Lutz Bassmann belongs to a community of imaginary authors invented, championed, and literarily realized by Antoine Volodine, a French writer of Slavic origins born in 1950. Volodine’s many celebrated, category-defying works include the award-winning Minor Angels (Nebraska, 2004), which blends science fiction, Tibetan myth, a ludic approach to writing, and a profound humanistic idealism. Jordan Stump is a professor of French at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of The Other Book (Nebraska, 2011), has translated numerous texts, including Minor Angels, and was awarded the French-American Foundation’s translation prize and the Prix Médicis in 2014.
Jordan Stump is a professor of French at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of Naming and Unnaming: On Raymond Queneau (Nebraska 1998) and has translated numerous texts. His translation of Claude Simon’s The Jardin des Plantes was awarded the French-American Foundation’s translation prize; in the fall of 2006, he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French-Russian writer who has published twenty books under this name, of which several are available in English translation: Minor Angels, Radiant Terminus, Bardo or Not Bardo, Writers, and Solo Viola (Minnesota, 2021).
Gina Stamm is assistant professor of French at the University of Alabama.
