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- Shakespeare text translated by Victor Hugo's son to be restored
A rare, personally inscribed, first edition of Shakespeare's complete works that was translated into French by Victor Hugo's son is to be restored. - Man Booker Shortlist: Translating Censored Chinese Writer Yan Lianke
he books of Chinese writer Yan Lianke have caused him some trouble at home. His latest, The Four Books, which is nominated for this year's award, while not actually officially banned, remains unpublished in China. Set in a re-education camp during Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward of 1958, it describes how a group of intellectuals are abandoned by the state during the subsequent famine. Weekend's Julian Worricker spoke to the book's translator Carlos Rojas. - The Challenge of Genderless Characters
In Maggie Nelson’s bestselling 2015 memoir The Argonauts, she describes her partner as “neither male nor female” but “a special—two for one.” That characterization comes to mind when reading the dedication of Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel Sphinx, which states, simply, “To the third.” - Translated fiction sells better in the UK than English fiction, research finds
Translated literary fiction is selling better on average in the UK than literary fiction originally written in English, according to new research, with authors including Elena Ferrante, Haruki Murakami and Karl Ove Knausgaard driving a boom in sales. - Man Booker Shortlist: Translating Elena Ferrante
This week's book is The Story Of The Lost Child by Italian writer Elena Ferrante. It's the final part of a series known as the Neapolitan Quartet, about the sixty-year friendship between Elena, a successful writer, and her childhood friend Lila. - Dos expertos traductores se enfrentarán al mismo fragmento del ‘Quijote’ en el Cervantes de Londres
Los traductores Peter Bush y Margaret Jull Costa se enfrentarán en el Cervantes de Londres este lunes, día 9, a traducir simultáneamente, en directo y ante el público, un fragmento del ‘Quijote’ para subrayar la trascendencia de la traducción en la experiencia de los lectores. - Yuri Herrera and Angélica Freitas win Best Translated Book Awards
Mexican novelist Yuri Herrera, Brazilian poet Angélica Freitas and their translators are the winners of the 2016 Best Translated Book Awards, it was announced Wednesday at a ceremony in New York City. - Spanish novel, Portuguese poems win translation awards
A Spanish-language novel and a collection of Portuguese poetry have won prizes for best translated literature. Yuri Herrera's "Signs Preceding the End of the World," translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman, won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction on Wednesday. The poetry prize has been given to Angélica Freitas's "Rilke Shake," translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan. Winning authors and translators each receive $5,000. The prize money is provided by Amazon.com. - Beyond the beards: How to make Russian literature more popular
Russian literature is very well-established in the reading public’s mind, but most casual readers’ image of this noble literary tradition is of austere men who write profound, perhaps depressing books as long as their rather ragged looking beards. While this may have its origins in truth, it is, at best, a quarter of the story. Not only are there plenty of excellent female Russian writers out there and plenty of hilarious classics, there is also an exciting contingent of young contemporary writers. - Lucie Mikolajková: the translator as a restorer of paintings
Lucie Mikolajková is an unsung hero of Czech writing today. She is one of a number of untiring and underpaid translators, working quietly and out of the public gaze to bring Czech literature to English speakers and vice versa. As a literary translator Lucie has taken up some pretty tough challenges. How do you translate Los Angeles Hispanic English into Czech without sounding absurdly artificial or bring the delicacy of lyric poetry from Moravia to English readers without resorting to the sickly sweet? Lucie answers these questions and more in conversation with David Vaughan in this week’s Czech Books. - 2016 Best Translated Book Award finalists announced
Ten works of fiction and six poetry collections remain in the running for this year’s Best Translated Book Awards following the announcement of the two shortlists yesterday by the literary website The Millions and Three Percent, the University’s translation-centric website. “These sixteen finalists represent an incredible array of writing styles and reputation,” said Chad W. Post, publisher of the University’s Open Letter Books. The titles were selected from the nearly 570 works of fiction and poetry published in English translation in 2015. - Seamus Heaney's Translation Of 'The Aeneid' Gets Posthumous Publication
The Irish poet Seamus Heaney died a few years ago. He left behind an unpublished translation of a section of the Roman epic "The Aeneid." He chose the part that describes the hero going to the underworld to visit his dead father. Heaney wrote in the translator's note that he was consumed with this story after his own father died. Now, the book is coming out, and our poetry reviewer Tess Taylor joined me to talk about it. - Nothing lost in translation on Man Booker International list
Misgivings aside about amalgamating two important literary prizes appear to have been silenced by the newly reconstituted award’s inaugural shortlist. The Man Booker International Prize 2016 brings together six contenders, including a Nobel literature laureate, two women and four men, with novels written in six different languages, all of which have been translated into English. Half of the winning author’s £50,000 prize money will go to his or her translator. - Here are the winners of the 2016 PEN Literary Awards
On Monday night, PEN America honored incredible new literature at the 2016 PEN Literary Awards ceremony. This year, the ceremony was hosted by Poet Laureate of Brooklyn Tina Chang. - Montreal translator on longlist for Man Booker International
A conversation about favourite novels at a French embassy party in Toronto led Canadian translator Jessica Moore to her first translation of a book by French writer Maylis de Kerangal. - Found in translation
Literature in translation shows us how much we have in common with those in other countries — and how radically different people’s imaginations can be - New translations from Romanian literature: Mircea Eliade’s Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent released in English
Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent, the first novel of Mircea Eliade, the Romanian author and historian of religions, is being released in a first-time English translation on April 12 in the UK. The book is published by Istros Books, in the translation of Christopher Moncrieff
- Kaplan explores challenges of differences in language
Most of us have read Homer or Dostoyevsky or Dante at some point, but very few of us have actually read the original texts. Instead, you’ve most likely read a translation, written by somebody else who may have altered the meaning no matter how accurate they were. And while this may seem to only affect words, it can also heavily influence the legacy of an author’s work, as can be said for Albert Camus’s oeuvres. - Seamus Heaney’s translation of Aeneid Book VI: a fitting end to a life’s work
Heaney’s account of Aeneas’s encounters with the dead across death’s river is even more powerful for its restraint. - TOUGH TIMES FOR TRANSLATORS
There was a time in Myanmar when books translated from English were widely available, but their popularity has declined as a consequence of censorship under military rule. - Translating 'The Yacoubian Building' into Hebrew stirs controversy
The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot announced the recent printing of Alaa al-Aswany's "The Yacoubian Building" in Hebrew. The celebrated novel, written by the 58 year old writer and dentist, will now be available in translation for an Israeli readership. In 2010, the novel was illegally translated and printed in Israel by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research, after which Aswany announced he would litigate the publishers for theft of intellectual property, he told AP at the time. The novelist rejected the translation in a stance against cultural normalization with Israel. - The vapor between languages: Idra Novey on writing and translation
"For translation to be an art, you have to make the uncomfortable but necessary transgressions an artist makes." The words are spoken to the translator-protagonist of Idra Novey's debut novel, though after our recent conversation, they also feel like an imperative from the author herself. - The Minefield of Primo Levi: An Exchange
As one of the ten translators involved in The Complete Works of Primo Levi, I appreciate the attention that Tim Parks has now dedicated to the issue of translation in his NYR Daily posts, after sidestepping it in his original review (“The Mystery of Primo Levi,” November 5, 2015). While I realize how daunting it must have been to read and comment on a three-volume work, I was still surprised by this initial omission. There were very strong reasons for publishing the complete works, and in new translations, which Robert Weil lays out in his essay, “Primo Levi in America” at the end of Volume III. - Feng Tang’s Letters Defend His Translation of Tagore’s Poetry Following Removal from Bookstores
Chinese poet Feng Tang has responded to his critics after his translation of Rabindranath Tagore's poetry collection "Stray Birds" was removed from bookstores over his use of "vulgar" language by publishing his letters to the late Indian poet in Chinese and English, as reported by the Global Times. - Good on Paper by Rachel Cantor review – a multilayered tale of linguistic trickery
Good on Paper by Rachel Cantor review – a multilayered tale of linguistic trickery
Rachel Cantor’s second novel is an intricate and erudite study of literary translation, forgiveness and second chances. Shira Greene long ago abandoned her PhD on Dante’s Vita Nuova. She now moves from one low-paid, low-prestige temp job to another while co‑parenting her young daughter, Andi, with her friend Ahmad on New York’s Upper West Side. Shira is offered the chance of a new life when the Nobel-winning poet Romei selects her to be the translator of his new book, also entitled Vita Nuova. - Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin review – an expert new translation
Pushkin Press has finally done it: it has published the key work of the writer it is named after. It’s taken 15 years to get round to the famous verse-novel about the bored, hapless aristo Yevgeny Onegin, but then the first English translation didn’t appear until 1881, 50 years after the work had been completed, so perhaps we should appreciate the difficulty of the exercise (the next English translation didn’t appear until 50 years after that). - Heaney's Aeneid: When is a Translation not a Translation?
