Tales of Bart: A Novel in Three Acts

A Parisian café waiter discovers a mysterious package of documents left by a fugitive-like stranger, unraveling a kaleidoscope of multilingual wordplay, historical intrigue, dystopian visions, and literary puzzles. Tales of Bart-a nod to Alexander Pushkin's Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin-follows the scandalous exploits of "evil" translator Fruitvale Bart. Spanning Republic-era Texas, 19th-century Russia, far-future Atalanta, and 1990s Los Angeles, each vignette is tied to Bart's provocative translations. Alaniz's novel probes the nature of translation-faithful reproduction or creative reinvention-and explores art, colonial legacies, postmodern alienation, and the horrors of the self in dazzling, thought-provoking layers.