Reading and Discussion of the Translation of Inès Cagnati’s "Crazy Genie"

With translator Liesl Schillinger and NYU PhD candidate Simon Leser

This evening, the translator Liesl Schillinger will read from, and discuss, her translation of Inès Cagnati’s Crazy Genie (Génie la folle). She will be in discussion with Simon Leser.

Presentation of Inès Cagnati’s novel Crazy Genie: 

Marie lives with her mother, Genie, in a ramshackle house by a willow-lined river in rural France. Every morning, Genie walks to the neighboring farms to do what work there is to be done. When farmers and villagers greet her, she says nothing, and keeps walking. Once, she was a lighthearted girl from the best family in the valley; now they all call her “Crazy Genie.” While her mother works, Marie waits, yearning for her mother to notice her, longing for the moment when they will be back in their lonely house by the river.

Told in Marie’s ingenuous, straightforward voice, Crazy Genie is the second novel by Inès Cagnati, who grew up in poverty in rural France in the 1940s, the child of Italian immigrant agricultural workers. Rich in observation and detail, and devastating in its portrayal of a child’s unconditional love and of society’s callous prejudices, Crazy Genie, together with her first novel, Free Day, confirms Cagnati's astonishing power as a writer.