Rants & Raves: Letter to the Editors

Page 2 Over the past two years, we have used this space to apprise our readers ofthe continuing budget crisis at Illinois State University and the resulting threat to the continued existence ofAmerican Book Review. In the face of this threat, we have worked hard to find a new institutional home for ABR. I am delighted—and relieved! —to announce that ABR has survived the crisis and is in the process of relocating its editorial offices to the University of Houston at Victoria, Texas. Because of sharply reduced support at Illinois State University, ABR was forced to struggle over the past year with a part-time Managing Editor. So I am especially pleased—and relieved! —to announce that UHV has appointed a newfull-time Managing Editor, Charles Alcorn, a fiction writer who recently completed his PhD from the University ofHouston's excellent Creative Writing program. Already in the saddle, Charles is busy assembling our November-December issue (28.1), which will be the first issue completely edited at UHV. I am also pleased to announce that Tara Reeser, deft director of Illinois State University's Publications Unit, will continue to supervise ABR production. Tara's extensive experience with ABR will contribute to a smooth transition. Special thanks are due to Jeffrey Di Leo, Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences at UHV, whose adroit navigation through and around various bureaucratic barriers expedited this move at atime when ABR, quite literally, had run out of time. A frequent contributor to ABR, Jeffrey is founding editor of thejournal symploke and series editor for Class inAmerica, published by University of Nebraska Press. His most recent book is From Socrates to Cinema: An Introduction to Philosophy (2006). Jeffrey will share the role of publisher with me. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Joe Amato and Kass Fleisher, ABR's Managing Editor and Executive Editor, respectively, for the past five issues. Although they have moved on to other interests, ABR's editors and readers owe them a debt ofgratitude for the time, talent, and energy they devoted to this review over the past year. In the mid-1990s, American BookReviewjoined DalkeyArchive Press, FC2, the Web site Litline, and other significant literary journals and activities to form the Unit for Contemporary Literature at Illinois State University. For abrief, shining moment, Normal, Illinois, became the unlikely center of the independent literary community, attracting outstanding students and such significant writing/publishing faculty members as David Foster Wallace, CS. Giscombe, John O'Brien, and Curtis White. Butthe modern university, like a Heraclitean river, is in constant flux, especially at the administrative levels. And with new administrators come new priorities. So we look back with gratitude at those far-sighted administrators who supported the Unit's development, with regret at the changed priorities of more recent administrators, and with hopefulness at our new institutional affiliation. Founded by Ron Sukenick in 1977, ABR enters its fourth decade with great expectations.· Charles B. Harris, Publisher Rants & Raves letter to the editors CARTARESCU'S NOSTALGIA To paraphrase Emil Cioran, the Romanian-born nihilist philosopher, the Romanian literature is constrained and limited by the relative size ofits originating culture. Such a globally insignificant culture cannot flourish overshadowed by largerpolitical and cultural entities. Cioran's intellectual debate may yet have merit, but the recent translation ofMircea Cartarescu's Nostalgia (ABR 27.4) adds a different dimension altogether. Cartarescu's work does not derive its universal value from its English translation, but it serves as confirmation of its incontestable merit to enter the universal writer's panoply. An accessible medium now permits comparisons to Borges or Milan Kundera; it is of great importance in that it helps the Romanian literature break the boundaries of its geography andjuxtaposes it with the works of Julio Cortázar and Franz Kafka, starting a trend for more similar cultural exchanges. While of course the long-overdue attention now being afforded Cartarescu is due to his own unique talents, the efforts of his translator should not be understated or minimized. One of the more meritorious aspects of Julian Semilian's translation of this novel is his faithfulness to the authenticity of the original, coupled with his great flair for the...