A Body, in Spite by Alain Jugnon and translated by Nathanaël

This is poetry from France.

A Body, in Spite by Alain Jugnon translated by Nathanaël is published by Nightboat Books. This is a Book originally written in French. This was published in 2017.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781937658755E12.

A Body, in Spite, by Alain Jugnon and translated by Nathanaël, is a title with defiance built into its grammar. A body exists in spite of what? History, violence, illness, philosophy, disappearance, language itself? The comma matters. It creates a pause where resistance gathers. Jugnon’s French work, brought into English by a translator known for intellectual and formally adventurous writing, seems likely to ask readers to think embodiment as an argument rather than a given. I would read this book for its pressure against abstraction: the body remains, even when thought tries to dissolve it. It sounds severe, difficult, and necessary in the way some books are necessary because they refuse to make suffering elegant.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.