EDWARD GAUVIN

In the June issue of Asimov’s, my first translation in that august staple of all things SFnal: Sylvain Jouty’s “The Finges Clearing.” A member, like Georges-Olivier Châtaureynaud, of the French literary movement “La nouvelle fiction,” Jouty’s first story in English came out last January in the mountaineering magazine Alpinist: “The Wall,” a Calvino-esque tale about a vertical world (Jouty himself is a natural historian and climber, former editor of Alpinisme et Randonnée.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Of all the virgin territories, dwindling daily, that subsist on this cramped planet—a few mountain tops, a few acres of primeval forest—the Finges Clearing is the most surprising and the least known, precisely because it perfectly resembles the perfectly known territory around it. It is the most remarkable because there is absolutely nothing remarkable about it.”

Chuck Rothman at Tangent Online calls the story “a vignette about a small area in the forests around a small town with a unique history… pure idea, with a bit of ironic commentary on how tourists behave.” Joe Martin at Minor Thoughts highlights the story’s “very nice natural history tone… that reminded me a lot of Jules Verne,” while Sam Tomaino at SFRevu calls it a “beautiful, lyrical piece.” Glad that came through in translation!

Buy it here or discuss it here!