Two of French’s Finest
McNally-Jackson Bookstore | 52 Prince Street | New York, NY
In conjunction with The Bridge reading series in New York City, we celebrated the translators behind two astonishing new French translations from Two Lines Press.
We brought together Jordan Stump and Charlotte Mandell, who collectively have translated over 40 French authors, including Proust, Blanchot, Nobel laureate Claude Simon, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Eric Chevillard, and Mathias Enard.
These leading translators discussed their work with French-language phenoms Marie NDiaye and Jonathan Littell, both recipients of the prestigious Prix Goncourt and both published by Two Lines Press. NDiaye, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2013, is the author of All My Friends, published in earlier this year by Two Lines Press. Littell, whom Time magazine raved is “a profoundly gifted writer,” is the author of The Fata Morgana Books, published in November by Two Lines Press. Stump and Mandell also gave readings from these new works of French fiction.
Charlotte Mandell’s translation of Jean-Luc Nancy’s La jouissance (titled Coming) was published by Fordham University Press in September 2016. She has translated more than forty books; her current project, Mathias Énard’s Compass, which recently won the Prix Goncourt, is forthcoming from New Directions Publishing in the U.S. and from Fitzcarraldo Editions in the U.K. Her translations of Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Fall of Sleep, Listening, and After Fukushima were all published by Fordham University Press.
Jordan Stump has translated many authors into English from French, including Marie Redonnet, Eric Chevillard, and Honoré de Balzac. His translation of Jardin des Plantes by Claude Simon won the 2001 French-American Foundation translation prize, and he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres in 2006. His English language translations of works by Marie NDiaye have been nominated for the International Booker Prize twice. Ladivine was longlisted for the prize in 2016, and The Witch was shortlisted in 2026.