Is this a road trip or a journey back in time? The German and English covers of Töchter/Daughters tell the same story in different ways. Just getting into the car and driving south to get away from it all –…
Daughters
Tagged with: books, Daughters, German, Lucy Fricke, Rohwolt, Sinéad Crowe, Töchter, Translation, V&Q Books
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Waiting for translation: Margarita
A real old-school holiday resort. Sauna, muscle-reviving massage for the old biddies with health problems, berry and mushroom picking, rowboats to the island in the middle of the lake, home-cooked food with produce from the estate. A local community where…
Tagged with: Anni Kytomäki, books, Finlandia Prize, Finnish, Margarita, Translation, waitingfortranslation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Monsters and heroes: Beowulf
Dragons, magic, heaps of gold and jewels, superhuman strength, slaying monsters – both monsters who are slain and monsters who slay. In the ancient and modern senses of the word. It’s fun. It’s fantasy. It’s the perfect read for a…
Tagged with: Beowulf, books, Grendel's mother, Maria Dahvana Headley, Old English, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
A window left open
If some of these poems feel like song lyrics, that’s because they are. Pentti Saarikoski’s best-loved work was set to music for the sixties folk group, Muksut. You can watch their original videos in the national treasure trove that is…
Tagged with: books, Dublin Literary Award, Emily Jeremiah, Finland, Finnish, Fleur Jeremiah, Muksut, Norvik Press, Pentti Saarikoski, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, Dublin Literary Award, poetry
Posted in books, Dublin Literary Award, poetry
The lost soul – zgubiona dusza
The man was moving so fast he had completely forgotten why he was moving at all. So he went to see a wise woman. And the wise woman said, “Slow down. You have to wait for your soul to catch…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, Joanna Concejo, Olga Tokarczuk, Poland, Polish, Seven Stories Press, The Lost Soul, Translation, Wydawnictwo Format, Zgubiona dusza
Posted in books, Illustration, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Illustration, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Grand Hotel
“People in a hotel” would be a literal translation of Vicki Baum’s groundbreaking novel. It’s nearly a century old now, but when she wrote it, she invented a whole new genre. What sort of people are staying in the hotel?…
Tagged with: Basil Creighton, Berlin, book, Dussmann, German, Grand Hotel, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Margot Bettauer Dembo, Menschen im Hotel, Translation, Vicki Baum
Posted in books, film, history
Posted in books, film, history
And we came outside and saw the stars again
Reading about a pandemic while living through it is not everyone’s idea of staying safe and well (as we’ve wished for each other so often this year). There was a patch in the summer, however, where things were looking up…
Tagged with: And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, books, Covid-19, Restless Books, Translation
Posted in books
Posted in books
Fifty islands I have not visited and never will
This is the subtitle to Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands. I discovered it eleven years late, because this year Marko Niemi translated it into Finnish. I ordered the German original straight away and despite the pandemic it arrived promptly…
Tagged with: Atlas of Remote Islands, books, Christine Lo, Finnish, German, Mare, Marko Niemi, Poesia, Translation
Posted in books, history, Illustration, translation
Posted in books, history, Illustration, translation
Malambo
For Black History Month, here’s a story from a time and place that’s often been forgotten. Malambo is set in sixteenth-century Peru among artists, friars, healers, swindlers, silversmiths, traders and fisherfolk who just happen to be Black – alongside indigenous…
Tagged with: Black History Month, books, Emmanuel Harris II, Lucía Charún-Illescas, Malambo, Peru, Spanish, Swan Isle Press, Translation
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized
When death takes something from you give it back
I read When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back on the train to the city where Naja Marie Aidt was raised, Copenhagen. She wrote it a long journey away from there, back in Brooklyn, where she now lives.…
Tagged with: books, Danish, death, Denise Newman, Naja Marie Aidt, Translation, When Death Takes Something from You Give it BacK
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