When asked to describe his approach to writing, Heaney replied that it was ‘like being an altar boy in the sacristy getting ready to go out onto the main altar’. His translation of Aeneid VI is certainly worthy of that description, steeped as it is in humility and respect for its author. There is more of Heaney in this than the boy in the sacristy, though: it is a gift for all whom he taught, and who taught him. - 6 Esteemed Literary Translators, in Their Own Words
The great books you read in translation—from classics like Madame Bovary and Don Quixote to contemporary sensations like Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle (the fifth volume is out this month)—are not only the work of their famous authors. They are also the creation of the multilingual wordsmiths who bring them to you in English. Here, six of the world’s most esteemed translators take center stage.
- The Homeric Hymns and Herne the Hunter by Peter McDonald review – audacious and authoritative insights
Never short of an opinion on these matters, Vladimir Nabokov ended his 1941 article “The Art of Translation” with a series of “requirements” for the production of an effective translation. According to the first of these, the translator “must have as much talent, or at least the same kind of talent, as the author he chooses”. This leaves the field open for British Council-sponsored versions of promising young Bulgarians or Finns, but puts translators from the classics in an awkward position. - The Irish Novel That’s So Good People Were Scared to Translate It
Today, “Cré na Cille” is considered Joycean in a less euphemistic sense. A dust-jacket blurb from Colm Tóibín declares it “the greatest novel to be written in the Irish language, and among the best books to come out of Ireland in the twentieth century.” Scholars of Irish writing have hailed it as “a masterpiece” and “one of the most outstanding works in contemporary European literature.” “No superlatives can exaggerate its importance,” one early reviewer declared. Ó Cadhain, the critic Seán Ó Tuama wrote in 1972, produced “the most consciously-patterned and richly-textured prose that any Irishman has written in this century, except Beckett and Joyce.”
- Classics’ elitism should be lost in translation
Recently, an audience of “disadvantaged” 16-year-olds listened with rapt attention when I read from my translation of Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe. In my translation, Lucretius’ Latin hexameters play out in the rhythms of rap; the Roman goddess of love morphs into Richard Dawkins’ “selfish gene”; birds rain down from the sky like satellite debris; and the catastrophic collapse of the structures of the universe leaves us stumbling around the ground zero of our exploded certainties.
- Javier Calvo da visibilidad al traductor en "El fantasma en el libro"
El escritor y traductor Javier Calvo da visibilidad al papel del traductor en su último ensayo, "El fantasma en el libro", en el que reivindica, "sin que se note", esta figura esencial, y al mismo tiempo da a conocer su trabajo a un público general.
- The Translation Paradox
Glory, for the translator, is borrowed glory. There is no way around this. Translators are celebrated when they translate celebrated books. The best translations from the Italian I have seen in recent years are Geoffrey Brock’s rendering of Pavese’s collected poems, Disaffections, and Frederika Randall’s enormous achievement in bringing Ippolito Nievo’s great novel Confessions of an Italian into English. Brock, who has also given us an excellent version of Pinocchio, finds an entirely convincing English voice for the troubled Pavese. Randall turns Nievo’s lively, idiosyncratic pre-Risorgimento prose into something sparklingly credible in English. However, neither of these fine books became the talk of the town and their translators remain in the shadows.
- In the race for literary prizes, is gender parity possible?
In the past year, US- and UK-based translators have plunged into a discussion of gender inequality in literary translation. According to the Three Percent project, which tracks translations in the United States, approximately 70 per cent of books recently brought into English were by men. Last week in London, the Free Word Centre hosted an event called Few Women in the History: Tackling Imbalances in International Literature. - The Jewish translator behind Elena Ferrante — and Primo Levi
Receiving rarely more than a passing line of praise in a book review, translators tend to toil behind the scenes, as authors enjoy the available literary limelight. So for Goldstein — who was profiled recently in The Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic — the attention feels “strange,” she tells JTA, sitting in an out-of-the-way spot in the Conde Nast cafeteria on the 35th floor of One World Trade Center. - Aeneid Book VI by Seamus Heaney review – a pitch-perfect translation
Seamus Heaney’s rendering of Virgil brings the ancient world to life with plain language and striking juxtapositions
- Campus doctoral graduate wins PEN prize for translation
A campus doctoral graduate Katrina Dodson has unanimously won the 2016 PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Brazilian author Clarice Lispector’s “The Complete Stories.”
- Katrina Dodson Wins 2016 PEN Translation Prize for Clarice Lispector's The Complete Stories
The Complete Stories are diverse in tone, mood, perspective, subject matter, and quirk, and Dodson's dexterity in navigating these differences, while simultaneously lending Lispector a singular English voice all her own, is a thoroughly impressive feat of literary translation. Benjamin Moser’s insightful introduction and Dodson’s translator’s afterword situate the book within the contemporary resurgence of Lispector translations and accentuate the radical imagination of Dodson’s work.
- Seamus Heaney’s final work – ‘Death’s dark door stands open … ’
Heaney’s last translation will be published posthumously in March. Here he introduces Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI, a childhood favourite and the work he turned to after his father died and when his first grandchild was born - Translating women writers (from Arabic): Does it matter?
Although commentators have often suggested Arab women’s literature is over-emphasized in the West, Arabic literature tends to experience a gender imbalance that’s similar to other languages. - A "reconfigured" Man Booker International Prize will split prize money equally between authors and their translators
A "reconfigured" Man Booker International Prize will split prize money equally between authors and their translators - Translator, collaborator, editor: Creating an award-winning work of ‘living text’
Ābele’s 2008 novel, High Tide, has been tested multiple times. First translated into Italian and Swedish, in 2013 it was translated into English by Kaija Straumanis ’12 (MA), a graduate of Rochester’s literary translation program and editorial director at the Open Letter Press. Housed in Dewey Hall, Open Letter is one of only a few publishers in the English-speaking world devoted to literature in translation.. In Straumanis’s hands, Ābele’s novel held up extraordinarily well. In December, the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages chose Straumanis’s translation, published by Open Letter, over 37 other translated works for the 2015 Best Translation into English award. - Bolaño's Translator on the Pressure of Working with Great Male Novelists
We talked to Natasha Wimmer, one of the foremost Spanish-language literary translators working today, about her newest project—Álvaro Enrigue's "Sudden Death"—and about why her next book will be one written by a woman. - Europe’s Got Talent: EU Selects Winners of Young Translator Contest
Out of over 3,000 contestants from across the continent, the EC announced 28 winners on February 3, 2016. The students were allowed to choose any of 552 possible combinations between any two of the EU’s 24 official languages, although they had no hand in choosing the exact text they were given, all one-page long.
- Sara Worth on Good on Paper
"NOT EVERYTHING can survive translation,” said Shira Greene, when confronted for the first time since graduate school with an Italian manuscript and a blank page. “Hence the age-old notion that she who translates is both translator and traitor to the text: traduttore e traditore.” Translation is the guiding metaphor through which Rachel Cantor explores themes of love, loyalty, and transformation in her second novel, Good on Paper. Drawing parallels between literary translation and romantic partnership, Cantor dives head first into the “chasm between languages” and the chasm between people, to ask: Can one ever bridge the gap?
- Australians lead the way in French translation
Julie Rose was born on December 2, the date Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor, a good start for a world-renowned Australian translator of French literature. This week she became a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (Knight of Arts and Letters). Presenting the handsome medal at his Bellevue Hill residence, the French Consul-General, Nicolas Croizer, praised her work as a translator, author and "one of the most dedicated spokespersons France is lucky enough to have". Rose's many translations include the huge challenge of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Jean Genet's play The Maids for the Sydney Theatre Company's 2013 production with Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert, and works by Dumas, Moliere, Racine, Zola and Marguerite Duras.
