The Extinction of Irena Rey

Eight translators arrive at a house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace. The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. 

They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime molds & lichens & study her exotic belongings & layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets-and deceptions-of Irena Rey's that they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation & obsession, soon the translators are tangled up in a web of rivalries & desire, threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author herself. 

This hilarious, thought-provoking debut novel by award-winning translator and author Jennifer Croft is a brilliant examination of art, celebrity, the natural world, & the power of language. It is an unforgettable, unputdownable adventure with a small but global cast of characters shaken by the shocks of love, destruction, & creation in one of Europe's last great wildernesses.

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Jennifer Croft won a Guggenheim Fellowship for this novel, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her memoir Homesick, & the International Booker Prize for her translation of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is the translator of Federico Falco’s A Perfect Cemetery, Romina Paula’s August, Pedro Mairal’s The Woman from Uruguay, & Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob.