The Ravickians by Renee Gladman (Dorothy a Publishing Project, paperback)
Publication Date: November 1, 2011
Publisher Marketing: Fiction. LGBT Studies. African American Studies. The second volume of Gladman's Ravicka trilogy continues the author's profound meditation upon translation and the ephemeral. THE RAVICKIANS narrates the day-long odyssey of Luswage Amini, the Great Ravickian Novelist, who journeys through the city to attend the reading of an old friend. Where the earlier volume, EVENT FACTORY, explores Ravicka from the outside, via a visitor's attempt to understand and interpret that city's irreducible strangeness, THE RAVICKIANS faces the problem of translation from the perspective of an insider who struggles, throughout her account, to make plain the political and personal crises of Ravickian life that she knows to be untranslatable.
"Allied with the fiction of Italo Calvino, Doris Lessing, and others, THE RAVICKIANS is entertaining, thoughtful, and a quick read. As with everything published by the Dorothy, it's also a lovely little book to hold in your hand."—Jeff Vandermeer
"Gladman's talent for linguistic architecture makes for a supple, tight promenade through heady ideas whose appeal rests on the implicit connection it draws between a people, their language, and the shape of communication. A novel set inside a poem, the work grasps at the heart of an imaginary people, deftly illustrating their inner life and looming stagnation in little more than 150 pages."—Publishers Weekly
