The author and translator tell us how the novel is an ode to the Brazilian countryside, their experience of working together, and how the musical aspect of language informed Crooked Plow’s translation
Johnny Lorenz
Johnny Lorenz, son of Brazilian immigrants to the United States, is a translator, poet and literary critic
He holds a doctorate in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is a professor at Montclair State University. His translation of Clarice Lispector’s A Breath of Life (New Directions) was a finalist for Best Translated Book Award, and his translation of Lispector’s The Besieged City (New Directions) was listed as one of the Best Books of 2019 by Vanity Fair. His translation of Crooked Plow (Verso) by Itamar Vieira Junior received support from the National Endowment for the Arts. His forthcoming translation ofThe Front (Sundial House) by Edimilson de Almeida Pereira received a Sundial Literary Translation Award. His book Education by Windows (Poets & Traitors Press) includes original poems as well as translations of the poetry of Mario Quintana. He has received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant and a Fulbright to support his work. His scholarly articles on writers such as Machado de Assis, Rubem Fonseca and Clarice Lispector have appeared in Luso-Brazilian Review, Latin American Literary Review and Modern Fiction Studies.
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A fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in Brazil's poorest region
Translated by Johnny Lorenz
