Restless Books Rights Catalog 2020 Restless Books Mission
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Restless Books Rights Catalog 2020 Restless Books Mission Restless Books is an independent, nonprofit publisher devoted to championing essen- tial voices from around the world whose stories speak to us across linguistic and cultu- ral borders. We seek extraordinary international literature for adults and young readers that feeds our restlessness: our hunger for new perspectives, passion for other cultures and languages, and eagerness to explore beyond the confines of the familiar. Through cultural programming, we aim to celebrate immigrant writing and bring literature to underserved communities. We believe that immigrant stories are a vital component of our cultural consciousness; they help to ensure awareness of our commu- nities, build empathy for our neighbors, and strengthen our democracy. https://restlessbooks.org/mission Fiction Highlights 4 The City of Good Death by Priyanka Champaneri Red Dust by Yoss, translated from the Spanish by David Frye A Planet for Rent by Yoss, translated from the Spanish by David Frye Super Extra Grande by Yoss, translated from the Spanish by David Frye Condomnauts by Yoss, translated from the Spanish by David Frye I Am God by Giacomo Sartori, translated from the Italian by Frederika Randall Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan Beyond the Rice Fields by Naivo, translated from the French by Allison Charette Nonfiction Highlights 12 How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish edited by Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert Nine Moons by Gabriela Wiener, translated from the Spanish by Jessica Powell Sexographies by Gabriela Wiener, translated from the Spanish by Lucy Greaves and Jennifer Adcock The Body Papers by Grace Talusan The Face: A Time Code by Ruth Ozeki God Is Round by Juan Villoro, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead Young Readers Highlights 18 Rat Rule 79 by Rivka Galchen, illustrations by Elena Megalos Daniel and Ismail by Juan Pablo Iglesias, illustrations by Alex Peris Ramayana: An Illustrated Retelling by Arshia Sattar, illustrations by Sonali Zohra The Wild Book by Juan Villoro, translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel The Casket of Time by Andri Snær Magnason, translated from the Icelandic by Björg Arnadóttir and Andrew Cauthery Run For Your Life by Silvana Gandolfi, translated from the Italian by Lynne Sharon Schawrz Backlist Highlights 24 The City of Good Death by Priyanka Champaneri Winner of the 2018 Prize for New Immigrant Writing Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Priyanka Champaneri’s transcendent debut novel brings us inside India’s holy city of Banaras, where the manager of a death hostel shepherds the dying who seek the release of a good death, while his own past refu- ses to let him go. Banaras, Varanasi, Kashi: India’s holy city on the banks of the Ganges has many names but holds one ultimate promise for Hindus. It is the place where pilgrims come for a good death, to be released from the cycle of reincarnation by purifying fire. As the dutiful manager of a death hostel in Kashi, Pramesh welcomes the dying and assists families bound for the funeral pyres that burn constantly on the ghats. The soul is gone, the body is burnt, the time is past, he tells them. Detach. After ten years in the timeless city, Pramesh can nearly persuade himself that here, there is no past or future. He lives contentedly at the death hostel with his wife, Shobha, their young daughter, Rani, the hostel priests, his hapless but winning assistant, and the cons- tant flow of families with their dying kin. But one day the past arri- US Publication June 2020 ves in the lifeless form of a man pulled from the river—a man with 9781632062529 • $27 • 6” x 9” • Fiction—India / an uncanny resemblance to Pramesh. Family Saga Called “twins” in their childhood village, he and his cousin Sagar Rights Held: World, Audio are inseparable until Pramesh leaves to see the outside world and Sagar stays to tend the land. After Pramesh marries Shobha, • WINNER OF THE RESTLESS BOOKS defying his family’s wishes, a rift opens up between the cousins that he has long since tried to forget. Do not look back. Detach. But PRIZE FOR NEW IMMIGRANT for Shobha, Sagar’s reemergence casts a shadow over the life she’s WRITING built for her family. Soon, an unwelcome guest takes up residence • AN EXPANSIVE FAMILY SAGA IN THE in the death hostel, the dying mysteriously continue to live, and Pramesh is forced to confront his own ideas about death, rebirth, TRADITION OF GREAT INDIAN and redemption. NOVELS Told in lush, vivid detail and with an unforgettable cast of charac- • AN EXPLORATION OF DEATH, ters, The City of Good Death is a remarkable debut novel of family and love, memory and ritual, and the ways in which we honor the REBIRTH, AND REDEMPTION living and the dead. • DEBUT NOVEL FROM AN EXCITING NEW VOICE IN FICTION Priyanka Champaneri received her MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts numerous times. She received the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing for The City of Good Death, her first novel. 