It’s too warm. It should be colder – a lot colder. It’s unseasonable. It’s beautiful, delightful, but it all feels wrong. It’s just all a bit too much, not cosy enough, not delicate enough, perhaps? Things should be the same,…
Yearly Archives: 2018
Oh, to be in Finland, now December’s there
Tagged with: Christmas Carols, Finland, Finnish, Karl Collan, Poetry, Robert Browning, Swedish, Sylvian joululaulu, Sylvias hälsning från Sicilien, Translation, Zachris Topelius
Posted in Christmas, music, poetry, translation
Posted in Christmas, music, poetry, translation
Those Whom I Would Like to Meet Again
A hundred years since Lithuania regained independence, all too briefly. Something to celebrate. I passed through in the summer, over sea and land from Helsinki to Warsaw and south-westwards. We didn’t stay long. I wish I had. My Polish grandmother…
Tagged with: 1918, books, Elizabeth Novickas, essays, Giedra Radvilavičiūtė, Lithuania, Lithuanian, Short Stories, Those Whom I Would Like to Meet Again, Translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
People in the Room
The three sisters sit at the window. From the apartment across the way, their faces are lit up, as in a (rather famous, rather older) portrait. The narrator watches them from her living room window is like a spy; she…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, Argentina, books, Charlotte Whittle, Norah Lange, People in the Room, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain is a both a person and a place. A Buddhist monk, he brings the way to life through stories. He finds stillness inside him where he is. And he shows you, the reader, that you can do the…
Tagged with: Bill Porter, books, Buddhism, China, Cold Mountain, Han Shan, Poetry, Red Pine, Tao, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Swallowing Mercury
Wioletta Greg is frankly fantastic, and Eliza Marciniak has rendered her voice in English delightfully. A good friend gave this translation of Swallowing Mercury for my birthday, and her only concern was that I might have it already, but I might not…
Tagged with: books, Eliza Marciniak, National Translation Award, Polish, Swallowing Mercury, Translation, Wioletta Greg
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
1918: The Man who Spoke Snakish
A small country with centuries upon centuries of tradition easily falls sway to a new power sweeping in from the west; they seem so much bigger, better, shinier, more skilled and powerful, that it just seems to make sense to…
Tagged with: 1918, Andrus Kivirähk, books, Christopher Moseley, Estonian, The Man who Spoke Snakish, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The Remainder
“Every now and then a book makes my fingers itch to translate it from the very first pages,” says Sophie Hughes. This is one of those books; her translation of Alia Trabucco Zerán’s The Remainder. Zerán’s generation are the children of Pinochet’s…
Tagged with: Alia Trabucco Zerán, And Other Stories, books, Chile, history, Sophie Hughes, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
It can be both easier and harder to translate an author who is so aware of the translation process herself. The heroine of this novel and her friend are translating Blake into Polish; they come up with multiple versions of…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, Drive your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Olga Tokarczuk, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, film, translation
Posted in books, film, translation
Beginning to Speak
Diana is from Pontus, now in Georgia, once in Greece. So it’s no surprise she starts with Helen – she isn’t the first poet to do so and she surely won’t be the last: These poems are gloriously sensory and…
Tagged with: books, Diana Anphimiadi, Georgian, Jean Sprackland, Natalia Bukia-Peters, Poetry Translation Centre, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
The House in Norway
The artist has her own house, and feels invaded when other people move in – how is she going to work, now? Nordic people need their space, and women need room of their own to create. The forest grows right…
Tagged with: books, Charlotte Barslund, Norwegian, The House in Norway, Translation, Vigdis Hjorth, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, translation, Women in Translation Month
