Svetlana Alexievich’s first book is the latest to be (re-)translated into English, in the wake of her Nobel Prize win. It tells a story that stretches back over a century – Russian women fought against Napoleon too, as Alexievich notes…
The Unwomanly Face of War
Tagged with: Belarus, books, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Russian, Soviet Union, Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Finland 100: The oak grove
The civil war that followed hot on the heels of independence is both very present and very absent from Finnish consciousness. It tore families and communities apart and is still difficult to talk about. Earlier this year, someone had the…
Tagged with: Asko Sahlberg, civil war, Emily Jeremiah, Finland 100, Finnish, Fleur Jeremiah, Suomi100, Tammilehto, The Brothers
Posted in books, Finland 100, history, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, history, translation
The Dove’s Necklace
Last weekend marked the end of Eid al-Adha, when millions of pilgrims gathered in Mecca. In this story, one man makes his way into the Kaaba itself… This story starts with the city: not the pilgrims, but the women and…
Tagged with: Adam Talib, Arabic, International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Katharine Halls, Mecca, Raja Alem, Saudi Arabia, The Dove's Necklace, Translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Women in Translation Month: Marina Tsvetaeva
The age of the Russian Revolution produced some extraordinary poetry, and the women poets deserve better recognition. For spot-on quick-fire dispatches from a period of unprecedented change, try Teffi, but for poetry, try Tsvetaeva, who died 76 years ago today. Glagoslav…
Tagged with: Glasgoslav Publications, Marina Tsvetaeva, Michael Naydan, Poetry, Russian, Russian Revolution, Slava Yastremski, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Women in Translation Month: Recitation
When you’ve lived away from home for a long time, home can be anywhere. If you move around a lot, the places of transit themselves, airports and train stations, can feel the most homelike of all. People may easily mistake…
Tagged with: Bae Suah, Berlin, books, Deborah Smith, Deep Vellum, Korean, Recitation, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, international, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, international, translation, Women in Translation Month
Finland 100: The Red women
“So then they founded a women’s guard here, and anyhow I’m such an enthusiastic person so of course I went there first […] You can’t believe how enthusiastic I was about going to the front. Now I am going back…
Tagged with: books, Finland 100, Finnish civil war, gender, history, Punaisten naisten tiet, Red guard, Suomi100, Tiina Lintunen, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Women in Translation Month: Ginczanka
Whenever I am in Warsaw, there are a couple of bookshops near the university that I have to visit. I always come out with something unexpected that keeps me going till I can come back to Poland. This time, the…
Tagged with: Marek Kamiński, Mądrość jak rozkosz, Poetry, Polish, Translation, Women in Translation Month, Zusanna Ginczanka
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
The Conference of the Birds
This is extraordinarily beautiful and surprisingly gripping. Translated by a bilingual poet who made the wise decision to sacrifice the rhyme to keep the essences of the story, it sings. As Sholeh Wolpé says, translating medieval Persian into modern English…
Tagged with: Attar, books, Persian, Poetry, Sholeh Wolpé, Sufism, The Conference of the Birds, Translation
Posted in books, faith, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, history, poetry, translation
The Pearl
Simon Armitage’s award-winning translation is set side-by-side with the original, which creates plenty of opportunities for deciphering and comparing the older and younger versions of English. The original really rolls round your tongue. The translation cuts to the quick with…
Tagged with: books, Old English, PEN Translation Prize, Poetry, Simon Armitage, The Pearl, Translation
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
Chronicle of the Murdered House
It takes a gay writer to bring a Catholic country back to its sense of love and sin, good and evil, and moral justice. The road is very long, but the actual miles travelled are very few, as almost all…
Tagged with: Brazil, Brazilian Portuguese, BTBA 2017, Chronicle of the Murdered House, Clarice Lispector, Lúcio Cardoso, Margaret Jull Costa, Queer, Robin Patterson
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
found in translation 