Last Name	First Name	Language	Annotation
Zaman	Fakhar	Punjabi	Fakhar Zaman. The Prisoner [Bandi'wan]. Tr. Khalid Hasan. Peter Owen/Dufour Editions. 1996. 118 pp. Cloth: $28.95; ISBN 0-7206-1010-9. An unnamed prisoner─known to gaolers and inmates alike as "Z"─languishes in a tiny cell for an unspecified crime. His days are measured out in lashes, as he is repeatedly ordered to confess his crime, or face the highest penalty. "Z's" mistake is to have spoken out against the prevailing military government in Pakistan, and his eloquent poetry is the best defence for the prosecution. Gradually, however, "Z" assumes the status of a hero in a drama in which the roles are subtly reversed: the accused becomes the accuser, the cruel and oppressive regime, the criminal.
Zanzotto	Andrea	Italian	Andrea Zanzotto. Peasants Wake for Fellini's Casanova and Other Poems. Eds. and Trs. John P. Welle and Ruth Feldman. University of Illinois Press. 1997. 225 pp. Cloth: ISBN 0-252-02310-2. Paper: ISBN 0-252-06610-3. Bilingual. The main body of this volume is a unique film poem that grew out of Zanzotto's collaboration with Fellini on the film Casanova. The poem's beauty is enhanced by its presentation in the original Veneto dialect along with the contemporary Italian and English. Including drawings by Fellini and illustrations by Murer, this volume also contains poems dedicated to Montale, Pasolini, and Charlie Chaplin--and the first English translation of Zanzotto's poem on the tragedy of Bosnia.
Zech	Paul	German	Paul Zech. The Birds in Langfoot's Belfry [Die Vögel des Herrn Langfoot]. Tr. Elena B. Odio. Camden House [Greiferverlag zu Rudolstadt, 1933]. 1994. 105 pp. Cloth: $35.00; ISBN 1-57113-007-1. Introduction by Ward B. Lewis. The name of Paul Zech calls to mind Worker's Poetry and Expressionism, of which he was a leading representative. So how is it that we have a novel about life in Argentina from the perspective of a foot-loose German adventurer? Zech found himself in similar circumstances when the work was written. Having arrived in Buenos Aires in December 1933 as a political refugee from the Third Reich, he began to explore his country of asylum in his writing. The author provided descriptions of exotic aspects of South American life and retold Indian folk tales in a way calculated to appeal to Europeans.
Zeromski	Stefan	Polish	Stefan Zeromski. The Faithful River [Wierna rzeka]. Tr. Bill Johnston. Northwestern University Press. 1999. 179 pp. Paper: $16.95; ISBN 0-8101-1596-4. Originally published in 1912, this lyrical novel is aimed at reintroducing Stefan Zeromski to an English-speaking audience after decades of being ignored in translation. The story is set in a rambling manor house in central Poland during the doomed January Uprising of 1863 to 1864, when a volunteer Polish army futilely fought the Russian occupation of the eastern partition. A badly wounded soldier appears outside the house and is taken in and cared for by Salomea, the young ward of the absent owners. As the two strive to conceal the insurgent's presence during increasingly brutal and invasive visits by the Russian forces, Salomea finds herself falling in love with her patient. Stefan Zeromski (1864-1925) was the leading Polish novelist of his generation, called by Czeslaw Milosz "the conscience of Polish literature." Among his other novels are Ashes (1904), The Homeless (1900), and Before the Spring (1925). Bill Johnston's translation of Boleslaw Prus's The Sins of Childhood and Other Stories was published by Northwestern University Press in 1996. His other translations include two novels by Andrzej Szczypiorski and work by Adam Zagajewski, Jerzy Pilch, and Krzysztof Kamil Baczyríski.
Živković	Zoran	Serbian	Zoran Živković. Time Gifts [Vremenski darovi]. Tr. Alice Copple-Tošić. Evanston. Northwestern University Press. 2000 [1997]. 81 pp. Cloth: 0-8101-1781-9. Paper: $14.95; ISBN 0-8101-1782-7. Writings from an Unbound Europe. In Time Gifts, Zoran Živković weaves four mysterious encounters around philosophical questions at the core of human existence. A stranger appears in the cell of an astronomer imprisoned by the Catholic church and, through a glance at the future, offers the prisoner the choice between physical survival and the immortality granted those who die for their beliefs. The stranger next visits a paleolinguist who has been forgotten by her university and despairs of ever knowing the validity of her theories—until given a chance at time travel. Then the stranger visits a simple watchmaker, a man who works literally at the center of time yet has never pondered its possibilities. The aged man is offered the rarest of gifts—a second chance—but at a terrible price. The true nature of the visitor is finally revealed by an insane artist, but can she be believed? Provocative and original, Time Gifts is a meditation on the nature of time as well as on the nature of those at its mercy. In addition to writing a number of works, Živković has translated more than 50 books himself.
Zola	Émile	French	Émile Zola. The Belly of Paris [Le Ventre de Paris]. Tr. Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. Sun & Moon Press/Consortium Book Sales. 1996. 397 pp. Paper: $14.95; ISBN 1-55713-066-3. In this novel the author of Germinal, L'Assomoir, Nana, and Thérèse Raquin chooses as his locale the newly built food markets of Paris. Into this extravagance of food, he places his young hero, the half-starved Florent, who has just escaped imprisonment in Cayenne. Florent finds himself at odds with a world he now knows is unjust. Gradually he takes up with the local Socialists, who are more at home in bars than on the revolutionary streets.
Zola	Emile	French	Emile Zola. L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop). Tr. and ed. Robin Buss. London. Penguin. 2000. 441 pp. Paper: $11.00; ISBN 0-14-044753-9. The 7^th in Zola's great novel cycle Les Rougon-Macquart, L'Assommoir was a publishing sensation when it first appeared in print in 1876, selling 50,00 copies within a year and solidly establishing Zola's reputation as a leading literary figure. With its naturalistic description and street argot, L'Assommoir vividly evokes the poverty and squalor beneath the superficial glamour of Parisian life during the Second Empire. But in telling the story of the rise and fall of the laundress Gervaise, Zola surmounts his moral and social inventions. In the words of translator and editor Robin Buss, this novel is "marvellous, warm and human . . . with a tragic heroine who is among the most touching and credible creations in all the literature of the 19^th century." This new translation includes a critical introduction, Zola's response to his critics, a chronology, explanatory notes, and suggestions for further reading.