Renee Gladman

Fiction. LGBT Studies. African American Studies. The second volume of Gladman's Ravicka trilogy continues the author's profound meditation upon translation and the ephemeral. THE RAVICKIANS narrates the day-long odyssey of Luswage Amini, the Great Ravickian Novelist, who journeys through the city to attend the reading of an old friend. Where the earlier volume, EVENT FACTORY, explores Ravicka from the outside, via a visitor's attempt to understand and interpret that city's irreducible strangeness, THE RAVICKIANS faces the problem of translation from the perspective of an insider who struggles, throughout her account, to make plain the political and personal crises of Ravickian life that she knows to be untranslatable.

The Ravickians

Ry Cook

That I managed to make it to the Mohaly district in this condition just goes to show the misalignment of time to emotion. My heart, I believe, is still riveted to that pile, but I do not need it to understand where I am. Mohaly makes itself known. You feel its presence around you: the crowding of cafes, boutiques, fruit stands. Unlike the past, you do not feel the throng of people, but, like the past, the smell of flowers comes strong. Being here could save you from yourself, if only you would open up to the experience, to adopting a happy posture of prominence. Before the despair, it was quite ordinary to see that look as you walked around. People iust proud to be outside in tailored clothing. There is a little less enthusiasm right now. But if I stand here and concentrate, can't I bring about the scene?.

The Ravickians quotes

Join the club