National Bestseller Winner of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize One of New York magazine's Ten Best Books of the Year A Providence Journal Best Book of the Year One of National Public Radio's Favorite Books of the Year Lydia Davis's Madame Bovary translation=perfect. She somehow pulls off a respectful translation with the readability of a ... Read morecontemporary novel.
@lenadunham [Flaubert's] masterwork has been given the English translation it deserves.
Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review Invigorating . . . [Davis] has a finer ear for the natural cadences of English, in narrative and dialogue, than any of her predecessors.
Jonathan Raban, The New York Review of Books Dazzling . . . translated to perfect pitch . . . [Davis has] left us the richer with this translation. . . . I'd certainly say it is necessary to have hers.
Jacki Lyden, NPR.org, Favorite Books of the Year One of the most important books of the year . . . Flaubert's strict, elegant, rhythmic sentences come alive in Davis's English.
James Wood, The New Yorker's Book Bench I liked having a chance to find more nuances in Madame Bovary in the new Lydia Davis translation and read it blissfully as though floating, as Flaubert puts it in a different context, 'in a river of milk.'
Paul Theroux, The Guardian (London), Books of the Year Madame Bovary reads like it was written yesterday. . . . Emma, with her visions of a grander life and resplendent passions, is me . . . and you, too, no doubt. . . . If you haven't happened to read Madame Bovary until now, I suggest you curl up with this edition . . . and allow yourself to get lost in another time and place that yet bears a curious resemblance to our own.
Daphne Merkin, Elle Davis is the best fiction writer ever to translate the novel. . . . [Her] work shares the Flaubertian virtues of compression, irony and an extreme sense of control.
Julian Barnes, London Review of Books A brilliant new translation.
Lee Siegel, The New York Observer I'm grateful to Davis for luring me back to Madame Bovary and for giving us a version which strikes me as elegant and alive.
Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air Flaubert's obsessive masterpiece finally gets the obsessive translation it deserves.
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