4 Red Dust by Yoss Translated from the Spanish by David Frye From beloved Cuban science fiction author Yoss comes a bitingly funny space-opera homage to Raymond Chandler, about a positronic robot detective on the hunt for some extra-dangerous extraterrestrial criminals. On the intergalactic trading station William S. Burroughs, profit is king and aliens are the kingmakers. Earthlings have bowed to their superior power and weaponry, though the aliens—praying mantis-like Grodos with pheromonal speech and gargantuan Collosaurs with a limited sense of humor—kindly allow them to do business through properly controlled channels. That’s where our hero comes in, name of Raymond. As part of the android police force, this positronic robot detective navigates both worlds, human and alien, keeping order and evaporating wrong- doers. But nothing in his centuries of experience prepares him for Makrow 34, a fugitive Cetian perp with psi powers. Meaning he can alter the shape of the Gaussian bell curve of statistical probabi- lity—making it rain indoors, say, or causing a would-be captor to shoot himself in the face. Raymond will need all his training—and US Publication July 2020 all his careful study of Chandler’s hardbitten cops—to outmaneu- 9781632062468 • $17 • 5.5” x 8.25” • 208 pages ver his quarry. Science Fiction—Cuban / Space Opera / As he did in his brilliantly funny and sharp science-fiction sati- Detective res A Planet for Rent, Super Extra Grande, and Condomnauts, Yoss Rights Held: World, Film, Audio makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar in Red Dust, giving us an unforgettable half-human hero and a richly imagined universe where the bad guys are above the laws of physics. • A BELOVED HOUSE AUTHOR • YOSS: A (LITERAL) ROCK STAR AUTHOR • A SPACE-OPERA HOMAGE TO RAYMOND CHANDLER • CROSSOVER APPEAL • REVITALIZED INTEREST IN CUBA Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez in Havana, Cuba, in 1969, Yoss assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David in the science-fiction category forTimshel . Since then, he has gone on to become one of Cuba’s most iconic literary figures—as the author of more than twenty acclaimed books, as a champion of science fiction through his workshops in Cuba and around the world, and as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Tenaz. 5 A Planet for Rent by Yoss Translated from the Spanish by David Frye Out of the modern-day dystopia of Cuba comes an instant classic from the island’s most celebrated science fiction author: a raucous tale of a future in which a failing Earth is at the mercy of powerful capitalist alien colonizers. In A Planet for Rent, Yoss critiques life under Castro in the ‘90s by drawing parallels with a possible Earth of the not-so-distant future. Wracked by economic and environmental problems, the desperate planet is rescued, for better or worse, by alien coloni- zers, who remake the planet as a tourist destination. Ruled over by a brutal interstellar bureaucracy, dispossessed humans seek better lives via the few routes available—working for the colonial police; eking out a living as black marketeers, drug dealers, or artists; pros- tituting themselves to exploitative extraterrestrial visitors—or they face the cold void of space in rickety illegal ships. Praise for A Planet for Rent “A Planet for Rent is the English-language debut of Yoss, one of Cuba’s most lauded writers of science fiction. Translated by David US Publication June 2015 Frye, these linked stories craft a picture of a dystopian future: Aliens 9781632060365 • $15.99 • 5.5” x 8.25” • 272 pages called xenoids have invaded planet Earth, and people are looking Science Fiction: Comedic / Dystopia / Cuba to flee the economically and socially bankrupt remains of human Rights Held: World, Film, Audio civilization. Yoss’ smart and entertaining novel tackles themes like Rights Sold: prostitution, immigration and political corruption. Ultimately, it Audio: Audible serves as an empathetic yet impassioned metaphor for modern-day Cuba, where the struggle for power has complicated every facet of society.” • THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DEBUT OF —Juan Vidal, NPR, Best Books of 2015 AN ASTONISHINGLY BRAVE AND IMAGINATIVE LATIN AMERICAN “Some of the best sci-fi written anywhere since the 1970s.… A Planet for Rent, like its author, a bandana-wearing, muscly roquero, is VOICE completely sui generis: riotously funny, scathing, perceptive, and yet • SATIRICAL EXPLORATION OF also heart-wrenchingly compassionate.… Instantly appealing.” CORRUPTION AND —André Naffis-Sahely,The Nation COLONIALIZATION Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez in Havana, Cuba, in 1969, Yoss assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David in the science-fiction category forTimshel .