Once upon a time, a hundred years and more ago, there was an ordinary man in an ordinary village, who led a really rather ordinary life. He worked hard, but nothing really excited him; he wasn’t very happy, but he…
The Emperor of Portugallia
Tagged with: books, Norvik Press, Peter Graves, Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish, The Emperor of Portugallia, Translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
They know not what they do
When Jussi Valtonen’s book won the Finlandia Prize for the best novel of 2014, my friend recommended it to me. Her husband had loved it, I would find it really interesting. But it looked so weighty, and back then, my…
Tagged with: books, Finland, Finlandia Prize, Finnish, Jussi Valtonen, Kristian London, Oneworld, They Know Not What They Do, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Thomas Bernhard’s poems
Once he’d written them, he didn’t look back. He moved on to plays and novels, for which he’s much better known. He didn’t write any more poems for decades. Once he’d written them, he kept looking back. He returned and…
Tagged with: books, Collected Poems, German, James Reidel, Poetry, Seagull Books, Thomas Bernhard, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Ghachar Ghochar
One of the best things about reading books in translation is that they take you to places you might never go, through languages that you might never learn, and make you feel right at home, as if you’ve grown up…
Tagged with: Best Translated Book Award, books, Ghachar Ghochar, India, Kannada, Srinath Perur, transation, Vivek Shanbhag
Posted in Best Translated Book Award, books, translation
Posted in Best Translated Book Award, books, translation
VE Day #73: All that still matters at all
You might have heard of writing for the desk drawer, but what about writing for your jacket pocket when you expect to die, be buried in a mass grave if at all, and the odds of anyone finding what you’ve…
Tagged with: All that Still Matters at all, Hungarian, John M. Ridland, Miklós Radnóti, Peter V. Czipott, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Secret passages under my hometown
When someone writes about the streets where you live, you feel immediately predisposed towards them. You want to like everything they say, and even if you don’t like it, you will certainly have an opinion. The woman who translates many…
Tagged with: books, Finnish, Jyväskylä, Lola Rogers, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, Pushkin Press, Secret Passages from a Hillside Town, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Brother in Ice
On the ice, time and space are almost impossible to measure. Yes, there might be the sun, but in winter it might not rise for long, if at all, and in summer it might not set for long, if at…
Tagged with: Alicia Kopf, And Other Stories, Arctic, books, Brother in Ice, Catalan, Mara Faye Lethem, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
