All I want for Christmas is a new translation, a new translation, a new translation. That doesn’t scan quite the same as “my two front teeth,” but if I say it often enough, will it happen? The Snowsinger could sing…
Waiting for translation: Snowsinger
Tagged with: books, Emmi Itäranta, Finnish, Kalevala, Lumenlaulaja, Snowsinger, Translation
Posted in books, Folklore
Posted in books, Folklore
Waiting for translation: Ester, slaughterer
When Mariia Niskavaara went on holiday, she came back to find that her lettuces had run wild. “They grew themselves long stems and started flowering, and good God they were gorgeous. I realized that if lettuces had their way, that’s…
Tagged with: books, Ester teurastaja, Finnish, Helsingin Sanomat, Literature, Mariia Niskavaara, Translation
Posted in translation
Posted in translation
Waiting for translation: where the rivers run
Spring starts in the cellar. It’s still cold, the snow is deep, the light, fitful. The potato feels it first. And slowly extends a pale, tentative root. Downward, between its siblings, looking for the earth below. It’s time to grow…
Tagged with: Aviador, books, Finnish, Mari Laaksonen, Missä joet juoksevat, Poetry, Translation, Where the rivers run
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
On the calculation of translated volumes
Solvej Balle’s Om udregning af rumfang, published by Pelagraf, won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2022. Then, she’d written three of her seven volumes of speculative fiction in Danish. Barbara Haveland’s English translation, On the Calculation of Volume, is…
Lem and le Guin’s letters
This one jumped out at me from the blue sky (dzięki Paweł!). I’ve read less Lem than le Guin, but the idea of them writing to each other was startling, pleasing. I ordered their 1972–1984 letters from Wydawnictwo Literackie straight…
Tagged with: Bill Johnston, books, German, Irmtraud Zimmermann-Göllheim, Polish, Stanisław Barańczak, Stanisław Lem, Tomasz Lem, Translation, Ursula le Guin
Posted in books, literature, translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Effingers
Once I’d got my teeth into Tergit, I wasn’t going to let go. Käsebier was splendid. Berlin in the twenties is a somewhere, somewhen I wish I had been to, and here was a woman broadcasting live from the thick…
Tagged with: books, Effingers, Gabriele Tergit, German, Sofie Duvernoy, Translation, Waiting for translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Empusium
Empuzjon is Olga Tokarczuk’s made-up word in Polish from two Greek words. Symposium – drinkfuelled philosophical debate – and empusa – a female shape-shifter. Here, you can go down a delightful rabbithole to find empusas: Wikipedia took me to Kipling’s…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, Empusium, Empuzjon, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Olga Tokarczuk, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Ædnan
I was in two minds about this picture, but I think it fits. I took it on the ferry home from Stockholm. Behind the book, you can glimpse the old royal centre of the self-styled “capital of Scandinavia.” That phrase…
Tagged with: Ædnan, books, Linnea Axelsson, Northern Sámi, Poetry, Saskia Vogel, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Käsebier takes Berlin
Then we take Berlin… But for how long? Gabriele Tergit wrote Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm right after the story unfolded. Berlin in the late 1920s was at its most shimmering, glorious, and frenetic. But pride comes before a fall and…
Tagged with: books, Gabrielle Tergit, German, Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm, Käsebier takes Berlin, Pushkin Press, Rohwolt, Sophie Duvernoy, Translation
Posted in books, history
Posted in books, history
Still raging: Die Wut, die bleibt
A man asks a woman to pass the salt, and she gets up, walks past him out onto the balcony and… jumps. Leaving behind her teenage daughter, two young sons and their father, and her best friend. Was it one…
Tagged with: Austria, books, Die Wut die bleibt, Feminism, German, ITI German Network, Jozef van der Voort, Mareike Fallwickl, New Books in German, Rohwolt, The Rage that Remains, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
White Nights
Rather than heralding midsummer, White Nights/Białe noce feels looming and Novemberish. Immersed in darkness and silence (ciemno wszędzie, głucho wszędzie), there’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen next. Very likely, another death… If you love Tokarczuk and want…
