The Dog and the Fever

"England never knew that Golden Age Spain invented the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European drama, poetry, and novel. Jonathan Cohen clarifies the entangled wonders in William Carlos Williams's translation of the seventeenth-century Spanish novel, The Dog and the Fever, by Pedro Espinosa, whose outrageous dog's tale recalls Miguel de Cervantes's earlier masterpiece, The Dialogue of the Dogs. Williams's vital English version mirrors Espinosa's unsurpassed dog novel related by an eloquently talkative canine."—Willis Barnstone, author of ABC of Translation

"England never knew that Golden Age Spain invented the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European drama, poetry, and novel. Jonathan Cohen clarifies the entangled wonders in William Carlos Williams's translation of the seventeenth-century Spanish novel, The Dog and the Fever, by Pedro Espinosa, whose outrageous dog's tale recalls Miguel de Cervantes's earlier masterpiece, The Dialogue of the Dogs. Williams's vital English version mirrors Espinosa's unsurpassed dog novel related by an eloquently talkative canine."—Willis Barnstone, author of ABC of Translation

"We owe Jonathan Cohen a debt of thanks for bringing to the center of our attention this unexpectedly modern seventeenth century whirlwind of imagistic language. The accomplished, proto-surreal, avant-garde experimentalism is helped along by William Carlos Williams's keen eye and sympathetic ear, and Cohen's sensitive editing."—Edith Grossman, author of Why Translations Matters

"Anything that William Carlos Williams put his hand to is more than worth reading, and Pedro Espinosa's The Dog and the Fever is no exception. The text, with its tumble of aphorisms and proverbs, reads like proto-dada or -surrealism, and when we realize that Williams did the translation project with his elderly mother, Raquel Elena Hoheb, it takes on the importance of a family project. (Their labor gave birth to another extraordinary Williams book, Yes, Mrs. Williams!, that also deserves our attention.) Jonathan Cohen, a poet and noted translator, who has already gathered Williams' translations in By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish 1916-1959 and prepared a new edition of Williams' breakthrough book, Al Que Quiere!, has done Williams readers a great service in blowing the dust off this translation and sprucing it up for a new century."—Bill Zavatsky

"This 'dredges of language' novella as Williams wanted it published, with his 'running commentary' on both the work and his translation: Williams reveling in America's modernist future as he reclaimed his (and therefore its) Spanish literary heritage."—Julio Marzán