NTA Longlist: Adventures in Immediate Irreality by Max Blecker, trans. by Michael Henry Heim (New Directions)

Adventures in Immediate Irreality
By Max Blecher
Translated from the Romanian by Michael Henry Heim
(New Directions)

Max Blecher’s Adventures in Immediate Irreality bridges the genres of memoir and novel, chronicling the demise of his body as he slowly succumbs to the spinal tuberculosis that would kill him at the age of twenty-eight. Michael Henry Heim, who learned Romanian solely to translate this book, was himself terminally ill when he began work on it; the translation is posthumously published. Heim, a master translator from many languages, brought all of his formidable talents to this project, including a keen eye to the dense yet precise language of this beautifully harrowing book.