Translated by Donald O. White ( Winner, The PEN Award for Literary Translation, 2013. Honourable Mention: Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize 2013)
Introduction by Juergen Putz
“You need to search far and wide to find a book that can measure up to this. If there is one book that really deserves to be called a ‘literary event’, it is undoubtable this one.”
Siegfried Lenz in WELT AM SONNTAG
“Farcical, byzantine and philosophical: one of the most unusual
and entertaining books I have ever read.”
Alan Riding in the New York Times Book Review
“Have just read a German novel which struck me a true work of art:
The Island of Second Sight”.
Paul Celan
“I have known it for a long time: The greatest book of this (20th) century is: The island of Second Sight byAlbert Vigoleis Thelen”.
Maarten t’Hart in DIE ZEIT
“The Island of Second Sight is worth more than the entire output of the Gruppe 47. Thelen manages to portray the fullness of life in its mix of confusion, burlesque, absurdity, despair, adversity, meanness and it’s overwhelming beauty which time and time again vanquishes everything.”
Wiglaf Droste, taz 14.1.2004
Honourable Mention awarded to Donald O. White for his translation of A.V. Thelen’s novel “The Island of Second Sight“ (Overlook Press 2012)
The jury stated: “Donald O. White, with his translation of Albert Vigoleis Thelen’s The Island of Second Sight, has recovered for readers of English a work of grand proportions and manifest virtuosity. White is particularly successful in capturing and sustaining the language of Thelen’s wry, irreverent, penetrating, and often hedonistic humor, whether in the narrator’s voice or the many voices of his variegated cast of characters. This is a major effort for a landmark work of the mid-twentieth century.”
“The Island of Second Sight is worth more than the entire output of the Gruppe 47. Thelen manages to portray the fullness of life in its mix of confusion, burlesque, absurdity, despair, adversity, meanness and it’s overwhelming beauty which time and time again vanquishes everything.”
The TLS, April 1st 2011 issue: “A Masterpiece of Mallorca”
“An almighty chronicle of Mallorquine society”
“Fabulous in all senses of the word”
Iain Bamforth
“Thomas Mann praised The Island of Second Sight as “One of the greatest books of the 20th century.” Indeed it is. The novel is comparable in profundity as well as in complexity to Mann’s own Magic Mountain. It is in a class with two other massive German masterpieces more often acclaimed than read: Hermann Broch’s The Death of Virgil and Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities.”
Allen Guttman, Amherst Magazine
“There is a widely held misconception that Germans have no sense of humour. Here is evidence to the contrary as Thelen, belatedly, through his translator, gets a chance to show the English speaking world.”
Anthea Bell, The Literary Review. March 2011
“Masterpiece. For those of us who love Majorca and enjoy learning about its culture and history this is an indispensable read.”
Donald Trelford, Majorca Daily Bulletin. April 2011