{"id":1516,"date":"2026-02-05T21:40:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2026-02-26T19:27:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:27:38","slug":"cafe-brebant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/05\/cafe-brebant\/","title":{"rendered":"Caf\u00e9 Br\u00e9bant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to the online literary journal\u00a0Bewildering Stories<\/em>, I’ve just had another translated story published. “Caf\u00e9 Br\u00e9bant”<\/a> appeared online on Monday and it’s free to read. The editor, Don Webb, has included a challenge question with it, an added bonus he provides with every piece he publishes. Readers might need to skim the story a second time to find the answer to his challenge. He saw something in the story that I didn’t, so even I had to read through it to find the answer.<\/p>\n

It’s something special to be published in this journal. It means the editor found my piece “thought-provoking”, as he explains on his info page:<\/p>\n

What does \u201cBewildering\u201d really mean? One thing it does not<\/em> mean: \u201cbefuddling.\u201d We do not like literature that is meaningless or self-contradictory or that asks the readers to do the writing for the author. What \u201cBewildering\u201d does<\/em> mean is \u201cunconventional\u201d and \u201cthought-provoking.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The original story was written in 1882 by Th\u00e9odore de Banville. In French it is “Chez Br\u00e9bant”, which I translated as “Caf\u00e9 Br\u00e9bant”. This was, and still is (see photo above), a restaurant in Paris called Caf\u00e9 Le Br\u00e9bant, or simply Le Br\u00e9bant. I shortened the title for the benefit of English-language readers.<\/p>\n

The principal characters are a man – young, handsome and rich – and a hag – old, really old, ancient. It’s a fairy tale that plays with a certain shallow quality of Parisian life in the late 19th century. The story begins in a neglected junk shop, and the painting above, “Bal masqu\u00e9 \u00e0 l’op\u00e9ra”, gives a hint of how it all ends.<\/p>\n

If you’re a writer (or translator) of short stories and are discouraged by rejections, don’t think you should give up submitting your work to journals. Let me encourage you. I spent four years submitting this translation to fourteen other journals before it was accepted by Bewildering Stories<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is the fourth of Banville’s stories I’ve translated and had published. You might also enjoy reading the others:<\/p>\n

“Fire Stealer” published by Bewildering Stories<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Lydian” published by Black Sun Lit<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Ragpicker” published by The AALITRA Review<\/a><\/p>\n

Let me know if you read any of Banville’s works in English, or even in French.<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to the online literary journal\u00a0Bewildering Stories, I’ve just had another translated story published. “Caf\u00e9 Br\u00e9bant” appeared online on Monday and it’s free to read. The editor, Don Webb, has included a challenge question with it, an added bonus he provides with every piece he publishes. Readers might need to skim the story a second…<\/p>\n

Read moreCaf\u00e9 Br\u00e9bant<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,100,41],"tags":[78,154,55,47,46,53,155,61,51],"class_list":["post-1516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journals","category-short-stories","category-translations","tag-bewildering-stories","tag-cafe-brebant","tag-french-authors","tag-french-literature","tag-literary-translation","tag-literature","tag-masked-ball-at-the-opera","tag-theodore-de-banville","tag-translation","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patriciaworthtranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}