Jacob the Mutant
Conceived of as a set of fragmentary manuscripts from an unpublished Joseph Roth novel, Mario Bellatin’s Jacob the Mutant is a novella in a perpetual state of transformation — a story about a man named Jacob, an ersatz rabbi and owner of a roadside tavern. But when reality shifts, so does Jacob, mutating into another person entirely, while the novella mutates into another story. Cleverly translated by Jacob Steinberg, this Phoneme Media edition of a new novel by one of Mexico’s most notorious and celebrated writers includes a translator’s afterword and explanatory maps by illustrator Zsu Szkurka.
Mario Bellatin has published dozens of novellas on major and minor publishing houses in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the United States. His current projects include Los Cien Mil Libros de Bellatin, his own imprint dedicated to publishing 1,000 copies each of 100 of his books. He lives in Mexico City.
Jacob Steinberg was born in Stony Brook, New York, in 1989. He studied Spanish and Latin American Literatures and Cultures at New York University and subsequently took graduate courses at the University of Buenos Aires. As a translator, he has worked with Sam Pink, Luna Miguel, and Mario Bellatin, among others. He lives in New York City.
