A New York Times Notable Book for 2002

A novel of tremendous scope and beauty, The Translator tells of the relationship between an exiled Russian poet and his American translator during the Cuban missile crisis, a time when a writer's words — especially forbidden ones — could be powerful enough to change the course of history.

"Crowley's lovely, effortless writing and his accurate, earnest portraits of Russians make this a sad love story with an important piece of rhetoric at its heart....A rarity: a love story with a core of intelligence and insight." Kirkus Reviews

"Crowley has a small but devoted readership for his unusual fiction, novels in which the ordinary segues almost imperceptibly into the ancient, where the complex, mystical medieval arts of alchemy and allegory bleed through into the world of subways, East Village neighborhoods and hippie enclaves in upstate New York. These philosophical ambitions remain much more submerged in The Translator, but they're still there. No one writes better about the way a land shapes the imagination of its residents, and the Midwest inhabited by Kit and Falin has a biblical quality....The wonder of The Translator is that it handles emotion with great sensitivity, yet this carefulness doesn't thin the novel out or make it anemic, whether Crowley is tracing the paradoxes of literature or of love." Laura Miller, Salon.com

"Although Falin does emerge as a vivid figure despite the faltering verses attributed to him, Kit never rings true. Crowley won't break out of cult status with this novel, and his fans may be puzzled by his hiatus from the fantastic." Publishers Weekly

"A moving, thoughtful book." Ted Leventhal, Booklist

"[The Translator] gives us a world so suffused with beauty that its inhabitants manage to speak in fragments of poetry....Grand and serious, involving nothing less than the souls of nations and the transforming power of language." New York Times Book Review

"One of the finest writers working today....Crowley's exquisitely subtle writing transports readers through the shadow lands between childhood and adulthood, through the cultural differences between Russia and the United States, and through the filtered lens of poetry and the harsher reality of the evening news." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

"A novel that affirms and celebrates language...[and] masterfully renders a moment in history." Book Magazine

"Wonderfully sensual....Layered and rich, The Translator is a remarkable novel." San Francisco Chronicle

"Nothing short of magical." Time Out New York

"Thrilling....[Crowley] succeeds with what no prudent novel ought to attempt." The New York Times

Joining the ranks of such outstanding feats of literary imagination as The English Patient and The Remains of the Day is Crowley's The Translator — a story that centers on a love affair between an exiled Russian poet and his American translator, set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

John Crowley is the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. He lives in the hills above the Connecticut River in northern Massachusetts with his wife and twin daughters. His critically acclaimed works include Dæmonomania, Love & Sleep, Ægypt, The Translator and, most recently, Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land.