Bookshelf

Alumni and faculty members who would like to have their books considered for this listing should contact Stacey Himmelberger, editor of Hamilton magazine. This list, which dates back to 2018, is updated periodically with books appearing alphabetically on the date of entry.

Songs for the Gusle by Prosper Mérimée (translated by Laura Nagle ’99)

November 8, 2023

Tags Alumni Book

(Philadelphia: Frayed Edge Press, 2023).

Nagle offers the first complete English-language translation of La Guzla, a literary hoax that dates back to the 19^th century. Originally published in 1827, La Guzla 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. However, it was soon revealed that both the stories and their “translator” were the fictional accounts of a young civil servant named Prosper Mérimée. Along with footnotes explaining the historical and sociological context of the author’s “discoveries,” this new translation 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 Nagle, who discusses the work’s background and the challenges of translating it. Her translations of prose and poetry from French and Spanish also have appeared in such journals as AGNI, The Southern Review, ANMLY, and The Los Angeles Review.