Tagged with: Białe noce, books, International Booker Prize, Kate Webster, MTO Press, Polish, Translation, Ursula Honek, White Nights
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Aliss at the Fire
When a Nordic neighbour wins a Nobel, it’s nice to take notice. So last autumn at a book fair, nestling among the Rosebuds, I spotted Jon Fosse, in a deep Fitzcarraldo (Norwegian flag cross?) blue cover, with a gold sticker…
Tagged with: Aliss at the Fire, Damion Searls, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Jon Fosse, Nobel Prize in Literature, Norwegian, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Störfall
Accident, incident, malfunction, (power) failure? You could translate Störfall in all of these ways. Accident seems a small word to contain the enormity of it. Christa Wolf brings together two major incidents, personal and political, local and global, in her…
Tagged with: Accident, books, Chernobyl, Christa Wolf, German, Heike Schwarzbauer, Rick Tavorian, Störfall, Suhrkamp, Translation, University of Chicago Press
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
When Christmas comes
Christmas means carols. There are some you have to hear or sing, or it isn’t Christmas. And every year, if it’s a good year, you find a new one you haven’t heard before. Do you know this one? Apo Noponen…
Tagged with: Apo Noponen, Christmas Carols, Finnish, Jyväskylän naislaulajat, Kun joulu on, Otto Kotilainen, Translation, When Christmas comes
Posted in Christmas, translation
Posted in Christmas, translation
The Visionaries
These women wrote through the darkest times. As times get darker again, 80 to 90 years later, we need to read them. The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil and the Salvation of Philosophy (Allen Lane 2023) in Shaun Whiteside’s English…
Tagged with: Ayn Rand, books, Feuer der Freiheit, French, German, Hannah Arendt, philosophy, Ros Schwarz, Shaun Whiteside, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, The Vsionaries, Translation, Wolfgang Eilenberger
Posted in books, gender, history
Posted in books, gender, history
What can you see from here?
From here, you can see that dreams can be a nightmare when you wake up. What’s all in your head, and what’s going to happen? From here, you can see everyone you’ve always known. The village is close. From here,…
Tagged with: books, German, Marina Leky, Tess Lewis, Translation, Was man von hier aus sehen kann, What you can see from here
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
In memory of memory
The way you remember your story is important. Your family’s stories and their ways of telling them tell you about who you are. But there is so much missing. Maria Stepanova comes from a long line of Russian Jews, and…
Tagged with: Fitzcarraldo Editions, In Memory of Memory, Maria Stepanova, Russian, Sasha Dugdale, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Details
This book has been winning awards ever since it was published in Sweden last year, and today it’s out in English. I read the Finnish translation. My five-year plan to learn Swedish well enough to be “civilized” (not a juntti,…
Tagged with: books, Detjalerna, Finnish, Ia Genberg, Jaana Nikula, Kia Josefsson, Swedish, The Details, Translation, Yksityiskohdat
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Bolla
A mythical creature, she rises from the waters to wreak destruction. Snakelike, dragonlike, unlike anything else you hear in fairytales round here. She’s dangerous. That’s Bolla. But the book is about two men, who love each other, perhaps. Or at…
Tagged with: Bolla, books, David Hackston, Finnish, James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Patjim Statovci, Translation
Posted in books, Queer, translation
Posted in books, Queer, translation
The Little Pike that Swam Out Of Lapland
Some books go far. Some have a vast marketing machine behind them. Others have an adoring aunt that’s always inviting them round for coffee and cake, digging around her own bookshelves for that particular edition that might just help, and…
Tagged with: books, Finnish, Finnish Literature Exchange, Pienen hauen pyydystys, Pushkin Press, Restless Books, Siltala, Summer Fishing in Lapland, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The Book of Desire
The Book of Desire is a thing of beauty. It arrived wrapped in white and gold tissue, tied with natural string, packed in cardboard. These things matter. I thought someone had sent me a gift. Opening it was a ceremony.…
