The Observer Translation Project

Carmen Firan’s Word as Flesh, was launched on Thursday, October 13 at The Telephone Bar & Grill  ( 149 Second Avenue, in New York City). Published by Talisman House, the collection includes a preface by Andrei Codrescu, who writes: “In the paper house of words, Carmen Firan occupies a sunlit room. Whenever she goes anywhere… Carmen takes her house of words with her, folded in the shape of a fan… Her stories and essays, like her poetry, fold perfectly into her instrumental fan…. The reporter might say that she knows how to hear and how to render, and the poet that she can find the music in the noise. The rest of me just digs reading her.” Carmen Firan is:  “A crafter of wickedly satirical, sly and subtle short fictions,” notes Isaiah Sheffer, artistic director of Symphony Space and host of “Selected Shorts” on NPR. Kirby Olson writes: “Her works have deep layers of darkness intermingled with dazzling moments of comic sadness.” And Bruce Benderson, author of The Romanian writes: “It took… Carmen Firan to reveal the true absurdity of the American story. What seems normal and mundane to our jaded eyes becomes surreal and even a little bit tragic through the wry lens of her writing.”