An utterly beguiling novel about eight translators & their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest.Eight translators arrive at a house in a primevalPolishforest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned authorIrena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus,Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival,Irenadisappears without a trace. The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece.They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime molds & lichens & study her exotic belongings & layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets-and deceptions-ofIrena Rey'sthat they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation & obsession, soon the translators are tangled up in a web of rivalries & desire, threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author herself.This hilarious, thought-provoking debut novel by award-winning translator and authorJennifer Croftis a brilliant examination of art, celebrity, the natural world, & the power of language. It is an unforgettable, unputdownable adventure with a small but global cast of characters shaken by the shocks of love, destruction, & creation in one ofEurope'slast great wildernesses.°°°Jennifer Croftwon a Guggenheim Fellowship for this novel, theWilliam Saroyan International Prizefor Writing for her memoirHomesick, & theInternational Booker Prizefor her translation of Nobel laureateOlga Tokarczuk’sFlights. She is the translator ofFederico Falco’sA Perfect Cemetery,Romina Paula’sAugust,Pedro Mairal’sThe Woman from Uruguay, &Olga Tokarczuk’sThe Books of Jacob.