Assistant Professor of German Studies Daniel Bowles has written the English translation of Swiss author Christian Kracht’s best-selling novel Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas  (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The novel  is described as a provocative satire and a serious meditation on the fragility and audacity of human activity, an outrageous, fantastical, uncategorizable work of obsession, adventure, and coconuts. The English translation was published over the summer and has been reviewed by the New York Times and Sydney Review of Books, among other outlets. Kracht and Bowles will be at two events to present the translation: Boston University Center for the Study of Europe on Sept. 21  and at the Goethe-Institut Boston on Sept. 22. Details on the book events.