- Alicia en el país de las palabras
En una carta de 1866, Lewis Carroll decía que, según sus amigos, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland era intraducible. Siglo y medio después es la novela inglesa más traducida, disponible en 174 lenguas y 7.600 ediciones (la segunda parte, A través del espejo, tiene 1.530 ediciones en 65 lenguas). A celebrarlas y estudiarlas está dedicada esta monumental obra, de imposible compilación antes de Internet, pero cuyos editores han elegido publicarla en forma clásica: tres gruesos volúmenes, que pesan en total más de nueve kilos.
- Tagore Translation Deemed Racy Is Pulled From Stores in China
This month, to commemorate the 155th anniversary of his birth, the People’s Publishing House will release “The Complete Works of Tagore,” the first direct translation of his entire output from Bengali into Chinese. The project took a team of translators nearly six years. - When poets translate poets
“It’s a nice initiative to work on translations of my English poetry into German and vice-versa. But I strongly feel that the time has come to first translate poetry in Indian languages. Why is it that a good English poet of the country is not known or does not get an opportunity to showcase his works in any South Indian language or vice-versa?” aks Jeet Thayil, the poet from New Delhi. - Translation of Bulgarian Novel Goes to 2016 PEN Prize Finals
The English translation of The Physics of Sorrow, a novel by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov, has been shortlisted for the finals of the 2016 PEN Translation Prize. Angela Rodel is the translator. - Textual Hazards
Rachel Cantor’s second novel examines a navel-gazing translator’s crumbling personal life. - Life in Translation
In Other Words marks a fundamental shift in Jhumpa Lahiri’s career. The memoir is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s first nonfiction book—and her first published work since her decision to read and write exclusively in Italian. She became enamored of the language during a visit to Florence in 1994: “What I feel is something physical, inexplicable,” Lahiri recalls of her early encounter with Italian. “It stirs an indiscreet, absurd longing. An exquisite tension. Love at first sight.”
- Una alumna de La Zubia (Granada), ganadora de concurso de traducción de la CE
Elvira Tornay, alumna del IES Trevenque del municipio de La Zubia (Granada), ha sido hoy proclamada como la ganadora en España del concurso "Juvenes Translatores", un certamen anual de traducción que organiza la Comisión Europea (CE). - A Long Way from Primo Levi
But is this actually possible? We know what it sounds like when an Italian speaks English with an Italian accent. But how can we possibly recognize the flavor of written Italian in written English, if we can’t read in Italian? How can we distinguish it—in English—from the flavor of Spanish or French or Russian or Czech? What can we experience beyond a muddled exoticism? - Local Scholar's Translation of Aeschylus' 'Agamemnon' Makes Classic More Accessible
Ever since Homer included it as part of his Odyssey, many of the stories have become fodder for other works of art. Aeschylus is considered the first of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient Greece and his Orestia trilogy includes the story of the Trojan War. "It's the first Greek tragedy that gained the reputation of a great work of literature and it's just full of imaginative poetry," says David Mulroy, a professor emeritus of classics at UW-Milwaukee. - Translation Rights Fair aims to bridge two solitudes of Canadian publishing
Dubbed "speed dating for publishers," the annual Translation Rights Fair is a unique opportunity for English- and French-language Canadian publishers to meet, exchange ideas, and pick up new titles. But it's something that doesn't happen often enough. - Chinese publisher pulls 'vulgar' translation of Indian poet
A Chinese publisher has recalled the latest Chinese-language translation of a work by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore after criticism in India that it was too vulgar and strayed too far from the original text.
Feng has stood by his translation. He has shared some of the poems on social media, which appear to be faithful and poetic translations of Tagore’s words, a fact his critics have acknowledged, but they still argue Feng has overstepped as a translator by sexing up Tagore’s soft-toned poems.
- The Mexican novelist Yuri Herrera talks about the first English translation of one of his novels, the Mexica afterlife, and Dante.
Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World (And Other Stories; Paper $13.95) is a deceptively small book—barely a hundred pages, with generous margins—and its prose is baked dry and hard, picked clean like a body left out in the desert. But just as, on the first page, the ground opens up beneath its protagonist—an interpreter, a hard-boiled go-between, and a pilgrim named Makina—Herrera’s novel contains uncharted depths beneath. On the surface, it’s a novel about the US/Mexico border, today, and Makina is a border resident as Dashiell Hammett might have written her, or Raymond Chandler, or Walter Mosley. - ‘Good on Paper,’ by Rachel Cantor
Rachel Cantor’s second novel, “Good on Paper,” is a book about translation in its many forms. First and foremost, the plot centers on an act of literary translation. In 1999, Shira Greene, a onetime doctoral student and current temp worker and single mother, receives a mysterious request from the Nobel Prize-winning poet Romei to translate his latest work from Italian into English. This work, a poetry-prose hybrid, will resemble Dante’s “La Vita Nuova”; it will also reconfigure and rethink Romei’s own previous verse. - In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri review – a Pulitzer prize winner gives up writing and speaking in English
Lahiri is too intelligent not to see through her repudiation of her fluency in English to its psychic roots. “Because of my divided identity, or perhaps by disposition,” she writes, ‘I consider myself an incomplete person, in some way deficient. Maybe there is a linguistic reason – the lack of a language to identify with.” She grew up with Bengali as her mother tongue, although she has never been able to properly read or write it. - An Indian Poet at the Centre of Controversy Again
A Chinese publisher recent announcement that it was pulling off store shelves a volume of poetry by the Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore made news inside and outside China. The announcement came after a translation by the 44-year old Chinese writer Feng Tang that was published in July was attacked on the Internet and later called "vulgar" by Xinhua, "pornographic" and "rabble-rousing" by the Times of India, and "a vulgar selfie of hormone saturated innuendo" by China Daily's Raymond Zhou. - Frank Wynne, el hombre que tradujo al inglés la obra 'Que viva la música'
Después de leer y traducir a Andrés Caicedo, Frank Wynne asegura que el autor caleño merece ser leído al menos dos veces en la vida, en diferentes momentos, para comprender sus planteamientos.Él hizo ese mismo ejercicio y con cada libro que llega a sus manos ha entendido que la labor del traductor consiste en “ser intérprete, armar el rompecabezas de una historia, entender al escritor y saber decir las cosas en un idioma distinto”.
- Murió Raúl Ortiz y Ortiz, traductor de la obra maestra 'Bajo el volcán'
La primera edición de Bajo el volcán tiene fecha de 1947, pero pasaron dos décadas para que existiera una traducción, tarea de la cual se encargó Raúl Ortiz y Ortiz, quien en 1964 presentó la versión en español. La novela, que en algún sentido es autobiográfica, narra un día en la tortuosa vida del ex cónsul británico alcohólico Geoffrey Firmin, quién aparece acompañado de su ex esposa Yvonne y su hermanastro Hugh.
- Brighton translator of War and Peace
As Sunday evenings see me unable to budge from cold war thriller Deutschland ‘83 on Channel Four, I have no idea whether its rave reviews are justified. I wonder how many people know, however, that the first person to translate Tolstoy’s epic novel into English from the original Russian was a Brighton woman? Read more: http://brightonandhoveindependent.co.uk/brighton-translator-of-war-and-peace/#ixzz40rf7zPpw - The Joys and Challenges of Translating One of Brazil's Most Brilliant and Beguiling Fiction Writers
Clarice Lispector's sentences often begin in a colloquial mode before taking a left turn into profundity. Here's an example from "A Chicken," a story about a hen that had escaped the Sunday dinner table, "Until one day they killed her, ate her and years went by." That move, the sudden expansion of significance contained in the phrase "and years went by," was Lispector's calling card, and it either reaches your heart or gets caught reaching. - In the Tumult of Translation
We should say at the outset that while Levi liked to describe himself as a writer with a determinedly plain style, the truth is rather different. Often a direct, speaking voice shifts between the colloquial and the literary, the ironically highfalutin and the grittily scientific. It’s true that there are rarely serious problems of comprehension, but the exact nature of the register, which is to say the manner in which the author addresses us, the relationship into which he draws us, is a complex and highly mobile animal. It is here that the translator is put to the test. - Baudelaire poems translated into modern era by Jan Owen
Jan Owen’s translations from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) comprise the sort of book from which contemporary Australian poetry can greatly benefit. Of course, there is Robert Frost’s depressingly accurate “Poetry is what is lost in translation”, but we have to press on. We can’t afford not to. Likewise, it’s not enough to read classic collections, such as Les Fleurs du Mal, in what are often yellowing and stilted translations from other parts of the Anglosphere. - Page turner: contemporary Romanian authors to read in translation
If getting to know contemporary Romanian authors is on this year’s resolutions list, there is no shortage lately of options. A developing book market, financing programs for literary translations and participation at various international book fairs have all supported the dissemination of Romanian literature abroad. - The Iliad review: What is it about this blood-soaked classic that transfixes people?
"Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles." With this call to the epic muse The Iliad, and Western literature, begins. Composed around the mid-8th century BC by a reputedly blind bard named Homer, the tale of Troy's 10-year siege by a Greek alliance – enraged, improbably, by the kidnap of an adulterous Spartan queen – has endured the chaos of the ages. But it's done more than merely survive. The granddaddy of all classics is on heavy rotation.
- China publisher pulls 'racy' Tagore poems translation
A Chinese publisher has pulled a translation of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore's poems after it sparked controversy for racy content. The translation of works from one of India's most famous poets was by Chinese novelist Feng Tang. His publisher said on Monday that it was removing the work from sale following the "huge debate" in China's literary and translation circles. Mr Feng has defended his translation, saying a previous version lacked style. Tagore, known as the Bard of Bengal and seen as a literary god in India, was the first non-European to win the Nobel prize for literature. - New Canadian Imprint Spotlights Quebec Authors
Montreal publisher Baraka Books is launching a new imprint this spring called QC Fiction, which will translate contemporary French novels by Quebec authors into English. The imprint, which will be overseen by literary translator Peter McCambridge, will look to bring work by French-speaking authors in the Canadian province to a wider audience. - Reviews: 'Enigmas' and 'Sor Juana and Other Monsters'
Two recent and outstanding examples of the difficulties and pleasures of literary translation — and of the rewards of reading the results of such effort — have just been released by Ugly Duckling Presse, a Brooklyn-based publisher with a preference for "emerging, international, and 'forgotten' writers." The first is "Enigmas," a brief and concentrated chapbook by the legendary and influential Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), the Baroque scholar, proto-feminist and nun who lived in colonial Mexico City. - Vueltas de tuerca al título de Henry James
Hace algunas semanas, la editorial Libros del Asteroide, con sede en Barcelona, lanzó una nueva edición del clásico de Henry James The Turn of the Screw, conocido desde siempre en castellano con el título de su primera traducción: Otra vuelta de tuerca. Bueno, no desde siempre, claro: desde la publicación de esa primera versión en nuestro idioma, realizada por José Blanco y editada en 1945 (la obra original data de 1898). - Chinese writer’s translation of Tagore’s works draws ire
A Chinese writer has translated Rabindranath Tagore’s works with “vulgar” sexual connotations, drawing sharp condemnation from the admirers of the Nobel Laureate in China who termed it as a desperate attempt to gain popularity. “There’s a fine line between imprinting creative works with unique personality and screaming for attention,” columnist Raymond Zhou wrote in state-run China Daily, criticising the writer, Feng Tang, who has published new translations of Tagore’s poems. - Lust in translation
Rabindranath Tagore is Asia's foremost literary titan, revered throughout the world and very much beloved in China. There are many Chinese versions of his poetry, so it is not surprising one more would appear. But a recent take made headlines, not only because the translator is himself a man of letters but also because of the personal spin the translator inserted in the text. - Translation Tuesday: Venus by Chen Xue
There are works that I feel like translating because of their perspective and politics, and others where it is the language or the narrative that attracts me. In Chen Xue’s best work, and I think Venus is an example, she combines these two qualities. Acid, tender, provocative, realistic, fanciful––she has a real arsenal of literary moods and weapons. Venus did not get published in a couple of literary translation journals, specifically (I was told informally) because of its transgender perspective. - San Vicente, el primer traductor de Alexievich al español
En 2002, el editor y experto en literatura rusa tradujo la obra sobre Chenóbil para la editorial Casiopea; en 2005 la obra fue reeditada por Siglo XXI. - Here are the books longlisted for the 2016 PEN Literary Awards
Each year, the PEN Literary Awards honors the best new books written in fiction, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children’s literature, translation, drama and poetry. "Once again, we recognize writers whose careers are just budding as well as those who are deservedly renowned, those who are undiscovered as well as those who are widely acclaimed," PEN American Center President Andrew Solomon said in a press release. - Bolaño’s Teeth: Valeria Luiselli and the Renaissance of Mexican Literature
The Story of My Teeth arrives at a very rich moment for Anglophone readers of Mexican literature. Along with the emergence of younger writers like Luiselli, Yuri Herrera, Guadalupe Nettel, Daniel Saldaña París, and Mario Bellatin, some very well-established Mexican authors — people like Sergio Pitol, Juan Villoro, Rafael Bernal, Carmen Boullosa, and Daniel Sada — are finally finding their way into translation, either for the first time or for the first time in a long time. This surge in the translation and publication of Latin American literature can partly be attributed to “the Bolaño boom.” - Jennifer Croft's 'Homesick' explores translation, photography
Like seemingly many things in Jennifer Croft's life, what started off as a few simple short stories spiraled out of control into "Homesick," an online novel that combines flash chapters, photography and translation. - Literature In Translation Makes Up 13 Percent Of 'NYT' Notable Books For 2015
The New York Times just released its list of the 100 most notable books of 2015, and there's a lot of interesting shtoof going on. I'm excited to see that some of my favorite books — which I'm sure are some of your favorites, as well — made the list. But it's more exciting to see that 13 percent of the New York Times list is made up of literature in translation. - Thacker: "Hay traducciones en las que Don Quijote y Sancho Panza usan dólares"
"Don Quijote es el texto más citado como fuente de inspiración por novelistas y estudiosos de todo el mundo. Es una obra imprescindible", señaló. Por eso, como analista de las traducciones de la novela de Cervantes a la lengua inglesa, aseguró que "las traducciones merecen más atención de los estudiosos y 'El Quijote' es el caso más importante de todos". Thacker explicó que "muchos traductores de Cervantes no han leído nunca su obra en español". Eso hace que se repitan errores y que las versiones alteren aspectos fundamentales como que "en algunas traducciones norteamericanas, Don Quijote y Sancho Panza usan billetes de un dólar", dijo entre risas. - AmazonCrossing Announces $10 Million Commitment to Translating Books into English
In celebration of its fifth year, AmazonCrossing, the literary translation imprint of Amazon Publishing, today announced a $10 million commitment over the next five years to increase the number and diversity of its books in translation. AmazonCrossing is one of the largest publishers of translated literature in the United States, with 77 titles from 15 countries and 12 languages to be published in the United States in 2015. - Poetry Inside Out | Truly CA
Profiles a unique Bay Area writing program based on literary translation. Coming from families where English may be the second or even third language, Carmen, Ke’Shae, Gentail, Caroline, Ricardo and their friends create imaginative worlds of dragons, space aliens, love, and death. Directed by Joyce Lee.
- New translation project showcases the breadth of Russian literature
Although many Russian masterpieces have won a place in the catalogue of classics thanks to their literary merit and the quality of their translations, they don’t tell the whole story.
Each of these well-known works is only a small part of a vast, complex canon that has been largely inaccessible to Westerners, who have struggled to understand Russian literature without a view of the larger narrative – until now.
- Literary listings: Not the Booker; a Berlin billet; talking Liberties; and Tiger Fringe
Five Irish authors feature on the 70-strong longlist for the Guardian’s popular Not the Booker Prize annual award. Now in its seventh year, nominations are made by public vote, with criteria for eligibility matching that of the Man Booker Prize, whose longlist is also announced this week.
- Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book is about being reinvented through language, and it’s in Italian
When I'm asked to write something – an article, a review, or something about myself or my work – the first reaction, at least in my head, is a big loud no. Because I am a translator, I prefer being a host. My job is to make somebody's words comfortable in my own language. To write is a completely different act, and yet, so similar, nearly identical.
- Mia Couto: ‘I am white and African. I like to unite contradictory worlds’
Such is the power of Mia Couto’s fiction that, after reading his chilling novelConfession of the Lioness, sculpted lions seem to be everywhere in Rome, where I meet him – from the crouching beast lapping at Bernini’s fountain in the Piazza Navona, to the stone heads guarding the Sant’Angelo bridge. Yet for Couto, a Mozambican novelist and environmental biologist who has recently finished a writer’s residency outside the city, “seeing a lion in the bush walking is the only time you really see a lion – the full dimensions of the animal. The way they face you is hypnotic.”
