The Task Of This Translator - Softcover

"If Hasak-Lowy were a juggler, he would be the kind who could juggle an elephant and an orange at the same time. Instead he is a writer whose stories combine the global with the personal in ways that are incisive, thought-provoking, smart and, most importantly, FUNNY."--Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season

Stylistically daring, morally perplexing, and outrageously funny, Todd Hasak-Lowy's The Task of This Translator marks the debut of a writer of extraordinary talent. In these seven stories, Hasak-Lowy finds entry into daunting matters such as genocide and obesity through the absurd experiences of a series of unlikely protagonists.

A journalist sets out to write an investigative piece on a dieting company that uses bodyguards to protect overeaters from themselves, but loses his journalistic bearings when he becomes a client and is paired up with a bodyguard of his own. In the coffee shop of Israel's Holocaust memorial museum a stale pastry triggers a brawl between an American tourist and the Israeli cashier. An unwilling and mostly unqualified slacker finds himself cast into the role of translator for the bitter reunion of a family torn apart years earlier by unspecified brutality.

"Todd Hasak-Lowy's brilliant combination of cynicism and compassion gives his storytelling its unique power."--Etgar Keret, author of The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God

Todd Hasak-Lowy was born in Detroit. He is an assistant professor of modern Hebrew literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

TODD HASAK-LOWY was born in Detroit. He teaches Hebrew language and literature at the University of Florida and lives in Gainesville, Florida.