The Task of This Translator

Todd Hasak-Lowy

ISBN 10: 0156031124 / ISBN 13: 9780156031127

Published by Mariner Books June 2005, 2005

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 51110

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Task of This Translator
• Publisher: Mariner Books June 2005
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0156031124
• ISBN 13: 9780156031127
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: USED Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • LITERATURE & Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

Stylistically daring, morally perplexing, and outrageously funny, Todd Hasak-Lowy's The Task of This Translator marks the debut of a writer of extraordinary talent. In these seven stories, Hasak-Lowy captures the absurdity that often arises when very personal crises intersect with global issues such as ethnic violence, obesity, and the media.

A journalist sets out to write an investigative piece on a dieting company that uses bodyguards to protect overeaters from themselves but loses his bearings when he becomes a client and is paired up with a bodyguard of his own. In the coffee shop of Israel's Holocaust memorial museum, a stale pastry triggers a brawl between an American tourist and the Israeli cashier. A man misplaces his wallet shortly before a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. An unwilling and mostly unqualified slacker finds himself cast into the role of translator for the bitter reunion of a family torn apart years earlier by unspecified brutality.

A standout story collection, The Task of This Translator is funny, intricate, and deeply human.

About the Author

TODD HASAK-LOWY was born in Detroit. He teaches Hebrew language and literature at the University of Florida and lives in Gainesville, Florida.