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Alison Anderson

Biography

Alison Anderson

Alison Anderson, a native Californian, works as a literary translator in the Swiss Alps. Her many translations include the Europa edition of Muriel Barbery’s THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG, Ingrid Betancourt’s memoir, and the work of JMG De Clezio. She has also written two previous novels and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Translation Fellowship, as well as fellowships at the prestigious MacDowell Colony and the Hawthornden Retreat for Writers.

Alison Anderson

Books by Alison Anderson

written by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson - Fiction

Haru, a successful Japanese art dealer, loves beauty, harmony, art, balance, intriguing women, sophisticated conversation and elegance. Months after a brief affair in Japan with a French woman, Maud, he discovers she is pregnant with his child. However, she warns him that if he ever tries to see her or the child, she will kill herself. Quietly devastated at the thought of never knowing his daughter, who will become a dark presence in an otherwise elegantly orchestrated life, Haru decides he will respect Maud’s wishes. His daughter grows to adulthood without ever knowing him. Is it too late to change things?

written by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson - Fiction

Rose is called to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. Once there, she encounters acquaintances of her father --- including a potter and poet, an old lady friend, his housekeeper and chauffeur, and Paul, her guide through Kyoto. As the reading of the will gets closer, through her encounters and peregrinations in Kyoto, Rose reaches a poignant understanding of her father’s love and an acceptance of loss.

written by Jean-Christophe Rufin, translated by Alison Anderson - Fiction, Mystery

Aurel Timescu’s French is tinged with a Romanian accent, he has the disheveled air of a character from between the wars, and a past as a performer in piano bars. Nobody can quite understand how he got to be Consul. Now, he’s taken a position in French Guinea. He passes his time perspiring, drinking gallons of Tokay and composing librettos. Until, that is, a vacationer is found hanging from the mast of a sailboat. How did he end up dead, on a mast, on Aurel Timescu’s watch? Had his personal life been hanging by a thread? Was he hanging around waiting for love to be reciprocated? Had he been hanging out with the wrong crowd? Had he hung his hat on the peg of some quixotic dream?

written by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson - Fiction

Maria lives in a remote village in Burgundy, where she learns that she has a gift for communicating with nature. Hundreds of miles away in Italy, Clara discovers that she possesses a stunning musical genius and is sent from the countryside to Rome to develop her preternatural abilities. THE LIVES OF THE ELVES tells the story of two children whose extraordinary talents will bring them into contact with magical worlds and malevolent forces. If, against all odds, they can be brought together, their meeting may shape the course of history.