Delphine de Vigan’s Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit (Nothing Holds Back The Night) begins with its heartbreaking end: the suicide of her mother, Lucile. With suspense set aside, de Vigan instead sets to the task of “writing her mother” by uncovering and unraveling her life in a story that is part memoir and part novel.
À propos
À Propos: Book Review – La Nuit Sacrée
La Nuit Sacrée, by Tahar Ben Jelloun, is not for the faint of heart. The story begins, “Ce qui importe c’est la vérité,” and the author maintains this principle from beginning to end. Drawing from his experience as a professor of philosophy, the Moroccan writer takes a direct look at the issue of gender inequality from all directions. Naturally, themes of violence, jealousy, love, and hate surface quickly.
À Propos: Memories of The Lover
Have you ever had a lover? Have you ever been a lover? Or, perhaps a better question, is there someone who is the love(r) of your life? Have you ever lived or dreamed a love so beautiful, so real, that it could not have possibly existed? Are you haunted by memories of what was or what could have been? Some nights, maybe only in your dreams, does that become your reality? Do you wonder what love really is? What it looks like? How it smells? How it feels? Reading L’Amant (The Lover) by Marguerite Duras brings up these questions and more. Written in 1984 and winner of the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize, The Lover skyrocketed the already well-known Duras to international acclaim. Its theme of forbidden but powerful love continues to resonate with readers today.
À Propos: Synonyms in French
French is a language that makes liberal use of synonyms. Et pour cause. Synonyms add variety to writing.
But the French don’t seem to be content with simply using the occasional word having the same (or nearly the same) meaning as another in the language. They use these “lexical stand-ins” at every possible turn.
More accurately, many of these lexical substitutes are metonyms.
À Propos: Book Review – La billebaude
The week before we left Paris, my husband and I went to Boulinier on boulevard Saint-Michel and bought several boxes’ worth of two-euro paperbacks from the sale bins. We knew that finding books in French wasn’t going to be easy in the US, and as voracious readers, we stocked up like soldiers preparing for a siege and shipped them all tarif livres to my parents’ house in Oregon. We chose books at random: some classics, some we thought we’d heard of, maybe, and others that just had good titles or intriguing cover art. Now, nine years later, we’re still working our way through that literary plunder. One of my favorite recent discoveries from the pile is a best-selling 1978 memoir by Henri Vincenot called La billebaude.
À Propos: Book Review – Le Livre des Baltimore
Je regarde regulièrement « La grande librairie », l’émission de François Busnel sur TV5 Monde. Ce journaliste invite des écrivains qui viennent de sortir un livre, de gagner le Prix Goncourt, etc. J’avais donc déjà vu Joël Dicker parler de son dernier roman, qui m’avait semblé intéressant.
À Propos: Expat Linguists in a Globalized World – Tips on Living and (Legally) Working Abroad
A freelance career offers the flexibility to work where you want, when you want, so it’s not surprising that many freelance linguists pursue the dream of living abroad.
Making this a reality requires careful planning and an understanding of immigration and tax laws in the intended country of residence. Nothing can replace expert advice – which anyone moving abroad should seek – but there are a few tax, immigration and practical considerations to keep in mind.
À Propos: Review of #ATA56 Session – SOAP Notes: Getting Down and Dirty with Medical Translation
SOAP Notes: Getting Down and Dirty with Medical Translation. A Review of Erin M. Lyons’ presentation given at the 56th American Translators Association conference on November 5, 2015, in Miami, FL.
À Propos: Review of #ATA56 Session – Translating French Initial Public Offerings and Other Securities Offerings
At the 56th American Translators Association conference held in November 2015, in Miami, FL, Jennifer Bader of CLASS Translations, a securities attorney admitted to the bar in Paris (inactive), New York, and Maryland who now works as a freelance translator, presented a session entitled “Translating French Initial Public Offerings and Other Securities Offerings.” Who could have asked for a more appropriate speaker to clarify the ins and outs of the financial markets?!
À Propos: FLD Member Updates – Fourth Quarter 2015
Members provide updates to share with the French Language Division. If you have a professional update you would like to share, please email us at divisionFLD [at] atanet [dot] org.
- Eve Lindemuth Bodeux has had several translations of children’s stories published for La Dentellière Editions Numériques, a publishing house based in France. Titles include Stories and Magic Dust, It’s Water, Not Words!, The Doray Family and adaptations of The Fairies and Thumbelina. The original French texts and translations are available in iTunes across the world.
- Rhoda B. Miller is pleased to announce that her translation of a French book has been published in the United States. Que Veut la Chine ? De Mau au Capitalisme by François Godement (originally published in France by Odile Jacob, 2012), is now available on US bookshelves under the title Contemporary China: Between Mao and Market (Rowman & Littlefield, August 2015). Rhoda won a subsidy from France’s Centre National du Livre for this translation.
- Samantha Mowry was certified in July 2015 as a French-to-English translator by the American Translators Association.
- Patrice Van Hyle’s translation “Genotoxic Risk Assessment Among Nurses Handling Cytostatic Drugs” of the article “Évaluation du risque génotoxique chez les infirmiers manipulant les cytostatiques,” originally published in Annales de Biologie Clinique, will be published by the National Institutes of Health’s Library. Patrice was also profiled in a feature story in the business section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in March 2015. Click here to see the article.