The Splendid Albert Cossery

I can’t rave enough about Albert Cossery. A review in Three Percent of The Jokers (NYRB) said it for me: “Albert Cossery is the best dead writer I’ve discovered this year.” New Directions published A Splendid Conspiracy this year, which is up for the Three Percent 2011 Best Translated Books Award. I hate to play favorites—some other excellent New Directions books are also in the running—but I have a special place in my (literature) heart for this book. One of the first things I wrote for New Directions was a review of it, in which I said, “Each scene of A Splendid Conspiracy is infused with Cossery’s particular brand of sly and gleeful humor, which often comes at the expense of his characters. His light-hearted descriptions often overwhelm the more serious revelations taking place.” His voice has stuck with me ever since.

 New Directions has another Cossery books in the works, his last novel, The Colors of Infamy, published in French in 1999. It’s also translated by the PEN Translation Fund Award Winner Alyson Waters. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the manuscript, and it’s riveting. New Directions published a couple of Cossery’s books many years ago, including The House of Certain Death and The Lazy Ones, which I found in our library, a little beat up but looking enticing—I hope to find my own copies of them soon.

 

I can’t recommend Cossery enough. You can read an excerpt of A Splendid Conspiracy over on Scribd.