From the Editor…

The fifth issue of Socrates on the Beach is a special one. Our first translated pieces appear and they are both products of literary luminaries of the highest order. Robert Musil wrote extensively on the relationship between literature and politics during the early part of the 20th Century, from world war to world war. In the included excerpts, mostly aphorisms, Musil conveys a medley of probing observations—wonderfully translated by Musil scholar Genese Grill. Mircea Cărtărescu has been writing since the 70s, but only in the last decade has his work gained prominence in the United States. Fittingly, the excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Solenoid, concentrates on a character’s first forays into poetry during his youth—rendered in a rich, vibrant English by Sean Cotter.

Garielle Lutz returns with another sui generis piece of prose. Backwardness is a text containing all her trademarks: humor, melancholia, the desiccated families and landscapes of the USA, all nestled in an English as a Special Language. Matt Leibel’s “The Patterns” is an uncanny, Borgesian story of an interminable tennis point that goes on for hours and days, bending the reality of a match into something reaching for the sublime.

Two essays round out the issue. Ceridwen Hall’s “Trade/Craft” is a multipurpose work about a writer’s craft, spies, WWII codebreakers, and poetry, making many intriguing connections between seemingly disparate subjects. Adam Kosan’s lyrical travelogue “North: A Part of Summer” is also buoyed by poetry. Set in Québec and Massachusetts, it weaves through time while highlighting the more mystical elements of life.

Thank you for visiting. I hope you will enjoy these works.

Greg Gerke