Frayed Edge Press is pleased to announce the publication of Songs for the Gusle, the first-ever complete translation of Prosper Mérimée’s 19th-century French literary hoax. The widely-praised translation by Indiana-based translator Laura Nagle makes this exciting early example of “fakelore” available to English-language readers for the first time.

The volume also includes Mérimée’s preface to the 1840 edition of the work, in which he confesses to the deception, as well as a translator’s note by Laura Nagle in which she discusses the background of the work and some of the challenges of translating it.

More information and buying options are available on the book webpage.

Prosper Mérimée' classic volume of "fakelore" is now available for the first time in its entirety, in English-language translation.

Purported to be a collection of folktales, ballad lyrics, and travel narratives compiled and translated into French by an anonymous traveler returning from the Balkans. Before long, though, it was revealed that both the stories and their “translator” were the fictional creations of a young civil servant, Prosper Mérimée, who would later become one of the most accomplished French writers of his generation. In these dramatic tales of love, war, and encounters with the supernatural, Mérimée has given us both a treasure trove of “fakelore” and a satirical portrait of a self-appointed expert blissfully unaware of how little he understands the cultures he claims to represent.

Songs for the Gusle will be published on March 21, 2023 and is now available for pre-publication sales ordering.

August is Women in Translation Month! 

Frayed Edge Press is happy to present a variety of under-represented world literature, translated for the first time into English. Check out our Translation page for new and forthcoming translated works from our press.

We're proud to be part of the effort to allow women writers from all countries to be read in English, and we salute the the work of women translations in helping to bring many of these works forward.

Celebrate Women in Translation Month by reading a translated woman author, or reading the work of a woman translator! 

Nidhi Ajay of the lafammeabsurde blog recently interviewed Yearning for the Sea translator Selma Marks and the FEP publisher about Mexican author Esther Seligson, and translating and publishing her work.

Nidhi's post is entitled "Esther Seligson and a feminist retelling of Homer's Odyssey: A Mexican feminist scholar/writer, and the women who brought her voice to the English-speaking world." You can read entire the interview here. 

Frayed Edge Press is proud to have published the first English-language translation of Seligson's Sed de mar. Find out more about the book here: ​https://www.frayededgepress.com/yearning.html.

"Ere the Cock Crows is a thoughtful and affecting novel about the psychological impacts of Nazism."

We're thrilled to report that Ere the Cock Crows, the first English-language edition of Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe's novel, translated by Esther Greenleaf Mürer, has received a "5 out of 5" Clarion rating on Foreword Reviews. 

This edition contains a re-creation by the translator of the original play, as well as an essay by the translator and an introduction by Joe Martin of Johns Hopkins University.

The reviewer notes that "...the novel, play, and essay operate together to contextualize the work in its original post-war form, as well as in its new form." Read the full review here: 
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/ere-the-cock-crows/

Now Available!

Frayed Edge Press is pleased to announce the publication of the first English-language edition of Mexican author Esther Seligson's novella, Sed de mar. 

Seligson’s feminist retelling of Homer’s Odyssey centers Penelope and her feelings of loss and desire. Yearning for the Sea picks up the story at the point of Ulysses' return to his wife Penelope, twenty years after the destruction of Troy. Seligson draws us into a confessional world of the senses, of sexual desire, of love and its absence, of loneliness, and of nostalgia for lost time and lost youth.

This first English-language edition also includes a Note on the text by translator Selma Marks, and an Introduction by Naomi Lindstrom, University of Texas at Austin.

For more information, see: 
https://www.frayededgepress.com/yearning.html

20% Off list price for two forthcoming titles from Frayed Edge Press!

Yearning for the Sea by
Esther Seligson; translated by Selma Marks. 

The Ghettobirds -- speculative poetry by Bryant O'Hara.

​Yearning for the Sea will officially launch on June 15; The Ghettobirds will officially launch on June 22.

Frayed Edge Press will be publishing the first-ever English-language editions of two early works by the acclaimed Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe: Winter in Bellapalma and Ere the Cock Crows on May 25, 2021. Now for a limited time only, these titles may be pre-ordered at a 20% off discount. 

Winter in Bellapalma is a comic novel presenting the exploits of a community of expatriates living off-season in a small Italian fishing village, while Ere the Cock Crows is a chilling novel that follows the ethical quandaries--or not--of Germans involved in Nazi concentration camps and human medical experiments in World War II. Learn more and find links to order  here .

Jens Bjørneboe (1920-1976) was a Norwegian poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist who was arguably one of the most important writers of the mid-twentieth century. Although little known in the English-speaking world, his work has been translated into a number of European and world languages and remains highly regarded in Scandinavia. His last major work was The Sharks (Haiene, 1974) and his most critically acclaimed were the three volumes making up The History of Bestiality trilogy; all have been translated into English by Esther Greenleaf Mürer.

Frayed Edge Press is happy to Announce:
​Coming in Early 2021!
The first English-language translation of Mexican author Esther Seligson's "Sed de Mar."
"Yearning for the Sea," translated by Selma Marks. 
More details here:
​ https://www.frayededgepress.com/yearning.html