Rilke Shake

Rilke Shake’s title, a pun on milkshake, means in Portuguese just what it does in English. With frenetic humor and linguistic innovation, Angelica Freitas constructs a temple of delight to celebrate her own literary canon. In this whirlwind debut collection, first published in Portuguese in 2007, Gertrude Stein passes gas in her bathtub, a sushi chef cries tears of Suntory Whisky, and Ezra Pound is kept insane in a cage in pisa. Hilary Kaplan’s translation is as contemporary and lyrical as the Portuguese-language original, a considerable feat considering the collection’s breakneck pace.

WINNER OF THE 2016 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD!

WINNER OF THE 2016 NATIONAL TRANSLATION AWARD!

FINALIST FOR THE 2016 PEN POETRY TRANSLATION PRIZE!

No fabled saudade here, but the sound of an ocarina underwater in the Orinoco. -Paul Hoover

Wry, painfully funny and moving, Kaplan’s translation captures the formal invention and deadpan beauty of the original perfectly. -Sasha Dugdale