Tagged with: Galley Beggar Press, Kāmattu-p-pāl, Meena Kandasamy, Meena Kandasamz, Poetry, Tamil, Tiruvaḷḷuvar, Translation
Posted in poetry, translation
Posted in poetry, translation
The Red Book of Farewells
We’ve waited twenty years for this. To be scrupulously honest, I haven’t, as when it won the Finlandia Prize in 2003, I couldn’t speak a word of Finnish. But Pirkko Saisio’s Punainen erokirja in Mia Spangenberg’s translation as the Red…
Tagged with: books, Finlandia Prize, Finnish, Mia Spangenberg, Pirkko Saisio, Punainen erokirja, Red Book of Farewells, Translation, Two Lines Press
Posted in books, literature, Queer, translation
Posted in books, literature, Queer, translation
Annie Ernaux: finding the translations
When Annie Ernaux received the Nobel Prize in Literature last autumn, I am ashamed to say I had never heard of her. Some French-speaking friends had loved her work for years. Two had learned French outside France, whereas friends who…
Tagged with: Alison Strayer, Annie Ernaux, books, Finnish, Fitzcarraldo Editions, French, Gummerus, Lotta Toivanen, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Love in…
Five women in love. And then out of it. There aren’t going to be happy endings. Until, the author said, she talked to her daughter, and felt that she had to offer a bit of hope. Because what a lot…
Tagged with: books, Daniela Krien, Die Liebe im Ernstfall, German, Jamie Bulloch, Love in Five Acts, MacLehose Press, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Es kommt
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, not that one, that’s not for a few weeks yet. Advent, the waiting. And who does Advent best? I’ve said it before – the Germans, of course. I haven’t lived in…
Tagged with: advent, Berliner Solistenchor, Catherine Winkworth, Christmas Carols, Es kommt ein Schiff geladen, George Ratcliffe Woodward, German, Hymns, Translation
Posted in Christmas, music
Posted in Christmas, music
Walesland/Gwaliadir
I bought this because of the translator. Caryl Lewis’s writing is tense and spare and true. I loved Y Gemydd which I read as The Jeweller in Gwen Davies’s translation, and Drift, her first novel in English. Then I found…
Tagged with: Caryl Lewis, Gwaliadir, Nigel Wells, Poetry, Translation, Walesland, Welsh, Y Lolfa
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
The train that didn’t go to Katyń
In April 1940, over twenty thousand Polish officers were killed by the Soviets in the forest of Katyń. A bare few hundred of those soldiers survived. The way I remember my grandfather telling the story of his capture on Poland’s…
Tagged with: Alissa Valles, art, books, history, Józef Czapski, Memories of Starobielsk: Essays on Art and History, NYRB Classics, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Tasting Sunlight
Autumn fruit. Pears, apples, grapes… the orchards and vineyards are bursting with golden light. Yet the light is fading. The first frost bites. That’s the English title for you, Tasting Sunlight. But in German, Ewald Arenz called it Alte Sorten,…
Tagged with: Alte Sorten, books, Ewald Arenz, German, Orenda Books, Rachel Ward, Tasting Sunlight, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Marzahn, Mon Amour
A podiatrist’s story. She stopped writing to start looking after other people’s feet. She needed to make a living. Her fellow authors were not impressed. But from that experience, she crafted some impressive portraits of people and place. When many…
Tagged with: Berlin, books, German, Hanser Verlag, Jo Heinrich, Katja Oskamp, Marzahn, Peirene Press, Translation
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized
Russia: knife, fork, and ladle
The Romanovs, Lenin, Gagarin – they all had their cooks. Holodomor, Leningrad, Chernobyl, Afghanistan – sometimes there is nothing (safe) to cook at all. For some people, like the Tatars, cooking is all you have left of home. Others, like…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, How to Feed a Dictator, Polish, Rosja od Kuchni, Russia, Translation, Witold Szabłowski
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Tolkien’s Translator
Finland’s Gandalf is real. She forges fantastic fireworks, the like of which were never seen before. They dazzle the locals who’ve never been over the next hill – or heard of anyone under it. “You shall not pass!” she cries,…
Tagged with: books, Finnish, Kersti Juva, Lord of the Rings, SKS, Speculative fiction, Tolkien, Tolkienin tulkkina, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Aino A!
