Flowers of Spit is a corrosive narrative that surrounds the inflamed character of Flore Forget. Written as a long soliloquy, this novel is a delirious howl, an expectoration in the face of the world, a dolorous dive into the depths of identity. Is it possible to emancipate oneself from one's tragedies, from the the individuals that have touched our lives and have died? Is it possible for flowers to bloom from cinders and spit? Filled with a vitriolic rage that teeters between despair and redemption, this work propels us into the memories inherent to scorched flesh. It is an implacable story, one propelled by a raw, breathless style that strikes us where it hurts the most.

Catherine Mavrikakis has published several novels including Le ciel de Bay City (2008), and L'annexe (2019), and several essays, amongst which are L'éternité en accéléré (2010) and Diamanda Galás, guerrière et gorgone (2014)--the latter soon to be published in English translation by Quattro Books. She has already won many important awards for her work, including the Grand prix du livre de Montréal (2008), the Prix des libraires du Québec (2009) et the Prix littéraire des collégiens (2012). Mavrikakis is professor of French at UdeM and lives Montréal.

Catherine Mavrikakis' profile page

Nathanaël is the author of more than a score of books written in English or in French, including Je Nathanaël (2018); Pasolini's Our (2018); Feder (2016); Sotto l'immagine (2014) and Sisyphus, Outdone: Theatres of the Catastrophal (2012). The French-language notebooks, Carnet de désaccords (2009), Carnet de délibérations (2011), and Carnet de somme (2012) were recast in English in a single volume as The Middle Notebookes (2015), which received the inaugural Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature.The essay of correspondence, Absence Where As (Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book) (2009) was first published in French as L'absence au lieu (2007). Nathanaël's work has been translated into Basque, Greek, Slovene, and Spanish (Mexico), with book-length publications in Bulgarian and Portuguese (Brazil). The recipient of the Prix Alain-Grandbois for ...s'arrête? Je (2008), Nathanaël's translations include works by Édouard Glissant, Catherine Mavrikakis, and Hilda Hilst (the latter in collaboration with Rachel Gontijo Araújo). Nathanaël's translation of Murder by Danielle Collobert was a finalist for a Best Translated Book Award in 2014. Her translation of The Mausoleum of Lovers by Hervé Guibert has been recognized by fellowships from the PEN American Center and the Centre National du Livre de France. Nathanaël lives in Chicago.

Nathanaël's profile page

“Radiatingly fulgurant” —The Chicago Review

“Nathanaël does a wonderful job of capturing some of the poetic beauty and angst in her interpretation of Mavrikakis’s work, the negotiation between highly stylized prose and a use of rhythm and vocabulary of vulgar speech” —Matrix Magazine

“In rich, baroque language that curls up on itself like the bindweed or the boa in heat, Catherine Mavrikakis rattles, shocks, seduces, carries away. She does so in keeping with the echoes of Sarah Kane, of Céline’s syncopated phrase or the carnal and striking poetry of Jean Genet—think to his sublime Our-Lady-of-the-Flowers. … A sumptuous and offensive style, sharpened on the scalpel of emergency.” —Le Devoir