Mar 31

Mar 31 The Extinction of Irena Rey

About the book

Author: Jennifer Croft
Publisher: Bloomsbury

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

The premise: Famed author Irena Rey’s prestigious entourage of translators have gathered at her home to begin translate her magnum opus. Then she disappears. Chaos ensues. The background info you need: Jennifer Croft is one of our greatest living literary translators, and this is her own debut novel.

The construction that blew my mind: All the characters in the story are translators, and the (unreliable) narrator of the story you’re reading is one of them. BUT another (unreliable) character from the story is the one who translated the first character’s account into English, complete with footnotes and commentary. And so you can never, ever forget the idea that translated works pass through a filter; every time the English-language translator is mentioned in the story, you remember she’s also in control of how you experience that story.

This was book was not only totally engrossing, but also so incredibly smart. I couldn’t put it down. I inhaled it in 36 hours. I absolutely loved it and you must read it!

(One note about the audiobook: I listened along while I read the book in print, and this worked. However, I probably wouldn’t recommend listening only. The footnotes, as I mentioned, are critical, and I wasn’t a huge fan of how the audiobook inserted them. I think you’ll like this one much better in print.)