- Listen! Beowulf opening line misinterpreted for 200 years
It is perhaps the most important word in one of the greatest and most famous sentences in the history of the English language. Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.
- In anyone’s language, AmazonCrossing is a hit
A foreign student struggling with English spelling might disagree, but there are downsides to having the global lingua franca as your mother tongue, especially when it comes to our cultural lives. As Marina Warner, chair of the judges for this year’s Man Booker International prize, put it recently: “Possessing a world language can make us oddly provincial in outlook.” She cited a report by Literature Across Frontiers, which put to the test the oft-quoted statistic that only 3% of books published in this country have been translated from a foreign language. - Columbia University Press to Publish New Translations of Russian Literature
Russian and American academics, publishers and Russian government officials announced on Saturday that they would collaborate on an ambitious new series of Russian literature in translation to be published by Columbia University Press. - El reto de traducir a 'Gabo'
Esloveno, húngaro, vietamita y esperanto son algunos de los más de 40 idiomas a los que se ha traducido la obra literaria de Gabriel García Márquez. Al conmemorarse un año de su muerte, recordamos la historia de aciertos y disparates cometidos al convertir la lengua ‘macondiana’ en universal. - How I translate children's books
Award-winning translator Sarah Ardizzone explains the complex art of translating books through this gallery of her latest book translation April the Red Goldfish, originally written by Marjolaine Leray in French, and the particular challenges involved with rendering a Shakespeare quoting, pun-spouting, trans-gender goldfish with suicidal tendencies.
- Contos inéditos de Fernando Pessoa reunidos em coletânea
"Estrada do esquecimento e outros contos", que reúne cerca de duas dezenas de contos inéditos de Fernando Pessoa, vai ser publicado na quinta-feira. "Reúne-se nesta edição um conjunto de narrativas de Fernando Pessoa, das quais 20 se encontravam ainda inéditas", afirma a editora Assírio & Alvim em comunicado, acrescentando que esta obra surge na continuidade de "O mendigo e outros contos", publicada em 2012.
- The perfect Proust translation – but not for purists
In the anniversary year of the outbreak of the first world war, it is apt to look at Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. It was written before, during and after the war, its volumes appearing from 1913 to 1927. Its first translator was CK Scott Moncrieff, a man who was in many ways similar to Proust; a cultivated, literary, closet homosexual who had witnessed and appreciated the high point of the fin-de-siecle civilisation that fell headlong into war.
- Metidos en el jardín de ‘Las flores del mal’
Antes que Santayana, lo hicieron a su manera Antonio Martínez Sarrión, Luis Martínez de Merlo, Pedro Provencio y Enrique López Castellón. Ellos saben lo que es, de verdad, entrar en ese jardín literario dionisiaco y apolíneo a la vez, para sacarlo del francés al insuflarle nueva vida en español. Conocen senderos-latidos de Baudelaire como:
- Polish Language For 2015 Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize
Now in its sixth year, the Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize aims to recognise the achievements of young translators at the start of their careers. It is an annual prize, which focuses on a different language each year and is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 34, with no restriction on country of residence.
- How to Translate a Map: Clare Cavanagh: Poetry 2015
Cavanagh's latest work is her final translation of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), Map: Collected and Last Poems (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015). It was translating Szymborska that figuratively put Cavanagh on the map, though she is quick to credit the collaborators who helped her-her longtime editor, Drenka Willen, and her cotranslator, the late Stanislaw Baranczak, who died late last December.
- Found in translation: 10 great foreign reads
Jonathan Gibbs is a novelist and critic who often reviews translated fiction for The Independent. Here, he gives his top 10 list of "favourites", rather than "bests: they're the books - all by living authors - that I'm most likely to press on people, and are all tributes to the translator's art". - George Henson on the Linguistic Puzzle of Translating Sergio Pitol's The Art of Flight
The Art of Flight (or El Arte de la Fuga), Pitol's first book to make it into English, is far from his freshman novel. A recipient of the prestigious Cervantes Prize in 2005, Pitol is one of the country's greatest living authors. This a series of essays that serves as a sort of experimental memoir. (It's the first in a trilogy, all of which Deep Vellum is committed to publishing with Henson as translator.) An author known for questioning the limitations of language, Pitol uses The Art of Flight to chronicle his young life, offering critical analysis along the way of the books that have affected his life. He swirls together memories with poetic reflection, in a way that feels at home in America's memoir culture, but without this obsession with nonfiction. Pitol seems far more interested in playing with language and metaphor, the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction, which is where Henson's role becomes pivotal. We chatted with Henson about translation, language and Pitol.
- Found in translation
Wherever he went, Segundo "Jun" Matias Jr. couldn't help but notice how he could easily find local translations of international bestsellers. Matias isn't an idle observer. The moving force behind Precious Pages Corporation that dominates the Filipino romance market through its Precious Hearts Romances (PHR) line, is always looking for the next big thing in publishing. It was a phenomenon he saw in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. "Their people speak and read English too but they have international titles available in their native tongue. I don't want Filipino readers to be deprived of the same option and not be able to read novels from other countries simply because the books available here are all in English," he explains. - Entrevista con el reciente Premio Nadal José C. Vales
Hay autores que dicen que la traducción es una reescritura. Y en el fondo lo es, porque no existe la sinonimia exacta, no puede existir una traslación absolutamente literal, mucho menos cuando se trata de dos lenguas que están vivas en distintos momentos. Yo he traducido a Dickens, a Jane Austen, Crispin… que han escrito en épocas distintas. Esa es una labor filológica de tipo técnico para que la traducción tenga los menores inconvenientes posibles desde el punto de vista histórico, léxico, semántico, para que no sea un anacronismo constante. - Building Linguistic Bridges
Shelves of books, a computer, and perhaps most importantly, a creative mind-these are what Xu Yuanchong, an award-winning Chinese translator, counts on when creating literary ties between speakers of Chinese, English and French. Xu, 93, has published more than 100 translated novels, anthologies and plays in the three languages, reaching potentially millions of readers at home and abroad. His most recent project is a new Chinese version of William Shakespeare's 40-volume collection, which he plans to finish in five years. - Digital Publishing: Same Ol', Same Ol' for Translations, but New Opportunity for Translators
After the initial effervescence of the expected e-book revolution, the publishing world has been all excited about global reach and distribution. And with global reach comes the issue of translation. In an ever-expanding digital landscape, just how much has translation publishing changed? Anne Trager, founder and publisher of Le French Book, a New York-based publishing house focused on translations of commercial fiction from France, will address this question at the pre-Frankfurt Book Fair Business Club Breakfast dedicated to "Rights, Translation and Discovery in the Digital Age." Here she shares some of her ideas. - Award-winning Japanese author Minae Mizumura presents symposium
Renowned Japan writer Minae Mizumura will speak at a free public symposium and a graduate students and faculty seminar at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in April to discuss the recently published English translation of her book, Nihongo ga horobiru toki ("The Fall of Language in the Age of English"). - A Proustian Character
While translating “Remembrance of Things Past,” C.K. Scott Moncrieff was spying for the British in Mussolini’s Italy. - First Spanish Translation of Ramayana Seeks to Reach the Hearts of Latin Americans
The wisdom of the Sage Valmiki in his rendition of the deeds and life of the Hindu God Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu, has been read and deciphered by generations of devoted Hindus who have been imbibed by his verses full of kernels of knowledge and lessons that lie waiting those who grasp them. For centuries, these verses complied in the Ramacharitasmanas and played out as the Rama Leela during theDiwali season have framed the mindsets and code of conduct for millions of Hindus the world over. Translations have been available in many Indian languages and a few other foreign ones, most notably English.
- Absorbed in Translation: The Art – and Fun – of Literary Translation
I recently stumbled upon a post that describes the process of literary translation as "soul-crushing." That's news to me, and I've been engaged in literary translation for the better part of four decades now. How would I describe it? "Humbling," yes. "All-consuming," definitely. But above all, "the most fun imaginable."
- The ‘Anna Karenina’ on Your Shelf
But the truth is that excellent translations of his greatest books are nearly as numerous as his characters, and many readers have come to love "Anna Karenina" by way of Constance Garnett (whose 1901 translation is enshrined in the Modern Library), Rosemary Edmonds (1954 and until a decade ago the Penguin Classics edition) or David Magarshack (1961 and still the Signet Classic). A 2000 translation by another husband-and-wife team, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, introduced thousands of newcomers to the novel after it was chosen for Oprah's Book Club. Now two attractive new translations, by Marian Schwartz (Yale, 754 pages, $35) and Rosamund Bartlett (Oxford, 847 pages, $29.95), arrive and will gain their own adherents.
