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(SPOILER ALERT-the nature of this blog is to provide detailed information for the curious, but unless you have the entire work, you may loose the opportunity to uncover many of these things by yourself). 

 

 

Translator’s Note ands Forward

So begins the fiction and the mystery.  F.X. Caldeira, as the fictional translator raises one of the key questions of the work about its very author: WHO WAS V. M. STRAKA?

The mystery surrounding the actual author (also fictional) mirrors the search for the identity of the hero of S. 

The footnote, also a fiction, points to a fictional publishing house, Karst & Son, that has closed forcing the translator to publish the work at his/her own expense.

 

The Translator’s Note and Foreword stands out as one of the few pages without annotation by Eric or Jen, save the underlining in blue by Jen of the thought that “The world never knew . . .”

The translator, F.X. Caldeira,  is now unemployed after the firm of Karst & Son that had published all Straka’s previous works [in translation?] shut it’s doors.
City of Walls

F. X. Caldeira. More on her is found in the excellent “S. wiki ” by Zach Whalen. Caldeira is not an uncommon Brazilian name and there is an author Teresa P. R. Caldeira who published City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo.

 

karst

 

Karst. While the publishing house is a fiction there is  masonry firm known as Karst and Sons. The word “karst” also describes a landscape with caves-one feature that will re-appear in the novel.

 

 

Who was V. M. Straka? The question remains unanswered, yet serves as one of the recurring issues of the book.

The translator is effusive in her praise, attributing extraordinary power of the works to  bring about change, as well as high praise for the author’s literary talents.

The translator’s footnote identifies the previous publishing house and explains that the work is being published at “considerable personal expense (financial and otherwise).” As such the translator’s  objectivity is called into question.

 

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