These are the newest and most relevant links in all categories.
Links - New and Noteworthy
- ‘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. - 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.
- A druid with attitude – how Bellini's Norma cast a spell on me
George Hall, translator of ENO’s first ever production of the Bellini opera, faced many linguistic challenges in his quest for clarity - Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work
The Committee on Honors and Awards of the Modern Language Association invites translators and publishers to compete for the twelfth Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work. The prize, established by the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Endowment Fund, is awarded each even-numbered year for an outstanding translation into English of a book-length literary work. For the competition held in 2016, translations published in 2015 are eligible. Translators need not be members of the association. The prize, which consists of a cash award and a certificate, will be presented to the winning translator at the association's annual convention in January 2017. - ALTA Talk
A blog by the American Literary Translators Association - 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.”
- Close Approximations - Translation Contest
Fantastic news for emerging translators all over the world: 'Close Approximations,' Asymptote’s hugely popular translation contest, is back! Open to translators at the beginning of their careers, this contest invites translations in three genres: poetry, fiction, and—a new category this year—literary nonfiction. The winner and runner-up of each category will walk away with 1,000 USD and 500 USD respectively. - Geeking Out on Primo Levi — and Elena Ferrante — With a Master Translator
The task of commissioning the new translations and editing and molding the final books fell to Ann Goldstein, the renowned translator of Elena Ferrante, among many other writers. I was interested in what insights she’d gained about Levi over the course of the ten years the project took to complete. She graciously accepted my invitation to meet, and we grabbed a coffee and geeked out about translation at a Le Pain Quotidien near the downtown Manhattan offices of The New Yorker, where she has worked for many years. - 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. - 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.
- Intellectual Property: Is it illegal to translate a book and post the translation online?
Say I've read a very good English book, and I know there's no Chinese translation. I decided I want to translate this into Chinese and post it on my own blog (credit the original writer of course). I'll not publish or sell my translation, and my blog will not run ads or gain profit of any kind.
- 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.”
- 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.
- The Business of Literary Translation: how do I become a literary translator?
During the panel discussion on routes into literary translation, we heard from two practicing literary translators Thomas Bunstead and Jamie Searle Romanelli. They discussed their individual paths into literary translation and gave recommendations for others thinking about walking down a similar path. We have compiled some recommendations based on the panel discussion, with some of our own ideas thrown in. - 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. - 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. - Translation as Literary Ambassador
Among foreign cultural institutes and publishers, the traditional American aversion to literature in translation is known as “the 3 percent problem.” But now, hoping to increase their minuscule share of the American book market — about 3 percent — foreign governments and foundations, especially those on the margins of Europe, are taking matters into their own hands and plunging into the publishing fray in the United States.
- What makes a good literary translator?
‘Poetry is what gets lost in translation’, the American poet Robert Frost is quoted as saying. So how do you translate literature effectively? The British Council’s Ted Hodgkinson spoke to Daniel Hahn, director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, and Urdu language translator Fahmida Riaz, during a literary translation workshop taking place in Karachi - Who Wrote the Best Translated Book of 2016?
Three Percent has released the longlist for the 2016 Best Translated Book Award, a prize that comes with a $5,000 payout (for both author and translator) from Amazon, its sponsor. The longlist is appropriately long (25 fiction titles, ten poetry titles) and filled with names famous, familiar, and obscure.