- Iranian translator of Blue Is the Warmest Colour 'declared persona non grata'
An Iranian poet who translated the prize-winning French graphic novel Blue Is the Warmest Colourinto Persian has claimed she is the target of a smear campaign in Iran for supporting homosexuality, punishable in the country by 100 lashes or even death.
- Meet the translator
The work of translators is often overlooked, with their names often discreetly hidden away in the books that they painstakingly recreate in new languages. In the first of a new series, presented in partnership with literature and human rights organisation English PEN, we present an interview with Sam Garrett, who translated Tommy Wieringa's These Are the Names, a haunting epic set on the distant Eurasian steppe and one of the latest additions to the English PEN World Bookshelf.
- Naomi Morgan knighted by French government
Some people know Professor Naòmi Morgan as the head of the French section at the University of the Free State. Others know her as the artist behind the play Oskar en die Pienk Tannie. Yet others know her as a woman who can speak Afrikaans, English and French without a trace of an accent. Most recently, though, people might know Morgan as being knighted by the French Ministry of Culture. She received the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres earlier this year from French Ambassador to South Africa, Elisabeth Barbier. She joins only three other South Africans to receive the award.
- Naomi Morgan Knighted by French Government for Her Contribution to Art and Literature
Some people know Professor Naòmi Morgan as the head of the French section at the University of the Free State. Others know her as the artist behind the play Oskar en die Pienk Tannie. Yet others know her as a woman who can speak Afrikaans, English and French without a trace of an accent. Most recently, though, people might know Morgan as being knighted by the French Ministry of Culture. She received the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres earlier this year from French Ambassador to South Africa, Elisabeth Barbier. She joins only three other South Africans to receive the award.
- On translating the work of Jules Verne
"It is amazing to see how Verne's written predictions have become today's reality," said Kim. "He was able to do that because Verne weaved the stories around scientific calculation, such as the distance between Earth and the moon, and the speed of Earth's rotation." That is why Verne's books are still relevant to today's readers, says the translator. "People who are used to making decisions based on emotion can learn something from his stories derived from well-thought-out scientific calculation.
- Q. and A.: Willis Barnstone on Translating Mao and Touring Beijing With Allen Ginsberg
Willis Barnstone is a polymath author of more than 70 books — a poet, translator and scholar of Gnosticism and the New Testament. But the 87-year-old also has had a long and colorful relationship with China, translating Mao Zedong's poetry and befriending numerous Chinese artists and political leaders in the 1980s.
- State literary translation prize to Riina Vuokko
Two state prizes were awarded for literature in 2014: one to Chinese-Finnish translator Riina Vuokko and the other to the poetry publishing collective of Poesia. Riina Vuokko is best known for her work translating Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan's novels from Chinese into Finnish. Her Finnish version of his Nobel Prize-winning novel Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (Seitsemän elämääni) was published last year.
- Review: Rosamund Bartlett's translation of 'Anna Karenina'
All good translators are alike, each meticulous translator is meticulous in her own way. In her new translation of "Anna Karenina," Rosamund Bartlett — a scholar of Russian literature and music history, translator of 19th century Russian texts, and biographer of Tolstoy — attempts to bridge the divide between two forms of translation that have generally remained irreconcilable. In her introduction, Bartlett claims that her object is to remain literally "faithful" to the novel, "preserv(ing) all the idiosyncrasies of Tolstoy's inimitable style," while simultaneously striving for an "idiomatic" reproduction. In attempting to fulfill such a contradictory aim, Bartlett, a talented stylist, succeeds in crafting an aesthetically pleasing translation that reads naturally in English; however, she has not met the considerable challenge of simultaneously retaining Tolstoy's style.
- The Art of Translation - An interview with David Bellos
Rather than attempt to explain what translation is, or what a translator should or should not do, Bellos expounded on what a translator can do. He elucidated the role of the translator by recounting pivotal and very personal experiences he has had with problematic translations. All the while, he stressed the guiding influence of a translator's individual style.
- The Mary Sue Interview: Fairy Tale Expert and The Turnip Princess Translator Maria Tatar
[A]fter over 150 years of being "lost" in an archive, Schönwerth's fairy tales have been translated and curated by folklore expert Maria Tatar into The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales.
- Transferring culture to culture is not simply translating words
"To me, translation is not merely restricted to changing words into another language and observing the grammatical rules; it is a culture to culture transfer. To make it clear I refer to the word ‘snow' in Eskimo culture which reflects the most significant concept in their life. They have the equivalent of some twenty words including ‘snowing', ‘settled snow', ‘dancing snow', ‘snow ball', ‘deep snow' and other concepts as such."
- the space between | Jewish translation and the gravitational pull of history
For professor Naomi Seidman, a native speaker of the language of translation, the space between languages can be a matter of life and death. Take the story she tells about her father in her most recent book, "Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation." Recently liberated from the death camps, and finding himself in Paris, Hillel Seidman — by virtue of speaking French and Yiddish — is negotiating the fate of a group of Jewish refugees with the French police. To calm the terrified Jews he tells them, in Yiddish, that the French police are goyim but not Nazis. They will not be mistreated.
- Translator resurrects work of slain poet
Dr. Gabor Barabas has loved poetry since he was a child, growing up in post-Holocaust Hungary. He listened to his elderly relatives read grand, resounding verses, and he dreamed of becoming a poet himself. He did just that, writing his own poetry, but he also pursued another dream — to become a doctor. It wasn't until Barabas, who lives in Long Branch, retired from his career as a pediatric neurologist that he turned that passion for poetry into the most challenging writing task of his life — translating the complete works of the revered Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti. It took him seven years.
- Translating His Father's Voice, Not Just His Words
A Boston College symposium will mark the translation and publication of the new book Dinner with Stalin and Other Stories, edited and co-translated by Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies Maxim D. Shrayer, and written by his father David Shrayer-Petrov, a prolific and celebrated author of contemporary Russian-American fiction.
- Translator wins Governor General literary award
His [Peter Fedstein's] most recent work has earned Feldstein the prestigious 2014 Governor General's Literary Award in the translation category French to English for his translation of Francois-Marc Gagnon's comprehensive biography of Paul-Émile Borduas, a Quebec cultural figure renowned for both his art and his thought.
- Verfreundungseffekt: The Translator Is Present - Saskia Vogel Interviewed
This month's column swings the focus to the unsung hero – the literary translator – but just as much on contemporary Swedish literature and inventive ways of publishing literature in translation. When you're a reader, a text can endlessly expand in your mind, that after-life of a book. I've just finished Miranda July's new novel and I find myself muttering the name of one of the characters Kubelko Bondy like an incantation as the scenes and characters are freshly drifting through my mind. I think I had been overwhelmed by the magnitude of what books mean to me. Translation gives me perspective and reminds me that writing is a human act. It's a privilege to get to sit with another person's work, to think about their choices, style, meaning so deeply. And it helps me with the decisions I make on the page.
- What are your favourite books in translation?
Fan of Asterix? Tintin? The Moomins? Pippi Longstocking? Cornelia Funke? Fairy tales? Then you are a fan of translated fiction – that is books that were originally written in another language – even if you might not even know it! Join our discussion on brilliant books that were originally written in a language other than English
- Why an Imperfect Version of Proust is a Classic in English
names are familiar to the amateur reader—we know about Chapman's Homer, through Keats, and Richard Wilbur's Molière is part of the modern American theatre—but mostly translators struggle with sentences for even less moment (and money) than other writers do.
- 10 novels shortlisted for Dublin literary award, have you read any of them?
TEN NOVELS HAVE been shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The list includes one Irish author, former winner Colum McCann, three novels in translation from Brazil, France and Morocco and novels from Australia, Nigeria, the UK and the USA.
- Margaret Atwood translates translation
Margaret Atwood translates translation
The novelist has great sympathy for those taking her work abroad, perhaps because her own life has provided similar problems to decode - Translators make foreign literature accessible to readers
Translators make foreign literature accessible to readers
Harris, who teaches creative writing full time, said translators must make thousands of decisions like that as they translate a literary work, in effect becoming "second authors." - JRR Tolkien translation of Beowulf to be published after 90-year wait
JRR Tolkien translation of Beowulf to be published after 90-year wait
Almost 90 years after JRR Tolkien translated the 11th-century poem Beowulf, The Lord of the Rings authors version of the epic story is to be published for the first time in an edition which his son Christopher Tolkien says sees his father "enter[ing] into the imagined past" of the heroes. - Translating Gelman'S poetry...
