Writer in Residence: Memoir of a Literary Translator

by Mark Spitzer

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. An American translating punk in Paris living at the infamous Bohemian bookstore Shakespeare & Co. hooks up with a bipolar nymphomaniac who puts him through a mental sausage grinder. Enter the cops, hippy chicks, black hash, crazy old men, a major deluge, and a host of whacko international freaks and street people. Then POW!, the ultimate betrayal. This is the third memoir in an autobiographical series. "The poetry-intoxicated hero of Spitzer's breathless saga runs smack up into history just as she's changing her dress in the now-fabulous Paris of the late 20th century, and the result is electric. His choleric and vivid voice brings to life a story both breathless with life-dew and masterfully vivid, in the lineage of Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac, but in the tradition of Don Quixote, the timeless dreamer headed for the turbulent phantasm of art" Andrei Codrescu."

180 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2010

About the author

Mark Spitzer is the author of ten or twelve books, including "Season of the Gar" (creative nonfiction, University of Arkansas Press), "CHODE!" (novel, Six Gallery Press), "Age of the Demon Tools" (poetry, Ahadada Books), "The Pigs Drink from Infinity" (poetry, Spuyten Duyvil), "Chum" (novel, Zoland Books), "Bottom Feeder" (novel, Creative Arts), "Riding the Unit" (creative nonfiction, Six Gallery Press), "From Absinthe to Abyssinia" (Rimbaud translations, Creative Arts), "The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille" (Dufour Editions), "Divine Filth" (Bataille translations, Creation Books), "The Church" (Céline translation, Green Integer), "After the Orange Glow" (forthcoming from Monkey Puzzle Press), and "Writer in Residence" (forthcoming from the University of New Orleans Press). He has published hundreds of essays, poems, stories, literary translations, etc., and has cultivated a semi-cult following as an editor of the legendary lit journal "Exquisite Corpse" (www.corpse.org). After earning three degrees in Creative Writing (a BA from the U of MN, an MA from CU, and an MFA from LSU) he taught Creative Writing and Literature for five years at Truman State University in Missouri. He is now a professor in the Department of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas, where he lives on the shores of Lake Conway and checks his droplines daily for mongo one-eyed catfish, fugly prehistoric gars, and garbage-fish like largemouth bass. He is now Managing Editor of "The Exquisite Corpse Annual," and is married to the zombie writer Robin Becker.

Reviews

[MarkMcgwire]

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