The 6th Queer Issue of Words Without Borders is out this month, with a strong showing from Central and Eastern Europe. The Serbian piece by Dragoslava Barzut is heart breaking, the opening of Zuzana Kepplová’s Slovak piece made me laugh,…
Yearly Archives: 2015
The Ladyman
Tagged with: Czech, Dragoslava Barzut, Literature, Peter and Julia Sherwood, Polish, Queer, Sean Gasper Bye, Serbian, Slovak, Sylwia Chutnik, Translation, Warsaw, Women, Words without Borders, Zusana Kepplova, Zuzana Brabcova
Posted in books, literature
Posted in books, literature
The End of Days: The Translator
Jenny Erpenbeck’s The End of Days, translated by Susan Bernofsky, has variously been described as brutal, haunting, and dreamlike, unvarnished and the work of a miniaturist. It’s all that and more. And it’s a very fitting first German winner of…
Tagged with: books, German, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Jenny Erpenbeck, Literature, Susan Bernofsky, The End of Days, Translation
Posted in books, literature
Posted in books, literature
Translating Maciej Miłkowski: Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize
“To write a novel (or indeed a short story) you need two ideas – equally strong, equally developed – and only later it turns out that they were one idea after all, two pillars of one foundation.” “Żeby napisać powieść…
Tagged with: Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize, Maciej Miłkowski, Polish, Translation, Wist
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Fairy Tales in Translation: Jack Zipes and Jan Pieńkowski
It’s European Literature Night tonight, and this whole week the British Academy in London is celebrating fairy tales. This lunchtime Jack Zipes, who translates fairy tales in German, Italian and English, will be talking at the British Academy about his The…
Tagged with: Azeri, British Academy, Brothers Grimm, David Walser, European Literature Night, fairy tales, German, Igor Karash, Illustration, Jack Zipes, Jan Pieńkowski, Madalina Adronic, Polish, Romanian, Translation
Posted in books, European Literature Night, Folklore, Illustration, international, translation
Posted in books, European Literature Night, Folklore, Illustration, international, translation
70 Years of Victory in Europe: Māori stories
Millions of non-Europeans are only starting to get the recognition they deserve for their contribution to the end of “the world’s war in Europe”. You might know that 1.5 million Indians fought alongside 5m Brits at the end of empire,…
Tagged with: 28th Battalion, Italian, Language, Maori, Translation, VE Day
Posted in history, international, translation
Posted in history, international, translation
Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose in translation
Billy Bragg had a 24-hour job at a moment’s notice. He was not going to get paid for his overtime. But he was on a mission. And he made the deadline. Hear him tell the story and sing his translation.…
Tagged with: American, Billy Bragg, British, Charles Hope Kerr, Chinese, English, Eugene Pottier, Finnish, French, German, internationale, Pertti Uotila, Pete Seeger, Polish, Russian, Tagalog, Thomas Nicholas, Tiananmen Square, Translation, Welsh
Posted in international, translation
Posted in international, translation
books and roses
St George is England’s patron saint – and Catalonia’s. April 23, his day is traditionally when Catalans celebrate all kinds of love, by giving red roses, as St George is supposed to have given one to the princess he saved from the…
Tagged with: books, Catalonia, Cervantes, Edith Grossmann, England, Matias de Velasco y Rojas, roses, Shakespeare, Spanish, Thomas Shelton, Translation, Vicete Clavel
Posted in international, literature
Posted in international, literature
tasting translation: Aed
Translators on holiday should not be left free to analyse a menu for too long. But sometimes they are pleasantly surprised. I was in Tallinn for 48 hours only with a fluent Estonian speaker. Delight soon replaced my initial disorientation and…
Don’t translate this!
When should you say no to translation? Sometimes saying yes can be just too dangerous – the translator is drawn into an ethical dilemma or puts their life at risk. For a fascinating discussion of this issue with experts in…
Tagged with: Alice Guthrie, Anna Politkovskaya, Arabic, Arch Tait, Literary Translation, London Book Fair, NoPeanuts, Rebranding the Levant, Russian, Tenzin Dickie, Tibetan, Translation, TreasuryOfLives
Posted in literature
Posted in literature
Rejoice! or Exult?
Catholics should be used to the new English translation of the Latin liturgy after four years. But at times like Easter, which particularly cut through and beyond time, it’s familiar words we want. The premise for the new translation was…
Tagged with: Easter, Exsultet, ICEL, Latin, Rita Ferrone, St Jerome, Translation, Virgil
Posted in faith, translation
Posted in faith, translation
found in translation 