Adrian Nathan West
ADRIAN NATHAN WEST is a literary translator and the author of the forthcoming novel The Aesthetics of Degradation. His translations include Pere Gimferrer’s Fortuny and Alma Venus, three novels by Josef Winkler, and Marianne Fritz’s The Weight of Things.
from Graveyard of Bitter Oranges
by Josef Winkler, translated by Adrian Nathan West (2015, Contra Mundum Press)May the wax drops from a blessed candle spill over my navel to seal my corpse. Lay the large sacred image that hung for decades over my deathbed—Raphael’s Madonna della seggiola—on top of my open coffin, so the mourners around the casket, come to pray and chant and pay their respects, may no longer see my face in death.
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