Living in a building designed by Alvar Aalto is both unparalleled and uncomfortable. I have just moved out of Viitatorni (the “skyscraper” he finally got built in Jyväskylä after years of trying) into Säynätsalo Town Hall, into Säynätsalo Town Hall,…
Tagged with: Aino A!, Aino Marsio-Aalto, architecture, biofiction, books, Finnish, Jari Järvelä, Translation, Wivi Lönn
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Go, went, gone
A white, male, comfortably-off, widowed professor at a Berlin university has just retired. He meets Black African men seeking asylum in Europe. He tries to find out about them, and to help them. Not new, perhaps. Isn’t the whole perspective…
Tagged with: Asylum, Berlin, books, German, Jenny Erpenbeck, Susan Bernofsky, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Lament for the Fallen
I am writing this as Afghanistan descends once more into horror. A tiny Welsh part of me still thinks “the bloody English colonials, look what they started and didn’t finish – again.” And you could read the Gododdin this way,…
Tagged with: Aneirin, books, Cynghanedd, Faber, Gillian Clarke, Gododdin, Hay Festival, Poetry, Translation, Welsh
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry
Waiting for translation: Light!
Ah, it’s summer, you’re fourteen and in love… isn’t that perfect? Except it’s 1986, and Chernobyl just exploded. Except the girl you’re in love with is having a hard time. Except you’re a girl too, and your parents are absolutely…
Tagged with: books, Finnish, Light light light, Owen Whitesman, Translation, Valoa valoa valoa, Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen
Posted in books, Queer, translation
Posted in books, Queer, translation
The love story of the century
Three years shy of its fiftieth anniversary, this book still bites. Märta Tikkanen’s Århundradets kärlekssaga came out with S&S in 1978. I read Eila Pennanen’s Finnish translation, Vuosisadan rakkaustarina published by Tammi in the same year. In English, Stina Katchadourian’s…
Tagged with: books, Deep Vellum, Eila Pennanen, Finnish, Märta Tikkanen, Poetry, Stina Katchadourian, Swedish, Translation
Posted in books
Posted in books
Heaven’s salt lake
Tiny languages need books like this. If your language is a bigger sibling to a tiny language, you could help your smaller sibling reach more readers through a bilingual edition. Poetry needs more bilingual editions like this. Even if you’ve…
Tagged with: Aviador, Baiba Damberg, books, English, Finnish, Kerran olin taivaan suolajärvi, Kōrd vóļ minā touvõs sūoljõraks, Language, Livonian, Olli Heikkonen, Poetry, Renāte Blumberga, Ryan Van Winkle, Salaca, Translation, Trillium, Uldis Balodis, Valt Ernštreit, Ķempi Kārl
Posted in books, language, translation
Posted in books, language, translation
Backlight
Being a teenager is often awful, sometimes amazing, but rarely, if ever, dull. The emotions are too huge. At least that’s how I – and Saisio – remember it. Vastavalo/Backlight tells it as a girl at the end of her…
Tagged with: Backlight, books, Finnish, Mia Spangenberg, Penguin, Pirkko Saisio, Translation, Two Lines Press, Vastavalo
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Summer night
It’s that time of year when there’s a mere hour of dusk, and soon we’ll be in sunlight around the clock. Everything is blooming. Whenever you leave the house, you walk past flowers that emerged since yesterday. Why go to…
Posted in Uncategorized
Han Kang: finding the translations
The journey from Korea to the northern fringes of Europe is a long one. To get there, you have to go on a TV show, or stir up a storm in a translators’ teacup. Or you could miss the bus,…
Tagged with: books, Deborah Smith, English, Finnish, Han Kang, Korean, Man Booker International Prize, Nobel Prize, Taru Salminen, Translation
Posted in literature, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in literature, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
found in translation 