As someone who admires Jennifer Croft's translation skills and have followed her translation career with Olga TokarczukI was eagerly anticipating this book, but unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations. It had a sort of meta quality, blurring the lines between fiction and memoir, with a narrative that was difficult to follow and contained lots of footnotes. The novel presented itself as a non-fictional account from the viewpoint of one of the translators, adding an intriguing layer to the storytelling, but ultimately, it left me feeling underwhelmed.

This book is like if Milton’s Paradise Lost was funny and sexy and cool. The Extinction of Irena Rey has it all: dark academia vibes, cool mushroom facts, an eerie, primeval forest, a very cool narrative framing device, sex, a chandelier made of bones, cults, birds, hidden rooms, an ancient god in the form of a park ranger. I tore through this novel. I started reading it on a plane expecting to spend maybe a half hour on it (for sleepy reasons) and instead I read it for the entire flight. I couldn’t put it down. And it’s funny! Please read this book it’s such a good book.

Eight translators come together at the home of a successful author in order to translate her latest work. To say that the translators are obsessed with the author is an understatement. After the author mysteriously disappears, along with her husband, the translators carry on, despite the weird circumstances. The story is told from the point of view of the Spanish translator, whose tale has been translated by her enemy, the English translator. I did like the snark in the footnotes written by the English translator, but neither of the women is a reliable narrator.

This book was too meta for me. I enjoyed parts of it, but mostly I found it confusing and trying too hard to be clever. At least it held my interest. 3.5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

I don't know when I've last read a novel so frenetically presented, so unchallengingly hilarious, at times this-damned-close to slapstick. A translator (me), of course, would naturally be moved toward a book written by one of their own favorite literary translators (Jenny Croft), and when you throw into the package a gaggle (a murder?) of translators who routinely come together to work on the next great outpouring of their Beloved Author, I (ahem...the translator) just can't resist.

The plot is as deep and involved as you want it to be, particularly when the Beloved Author inexplicably disappears. Do the translators await her arrival, or do they try to solve what they feel is the mystery of the decade? Perhaps the crime of the decade?

The cherry on top of the package is the fact that Croft has made a background character of the now-defunct Tempelhof Airport, home to this particular translator for eight years. I just can't. Stop. Squealing.

I have really struggled with writing this review as I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading The Extinction of Irena Rey. It is truly well-written! Even still, I had a hard time connecting with the story. The description sounds amazing, but for some reason, this book just didn't work for me. The absurdness of the story was bizarre and not at all what I was expecting.

However, I enjoyed the banter and tension between Emi and Alexis. It was especially amusing discovering how Alexis felt about the situation. I also appreciated the many twists, and reading about the translators and how they worked with Irena made me curious about the translating process in real life.

Read this if you like:
• Books with a foreign film vibe
• Short chapters
• Locked room mystery
• Behind the scenes look at translating

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for the ARC!

i tried to get into this a couple of times, but i'm not sure it was for me. i loved the idea and the premise, so maybe I'll come back to it later. it feels unfair to rate this, but it does feel like something i could enjoy in the future.

Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you, NetGalley and publishers.

The Extinction of Irena Rey is a fever dream of a novel. A team of translators meets in Poland to begin work on their author’s newest work. But tragedy strikes; their author is acting bizarrely and then disappears. Who are they really? Who is Irena Rey?

**Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the digital review copy of this title!!**

I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of this title. I was initially drawn in by the cover and stayed for the fever-dream plot revolving around eight translators.

The translators share a love for one thing - the written word of Irena Ray, a reclusive and obscure Polish novelist. As they travel back to the forest to translate Ray’s latest novel - they have no idea what’s in store for them.

I loved the commentary on obsession throughout this one and the blurring of lines between reality and something ~else.~

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft is a well-written, unique story, but I had a hard time with it. I had trouble connecting with the story and the characters. This isn’t a book for everyone, but I am sure there will be many that will love it. I am positive that this is more of a me problem than any criticism of the book, please read the novel and judge for yourself.

NetGalley provided the advanced digital copy in return for my honest review.

