Daniel Hahn

In Catching Fire, the translation of Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire unfolds in real time as a conversation between works of art, illuminating both in the process. The problems and pleasures of conveying literature into another language-what happens when you meet a pun? a double entendre?-are met by translator Daniel Hahn's humor, deftness, and deep appreciation for what sets Eltit's work apart, and his evolving understanding of what this particular...

It unexpectedly arrived. It brushed past someone in the street. It weaves its way in and out of people on the street. It catches people completely unaware. But what is this It? They call It ... happiness!

Recurring blackouts envelop Caracas in an inescapable darkness that makes nightmares come true. Real and fictional characters, most of them are writers, exchange the role of narrator in this polyphonic novel. They recount contradictory versions of the plot, a series of femicides that began with the energy crisis. The central narrator is a psychiatrist who manipulates the accounts of his friend, an author writing a book titled The Night, and his patient,...

Laid off from his job, Damián Lobo obsessively imagines himself as a celebrity being interviewed on TV. After committing an act of petty theft at an antique market, he finds himself trapped inside a wardrobe and delivered to the seemingly idyllic home of a husband, a wife, and their internet-addicted teenage daughter. There, he sneaks from the shadows to serve as an invisible butler, becoming deeply and disastrously involved with his unknowing host...