Join us as we count down to ALTA42: Sight and Sound with the National Translation Award in Poetry and Prose long- and shortlisted titles! We will be featuring the titles in alphabetical order alongside blurbs penned by our judges for the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose. This year’s prose judges are Bonnie Huie, Charlotte Mandell, and Jeffrey Zuckerman. This year’s judges for poetry are Anna Deeny Morales, Cole Heinowitz, and Sholeh Wolpe.

For quick reference, you may find the NTA longlists here, and the NTA shortlists here. Today we’re shining the spotlight on Prose NTA longlisted title The Houseguest:

The Houseguest 
by Amparo Davila
translated from the Spanish by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson
(New Directions)

These expertly crafted stories from Mexico’s Amparo Dávila treat the conscious mind and the unconscious as if they were overlapping dimensions of a single space, battling for primacy. The result is a constant dramatic tension despite the absence of any conventional, linear “plot” that builds toward a climax; the stories don’t so much conclude as splinter apart or reach the point of implosion. Translators Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson have rendered beautifully abstract sketches of unsettling psychological states that forcefully manifest themselves in material reality, often through abrupt violence.