This is the best mystery I have read in years. Because it is so much more than that and it is IMPORTANT. Every word mattered and I sincerely want to read this again. That never happens.

I'm so thankful to Bloomsbury Publishing, Jennifer Croft, and Netgalley for granting me advanced digital and physical access to this one before it hits shelves on March 5, 2024. I really enjoyed being transported into this storyline and revolutionized by its prose.

<b>Unreliable Author & Translator Mystery Fun</b>
<i>Review of the Bloomsbury Publishing hardcover & eBook (March 5, 2024) read via a NetGalley Kindle ARC (downloaded February 14, 2024).</i>

You may be familiar with the unreliable narrator trope in literature but what if the author and their translators themselves are the unreliable ones? <i>The Extinction of Irena Rey</i> finds eight translators attending a translator ‘summit’ at the residence of their star Polish author Irena Rey in the primeval forest in Białowieża, Poland nearby to the border with Belarus. They are there to supposedly translate the author’s 10th work and expected magnum opus <i>Grey Eminence</i>, but soon after their arrival the author disappears. Can the translators be relied upon to accurately complete their work unsupervised?

Initially the translators are named only by their languages, so we meet the characters: English, Spanish, Swedish, German, French, Serbian, Slovenian and Ukrainian. Soon we learn their names, of which Emilia (aka Spanish) and Alexis (aka English) are most prominent. The whole book is Emilia’s memoir of the 2017 summit, written in Polish and translated in English by Alexis a decade after the event. Emilia sees Alexis as a rival however, due to competing translation styles but also for the affection of Freddie (aka Swedish). Events spiral out of control with attempted assassinations, pistols at dawn duels, false flag instagrams and author impersonations piling on until a cross-country journey leads to a final revelation.

Crazed lustful translators who battle with other translators eager to assume the identity of their mutual author make for one bizarre and fun literary novel. There is the especial delight of the often sardonic footnotes provided by Alexis who thereby seeks to correct her portrayal as the villainess translator by Emilia. The whole package is enhanced by obviously being a comic satire inspired by Croft’s own real-life experiences translating eminent Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and their mutual win of the 2018 International Booker Prize leading up to Tokarczuk’s 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature. Tokarczuk’s own ‘magnum opus’ <i>The Books of Jacob</i> (2014) appeared soon after in English translation by Croft in 2021.

My thanks to author Jennifer Croft, publisher Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this preview ARC, in exchange for which I provide this honest review.

<b>Other Reviews</b>
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/02/the-extinction-of-irena-rey-by-jennifer-croft-review-eight-translators-lost-in-a-forest">Eight Translators Lost in a Forest</a> by Carey O’Grady, The Guardian, March 2, 2024.

<b>Soundtrack</b>
I didn’t have to look very far at all for this one. Direct from the author’s acknowledgements is listed “an album titled <i>The Suspended Harp of Babel</i> by Vox Clamantis (an Estonian choir) and Jaan-Eik Tulve (who directed the choir), which I must have listened to ten thousand times over the course of creating <i>The Extinction of Irena Rey</i>”.
You can listen to a sample track composed by Estonian composer Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962) “Päeval ei pea päikene“ (The Sun Shall Not Smite Thee) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdmbqMAbM8M">here</a>.

<b>Trivia and Link</b>
Jennifer Croft is interviewed about the novel on NPR which you can read or listen to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/02/1235517914/jennifer-croft-talks-about-her-novel-the-extinction-of-irena-rae">here</a> on Author Interviews with Scott Simon, March 2, 2024.

