... a crappy preface to a crappy book.

[Keith Richards] tells the story of growing up on the Dartford Marshes in England among smallpox hospitals, leper colonies, and insane asylums. One day, another kid emerged out of the precipitous atmosphere, skinny with big lips ...

—Nicole Krauss, preface to Best European Fiction 2012, edited by Aleksandar Hemon.

"Precipitous atmosphere"? I don't know if Krauss thinks "precipitous" means "rainy" or what (does she mean Mick emerged out of "the clear blue sky," or possibly just "the rain"?). Even if it could be made to mean something (it can't), this would still be the worst kind of sesquipedalian bombast. A fitting introduction to a book full of stories that are either abominably translated, abominably written and translated with scrupulous fidelity, or (my guess) badly written and no better translated than they deserve.

The acknowledgements cite seventeen "cultural agencies and embassies" who made this book possible.