher and a book reviewer for the newspaper La Diaria.

Jesse Lee Kercheval’s recent translations include The Invisible Bridge: Selected Poems of Circe Maia and Fable of an Inconsolable Man by Javier Etchevarren. She has authored fourteen books of poetry and prose including The Alice Stories, winner of the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize, and the memoir Space, winner of the Alex Award from the American Library Association.

Ruth Llana is a Spanish poet, author of four published collections including Tiembla, which won the Federico García Lorca Poetry Prize, and Umbral. She is also the Spanish language translator of the American poet Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge whose work Me encantan los artistas  will be published in 2019 by Kriller 71 Ediciones.

The Meat Market

The Meat Market

by Shaheen Akhtar and Mashiul Alam

translated from the Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya

23pp, paper 

Toad Press, 2019. $5.00 

cover art by Liton Sarkar

You can purchase a copy of The Meat Market here.

Shaheen Akhtar is the author of five novels and four short story collections. In 2004, her novel Talaash won the Prothom Alo Book of the Year award. The English translation of Talaash (The Search, trans. Ella Dutta) was published by Zubaan in New Delhi in 2011. Akhtar was presented with the Sera Bangali 2014 award in the field of literature by India’s leading Bengali news channel ABP Ananda. She received the Akhteruzzaman Elias Katha Shahitya Puroshkar for her novel Moyur Shinghason and the Bangla Academy Shahitya Puroshkar for fiction. Her work has been translated into English, German and Korean.

Mashiul Alam was born in northern Bangladesh in 1966. He graduated in journalism from the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in Moscow in 1993. He works at Prothom Alo, the leading Bengali daily in Bangladesh. He is the author of a dozen books including Second Night with Tanushree (a novel), Ghora Masud (a novella), Mangsher Karbar (The Meat Market, short stories), and Pakistan (short stories). His short story “An Indian Citizen in Our Town” (trans. Shabnam Nadiya) was published in Words Without Borders’ 2013 Bangladesh feature.

Shabnam Nadiya is a Bangladeshi writer and translator in California. She graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2012. Her translation of Moinul Ahsan Saber’s novel The Mercenary was published in 2018 (US edition), and Shaheen Akhtar’s Beloved Rongomala is forthcoming, both from Seagull Books. She has published her own work and translations in journals such as Joyland, Gulf Coast, Asymptote, Words Without Borders, Wasafiri, Five Chapters, Bengal Lights, and The Missing Slate, as well as various anthologies. She is the recipient of the 2019-2020 Steinbeck Fellowship.

Experimental Gardening Manual

Experimental Gardening Manual

by Sebastián Jiménez Galindo

translated from the Spanish by Naomi Washer

19pp, paper

Toad Press, 2019. $5.00

You can purchase a copy of Experimental Gardening Manual here.

Sebastián Jiménez Galindo is the author of VORACIOUS BLUE LOBSTERS, a sound poetry collection. His audiovisual works have been screened internationally and featured in Ecuador (THE ORDER OF THE SIGNS, 2018) and Norway (LAS BRUJAS, 2019). His writing has appeared in Asymptote, Peculiar Mormyrid, Reflexiones Marginales and other journals in Mexico, the United States and Spain. He's currently pursuing a BFA in Literature and Creative Writing in Mexico City.      

Naomi Washer is the author of two poetry chapbooks: PHANTOMS (dancing girl press, 2019) and AMERICAN GIRL DOLL (Ursus Americanus Press, 2019). Her work has appeared in Court Green, Gold Wake Live, Pithead Chapel, Asymptote, Passages North, and other journals. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, Studio Faire, Chateau d'Orquevaux, and Columbia College Chicago where she earned her MFA in Nonfiction. She is the editor and publisher of Ghost Proposal.  

Read an excerpt of Experimental Gardening Manual at Asymptote here. 

2019 Chapbook Series

We are delighted to share that the Toad Press International chapbook series will publish three new translations this year:

Experimental Gardening Manual: Create your own habitat in thirty-something simple steps, by Sebastián Jiménez Galindo

translated by Naomi Washer

The Meat Market, stories by Mashiul Alam & Shaheen Akhtar

translated by Shabnam Nadiya

For the Seals, poems by Juan Manuel Sánchez

translated by Jesse Lee Kerchival & Ruth Llana

Look for these titles coming your way in Summer / Fall 2019.  

Thank you to all who submitted your work -- we are grateful to have had the opportunity to read so many of your wonderful translations during our recent open reading period!