The Extinction of Irena Rey has an exciting premise: eight translators arrive at the remote home of world-renowned Polish writer Irena Rey to translate her latest masterpiece; when the author goes missing, the traditions and stability of the translators' worlds begin to veer off course. Based on that, I was excited to read this literary work, even though it's out of my usual genre (which should be kept in mind). The novel immediately sets itself up in a meta way. We are reading the English translation of a fictionalized recounting of the events by one of the other translators. This immediately sets up a House of Leaves-esque mind bend as readers must navigate the layers of storytelling at hand. I did struggle with some of the formatting in the Kindle version, but I feel like it will be more solid in print. Unfortunately, footnotes are better read closer to their referent. The initial premise seems rather straight forward, but, after Irena Rey goes missing, the novel descends into the absurd and surreal. The commentary on creation and translation, and the relationship between both is something I'm sure will be untangled and commented on over the years. The relationship between the translators, especially our Spanish narrator, and Irena Rey was one of my favorite parts, and their worship over her borders on a great fanaticism. The novel does seem to veer off course several times and it can be hard to keep track of all the various threads, but it's a book worth making it through. I did consider DNFing at about 50% because I wasn't engaging with the material as much as I wanted, but I kept going and found a rewarding if not satisfying end. I have a feeling this will end up on several Best Of lists at the end of 2024, but I also believe it to be a decisive, ambitious novel that isn't for everyone. It wasn't for me but I can't say I regret reading it and I'm sure I'll be unraveling those narrative levels for quite some time.

Delighted to include this title in the March edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

This book seemed like it was written by AI. Messy and droning on in the weirdest places. And yet, I couldn’t stop reading it. I was drawn into finding out what happened to Irena and what would happen to the translators. The ending was not really satisfying, so if you can live with that go ahead and give this a try.

The plot: eight translators from around the world gather to translate the newest novel—GREY EMINENCE- written by Irena Rey. Soon after their arrival in a remote Polish forest bordering Belarus, Rey disappears and the translators are left to themselves.
The main “ battle” if you will is between EMI-Argentinian-Spanish-and Alexis the American translator.
Over the course of several weeks they translate the novel, save the forest, and save an art piece,
There is a diversion about mushrooms , mycelia and fungi in the secluded forest. Thrown in are attempted murders and romanic relationships and sexual desires. It has been a most anticipated read of 2024 but it just didn’t work for me. There were so many confusing diversions that I frankly got lost and worse bored at times. It was probably too sophisticated and complex a read for me.

𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒏, 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒂𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒍 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝑳𝒆𝒏𝒂.

Grey Eminence, author Irena Rey’s masterpiece, is finally finished. Her eight loyal translators jump on a plane and head to her house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. The home is as alive as the protected reserve Białowieża, in harmony with the forest, and off limits to the public. It is one of the best-preserved ecosystems that Irena feels is her mission to protect, as real to her as any human being. The one thing the translators have in common, despite coming from different countries around the world, is their belief that Irena’s words are sacred. Always worshipful, they are surprised to learn that she isn’t her usual regal self. With her husband absent, her fire appears to have gone out. They understood that the place is made up of unconnected events connecting, unpredictable, unstoppable, much like the group themselves. So begins the story about book people about to be swallowed by the earth.

They have dedicated their lives to understanding Irena, supplicants, but suddenly they cannot decode her behavior. As they venture into the reserve, she scares them a little with the strange gift she hands out without explanation, and someone gets hurt. The next day, she is more collected until she begins to speak about Białowieża and extinction, falling apart over the destruction of the trees, a network. On she goes about fungi and its purpose, leaving them all disoriented. She will not tell them what Grey Eminence is about but her impassioned speech, however disjointed, leads them to believe Białowieża is the heart of it all. Is she losing her mind? Is this the result of being isolated? Shame overwhelms them over their failure to comprehend Irena and the ecological horrors traumatizing her. Already sensitive to their beloved author’s state of mind, they are shocked by helplessness when they realize she has disappeared.

In this bizarre setting, the translators are lost, their minds in a frenzied state, searching the place for clues, hoping to excavate truths about Irena based on their surroundings but Białowieża is a hungry place, a beast on its own, impossible to make sense of, filled with threatening forces. Nothing in the rooms, her office, forest or the new book contain answers, they only serve to puzzle them more. Is her writing non-fiction disguised as fiction? She has maintained total authority over her work and her identity, and over the translators too. What are they to do now without her guidance, as the spell they have been under is breaking? Their languages, little worlds unto themselves, may alter Irene’s original work but too they effect how they understand their current circumstances.