Translating Gelman...
In an exclusive interview, Juan Gelman's translator Lisa Rose Bradford reveals the pleasures and the problems of bringing the Argentine poet's words to the english-speaking world. Lisa Rose Bradford is not your typical book translator. She fell in love with Juan Gelman's poetry and has been working on translating it to English for years. As part of her endeavour, she met and got to know Gelman over the years and they forged a connection that went beyond the usual author-translator relationship. - Edmund Keeley and Karen Emmerich Win 2014 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation
The 2014 PEN Award for poetry in translation for Diaries of Exile (Archipelago $15) by Yannis Ritsos has been awarded to Karen Emmerich, a 2000 Princeton alumna who will join Princeton University as an assistant professor in comparative literature in February 2015, and Edmund Keeley, the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English, Emeritus, and professor of English and creative writing, emeritus. The award, which is accompanied by a $3,000 prize conferred in New York, recognizes book-length translations of poetry from any language into English published during the current calendar year. - Ma Ainong Wins the Inaugural Irish Literature Translation Prize for Claire Keegan's 'Walk the Blue Fields'
Ireland Literature Exchange is delighted to announce the winner of the inaugural Irish-Chinese Literature Translation Prize, 2014. Ma Ainong, the Chinese translator of Claire Keegan's collection of short stories Walk the Blue Fields published by Shanghai 99 Readers' Culture Co. Ltd in 2011 is the winner of the inaugural Chinese Irish Literature Translation Prize! The Prize was presented by the Consul General, Austin Gormley at the Shanghai Book Fair on Thursday, August 14. - German translator of 'Kelidar' passes away
Sigrid Lotfi, the German translator of the monumental Persian novel 'Kelidar' by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi passed away yesterday. - Winners of the 2014 PEN Literary Awards
Poet Frank Bidart, cultural critic James Wolcott and playwright David Rabe are among the winners of PEN Literary Awards announced this morning in New York. The prizes from the PEN American Center, founded in 1922, also include a number of fellowships and grants totaling almost $150,000. - The first Chinese winner of 'Aurora Borealis' Prize: Translation changes the world
On the afternoon of August 2nd, during the member's assembly of the 20th World Conference of the Federation of International Translators (FIT), FIT conferred The "Aurora Borealis" Prize on Xu Yuanchong, a Chinese translator. This international award is hosted every three years. Xu is the first Chinese winner of the award. - Calvino's complete 'Cosmicomics' appears in English for the first time
And now a major event in the English language to give even more evidence why the great Italian post-modern master was among the greatest of writers in his sadly truncated lifetime - the Complete "Cosmicomics" appearing together for the first time in our language since Calvino's death in 1985. Imagine, if you can, marvelous (literally, as Vidal might have had it), poetic, hilarious, sublime and wholly original tales which could please the brightest and most advanced students of literary post-modernism as well as the brightest and most advanced of pubescent readers. - Linda Gaboriau's struggle to translate a hit Quebec play
One of Canada's most prolific translators and winner of Governor General's Literary Awards in 1996 and 2010, the transplanted American has written more than 100 French plays into English. She learned the vagaries of her trade early on, growing up in Massachusetts where many French Canadians had settled. - Why won't English speakers read books in translation?
Literature - fiction especially - offers a crucial window into the lives of others, promoting empathy and understanding in a way that travelling somewhere rarely does. By not translating more widely, publishers are denying us greater exposure to one of reading's most vital functions. Compare that Anglophone two or three per cent to figures in France, where 27% of books published are in translation. And if that sounds a lot, you might care to know that in Spain it's 28%, Turkey 40%, and Slovenia a whopping 70%. - Poet- translator Alastair Reid writes final postscript
The Scottish poet, translator and essayist Alastair Reid, who wrote (among other publications) for The New Yorker for more than half a century, died last Sunday in Manhattan from a gastric bleed he suffered during treatment for pneumonia, according to family sources. - Judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize to visit Abu Dhabi
A few weeks ago, the Australian novelist Richard Flanagan was clearly shocked to have received one of the world's most prestigious literary prizes for his wartime love story The Narrow Road to the Deep North. "In Australia the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle," he joked. "I just didn't expect to end up the chicken." Critics of the headline-grabbing award would concur with Flanagan's apparently off-the-cuff remark. Who is deemed worthy is so subjective that chance is the most certain winner. - New Imprint Looking to Translate Women's Poetry, Redress Translation's Gender Balance
Periscope is a new imprint from A Midsummer Night's Press devoted to women's poetry in translation. Publisher-translator-poet Lawrence Schimel answered questions (why women? why translation? how exactly will this work?) - SF & F Translation Awards Closing Down
The Association for the Recognition of Excellence in SF & F Translation has announced it is officially being dissolved, due to the time and effort required to keep the awards going on an amateur basis. - Thomas King, Bill Gaston among finalists for Governor General's Literary Award
On Tuesday, King's "The Back of the Turtle" (HarperCollins Canada) was named as one of five finalists for a Governor General's Literary Award for fiction, while English-to-French translations of two of his books were also nominated. - Proust's translator CK Scott Moncrieff is the focus of new biography
WHEN Virginia Woolf praised Proust's "astonishing vibration and saturation and intensification" she had read him in CK Scott Moncrieff's translation. TS Eliot said it was superior to Proust's original and Joseph Conrad wrote to Moncrieff, "I was more fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's original", and spoke of "a supreme faculty akin to genius". - Trailblazer in globalizing Korean classics
Professor Choi Byong-hyon has translated Korea's four major classical texts into English including the Annals of King Taejo - John Berger: 'Writing is an off-shoot of something deeper'
The conventional view of what this involves proposes that the translator or translators study the words on one page in one language and then render them into another language on another page. This involves a so-called word-for-word translation, and then an adaptation to respect and incorporate the linguistic tradition and rules of the second language, and finally another working-over to recreate the equivalent of the "voice" of the original text. Many - perhaps most - translations follow this procedure and the results are worthy, but second-rate. - New translation of Anna Karenina more in the spirit of Tolstoy
Marian Schwartz's new English-language translation of Leo Tolstoy's great novel Anna Karenina [Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk] carries an unenviable burden. The number of English-speaking readers who will ever encounter Anna Karenina in Russian is vanishingly small, so translations become the book for the countless readers over the decades who've been spellbound by the tragic story of Anna's unhappy marriage to staid Karenin, her love affair with Count Vronsky, and the unruly passions that drive her to her death. Standing in for an author as powerful and personal as Tolstoy - trying to convey what the American novelist and critic, William Dean Howells, referred to as his "terrible, unsparing honesty" - is a very serious responsibility. - The importance of good translation
How can a work of translation become a successful work of literature in its own right? For Philip Kennedy, the general editor of the Library of Arabic Literature (LAL) and the founding faculty director of the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute, and Paulo Horta, assistant professor of literature at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), the question begins with a set of very detailed and practical literary considerations, but has implications that are far more widespread and profound. - Umberto Eco's Experiences in translation
The main challenge in the translation of books is how to deal with all those poetical complexities which make a text as complex as a maze. This is what Umberto Eco explains in his book "Come dire quasi la stessa cosa" ("Experiences in translation" in the English version), the intellectual autobiography of a writer and a translator that every translator, terminologist or linguist should always have at hand. In this article we will share with you some useful hints and thoughts that Eco himself presented at a conference at the University Normale di Pisa, to introduce the book to a specialized audience. We will add at the end of this post some useful reading for the curious reader who wants to discover more. - Award to honor unsung Japanese translators
There were at least nine contemporary Arabic poetry collections published in translation this year, a number of them stunning, ground-breaking, beautifully produced: - Why aren't translations the big story of Indian publishing?
