Rilke Shake

’s title, a pun on milkshake, means in Portuguese just what it does in English. With frenetic humor and linguistic innovation, Angélica 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. "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