This is a strange read; I am sure that I missed the meaning in many places. Translation changes a work, and each character is as clueless as me. Are they making more of her unraveling because of how they see her, as a god to them? As they dedicate themselves to discovering her whereabouts, their very lives are threatened, they are jealous of each other, who means more to her? Who understands her better? Could this be a big test, with the possibility of being replaced? As they get closer to solving the mystery, truth rears its ugly head. In cultlike fascination they have always believed they were special, a part of the magic that makes Irena unforgettable, enchanting. But how does Irena feel about them? Have they ever truly considered their purpose from her perspective, unclouded by hero worship?

This book is too clever for me by half, but I enjoyed the strange journey.

Publication Date: March 5, 2024

Bloomsbury USA

Thank you to the publisher for my arc.

I had really wanted to enjoy this, the writing style was interesting as well as the premise but I just grew bored as i was reading. It felt like the story started to take off, it would become stagnant until something else happened. almost like a rollercoaster and it just couldn't keep me interested.

<i>My heartfelt thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

The novel in a nutshell: a <s>coven</s> murder of translators gather on the outskirts of one of the few remaining stretches of primeval forests in Europe, Białowieża, to translate the latest novel by the author they idolize. Some weeks later, they leave the retreat after having misplaced their author, solved an historical art heist, saved the forest from loggers, discovered that it's more of a cult than a translation gig or a book club, and translated the manuscript, among other things. At some point afterwards, one of the translators writes a novel about these events, and another translates it while aggressively annotating it to hell and back. If that's not perplexing enough, lemme add that there's also a mystical marriage, more fungi than you can shake a stick at, reflections on violence inscribed in Eastern European landscapes, reflections about invasive species and what can be classified as such, a faked death and a duel at dawn, partly between the domesticating and the foreignizing approaches to translation, among other things.

With footnotes as a form of violence against the narrator by the annotator who attempts to impose their own narrative on top of the text they are given, this is possibly one of the most inventively constructed novels I've read in a while. The Chinese puzzle ball structure of embedded stories clack-clacking uneasily against one another remind me of Nabokov's <i>Pale Fire</i>, possibly the most (in)famous case of an unreliable annotator in literature. If you enjoyed <i>Pale Fire</i>, or, say, Olga Tokarczuk's <i>Dom Dzienny, Dom Nocny</i> (or a bunch of her other novels, but thematically and vibe-wise, DDDN probably comes closest), chances are you will enjoy <i>The Extinction of Irena Rey.</i> Ultimately, I enjoyed it far less than I expected to simply because this particular flavor of chaos and delirium is not my cuppa (I nodded emphatically when one of the characters asked <i>"Need I remind you that sanity has not exactly been the guiding principle since our arrival here?"</i>--I found it a bit too hard to suspend disbelief or find a structure in all this at points), but it might be yours. For me, it was not so much plot-driven or character-driven as driven by the architecture of the text and aphorisms about the nature of translation work. Like, there'd be an agglomeration of too many themes happening at once--borders linguistic and political, violence narrative and historical, and how translation pertains to our understanding of selfhood and otherness, smuggling in strangers and invasive species in familiar guises to crack open the stuffy haunted mansions of closed cultures--or something--(it's not the text, it's my attention span)--and right at the point when I was about to lose track and despair, there'd be some new shiny narrative trickery (footnotes doing their best to get into a fist fight with the text! comments on the uneasy interface between English and Polish grammar!), or a wonderful way of looking at translations, and that'd give me impetus to read on. Because how can you not enjoy something like this: <i>"Fungi are the epitome of evil, feasting on--rejoicing in--the death of everyone and everything around them [...] Yet they are a necessary evil because fungi consume death. Fungi make the forest possible. Without them, death would obliterate life, leading to far more extinctions"</i>? Or something like this: <i>"what we do is mycelial. What we do as translators is stitch the world into a united and communicating whole"</i>?

So my takeaway from the novel is, a translator is a mushroom. This is odd & wonderful & as a translator, I'm very happy with this discovery. Can't unthink it, won't unthink it.

This was so hotly anticipated for me and it did NOT disappoint. Weird and steamy and smart and funny. The Polish landscape itself is a character and I’m so excited to read more from this author.