While there is no stemming the flow of original works of fiction in English, India's biggest English language publishers - the majority of whom are global corporations - are warming up to the idea of commissioning and publishing more works in translation from regional languages. Penguin, Harper-Collins, Random House and Hachette have all been increasing the number of titles in translation, and the latest entrant, Bloomsbury, promises to treat translations and English language fiction as equals. Penguin has an editor dedicated to publishing translations; Harper-Collins uses its classics imprint Perennial to channel translations. And the Oxford University Press has long been producing translations of novels and stories by marginal writers in particular. - New Translations of Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina'
What difference is there between being repelled, being repulsed, being disgusted and being offended? Not much, perhaps, but consider the scene: Anna Karenina has taken a sip of coffee and raised her eyes to look at Vronsky, her lover, who is watching her. After hundreds of pages of love, lust, passion, fear, exhilaration, disappointment, exhaustion, aggression and, probably most important, jealousy, they are having their final fight. Leo Tolstoy is describing Anna ascribing an emotion to a man whose love she needs so desperately that she is convinced he has stopped loving her. Consider also this: When she lifted her coffee cup, she extended her pinkie away from it - a precious gesture that signals just how far this domesticated, miserable Anna has come from the glamorous young woman she was at the beginning of the novel; she made a sound with her lips - and she realized this when she lifted her gaze and saw Vronsky looking at her. She saw the most painful thing a woman can see: a lover who is turned off by her physical being. - Translate this: 'Translation is an act of self-discovery'
Translation is difficult and a good translator, sometimes, needs a mystical third eye to understand what the author is trying to say, said professor emeritus of Urdu, Persian and Islamic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr Muhammad Umar Memon on Wednesday evening. - Finding New Life in World's Classics - How UChicago translations revived Chinese and Indian texts by looking beyond standard editions
When it comes to translations of ancient masterpieces, the late David Grene, who had taught classics at the University of Chicago for 63 years, noted: "Most translations must be made anew in each generation. As the words of the translator's language live on and change, those he has employed in his translations express less adequately or misleadingly the idea of the original." - Translating Korean literature: hard, but exciting
"The more you learn Korean, the more interesting it gets. It is not easy to catch and deliver the meaning and the right feeling when dealing with classical literary works, four-character Chinese idioms or unique, folk expressions. Very occasionally, however, I get it right and that makes me happy." - How I translated Oksa Pollock, AKA the French Harry Potter
Sue Rose gives a fascinating insight into art of being a translator - it's a bit like putting on Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility: you don't want anyone to know you are there! It was a hugely enjoyable challenge to introduce English teenagers to Oksa Pollock, the loveable French heroine with incredible magic powers. Being a translator is like putting on Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility or wearing a layer of Oksa Pollock's Invisibuls - you don't want anyone to see you're there. You need to stay out of sight so that the reader has no idea how much blood, sweat and tears have gone into the mix. - Amanda Powell Receives NEA Translation Fellowship
Amanda Powell, senior lecturer in Spanish (Romance Languages) and a CSWS faculty affiliate, was awarded a FY2014 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship of $12,500 to support the translation into English of the groundbreaking novel El gato de sí mismo (working title: "Cat on His Own Behalf") by Uriel Quesada (Costa Rica, 2005). - Vietnamese literature needs global exposure
"This reality has taken place throughout many decades, and has resulted in a cultural trade deficit. While many foreign works have been brought to Vietnamese readers, foreign readers haven't had a chance to enjoy Vietnamese literature as widely." - Ka Hopita': Hawaiian translation of 'The Hobbit' coming soon
What I feel like Keao's modern translation of 'The Hobbit' does is show the versatility and continuing relevance of Hawaiian, because it demonstrates that Hawaiian can describe a world completely different than ours.' - Logan talk on foreign literature retrieves what might have been lost in translation
Rather than attempt to explain what translation is, or what a translator should or should not do, Bellos expounded on what a translator can do. He elucidated the role of the translator by recounting pivotal and very personal experiences he has had with problematic translations. All the while, he stressed the guiding influence of a translator's individual style. - Knausgaard And Murakami On Longlist For 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Haruki Murakami and Karl Ove Knausgaard are among 15 authors on the longlist for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Both authors have been longlisted twice before. They face fierce competition from other award-winning international names including Italian Marcello Fois and Belgian author Erwin Mortier. - Found in translation: Foreign books Germans are reading
In Germany, reading is considered a national sport. Jump on Berlin's subway, the U-Bahn and you are more likely to see a head buried in a rip-roaring novel rather than a smart phone. But in a country where its high brow literary stars stand shoulder to shoulder with its sport stars as national heroes, it's also a tough and discerning audience - especially in regards to foreign works translated into the notoriously finicky German tongue. So what contemporary foreign titles are making their way to German bedside tables? Freshly translated into German, "The Harder they Come" by celebrated US author T. C. Boyle (pictured above) is a certified current fave. It's all about a rebellious soul who has no tolerance for mainstream America - an "outsider" theme beloved by German audiences ("Steppenwolf" anyone?). - The writer in and out of text
"The translator is challenged at every turn by numerous questions, and he has to sift through many answers before making his choice. He has to remember that he is basically a prisoner of the text. He cannot experiment and therefore there is often a conflict between his nature and sensibilities and those of the author. Whenever someone attempts a translation that is primarily based on his sense of the aesthetic, it ends in failure. It might read well and may even sell well. Whether it is a translation is another matter altogether." - See more at: http://www.nation.lk/edition/insight/item/39474-the-writer-in-and-out-of-text.html#sthash.moewW9vB.dpuf - Hedge Fund Philanthropy: Man Booker International Prize 2015 Finalists
"We are very proud to sponsor the Man Booker International Prize, recognising the hard work and creativity of these talented authors and translators." Manny Roman, CEO of hedge fund investor Man Group, said. "The prize underscores Man Group's charitable focus on literacy and education, as well as our commitment to excellence and entrepreneurship. Together with the wider charitable activities of the Booker Prize Foundation, the prize plays a very important role in promoting literary excellence that we are honoured to support. It's exciting to see finalists from ten countries, with six nationalities included on the list for the first time, further broadening Man Booker's international reach. Many congratulations to all the finalists." - Chinese novels find new readers online in Vietnam
Trang Ha is a noted writer, translator and a big fan of Chinese literature. She started by translating Chinese works as a hobby and posting her translations on her own blog. Later Vietnamese publishers came to her and commissioned her as a professional translator. - Why Israel deserved its own translation of Kahanoff's 'Jacob's Ladder'
Jacqueline Kahanoff's novel "Jacob's Ladder" recently appeared in Hebrew translation (it was written in English). In a short article to mark the event, the book's copublisher, Ktzia Alon, adopts the approach of the Jewish-German thinker Walter Benjamin, and argues that a work "demands" to be translated in time and place in a way that is not accidental. - Who Wrote the Best Translated Book of 2015?
With this in mind, it's time to consider the Best Translated Book Awards for 2015. This morning, the Three Percent website announced the longlist for the award, which contains a handful of well-known writers and a trove of new required reading. Fifteen judges read for the award, and, notably, more than 500 works of fiction in translation and 100 books of translated poetry were considered for the list. - Colombian novel from 1983 makes Independent foreign fiction prize 2015 shortlist
The finalists for the Griffin Poetry Prize were announced on Tuesday, and, although several veteran and award-winning writers have been recognized for their work, for the first time since 2004 neither the Canadian nor international short lists include a poet previously nominated for the prize. - The "Heroic Translators" Who Reinvented Classic Science Fiction In China
When early science fiction novels were first translated into Chinese, the translators took a lot of liberties with the material, reinventing Jules Verne for Chinese readers. Author Ken Liu (The Grace of Kings) explains how this helped inspire him, in turn, to reinvent Chinese traditions for Western fantasy readers. - Translators: Literature's unsung heroes
A translator is that rare breed of artist who bridges the barrier between pages of a book and the vast vocabulary of an alien language. Unfortunately, translators, and translations, are gradually being relegated to footnotes in the annals of literature, finds Marisha Karwa - Sheikh Zayed Book Award announces winners
The Sheikh Zayed Book Award, one of the most prestigious and well-funded prizes in the Arab World, has announced its winners for this year (2014 - 2015) which marks the award's ninth session. - Poet and translator David Ferry
That Ferry-who has translated Horace's Odes and Epistles, and Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics-doesn't read these works before sitting down to render them into English often surprises his readers. - Bay Area writers among finalists for PEN Literary Awards
Several Bay Area authors are among the finalists for this year's PEN Literary Awards. They include Rabih Alameddine ("An Unnecessary Woman"), Molly Antopol ("The UnAmericans"), Steven Johnson ("How We Got to Now"), Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru ("League of Denial") and James Nestor ("Deep").