Translation often comes with a delay, sometimes of decades. Many of these people’s stories are only being told in English after their death. Before that, it took decades for their voices to be heard in their native language. Last Witnesses:…
The Last Witnesses
Tagged with: Belarus, books, history, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Russian, Second World War, Soviet Union, Svetlana Alexievich, The Last Witnesses, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Arid Dreams
These are feminist stories with a difference, in that many of them show how a male protagnonist is thinking, and how their thinking changes through encounter with the women around them. Which hopefully makes the reader take a long hard…
Tagged with: Arid Dreams, books, Duanwad Pimwana, Feminist Press, Mui Poopoksakul, Short Stories, Thai, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Vilnius Wilno Vilna
I had little more than twenty-four hours in Vilnius, so I picked this up at the airport when I left. First – what a civilised airport that it had proper books like this for sale. Second – I was utterly…
Tagged with: books, Kristina Sabaliauskaitė, Lithuanian, Romas Kinka, Short Stories, Translation, Vilna, Vilnius, Wilno
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
River of Fire
The beginning is so far back in time, it’s hard to know what’s real. It’s like a fairytale. I’d have liked to spend more time in this part of the story, but it moves forward. We race from the fourteenth…
Tagged with: books, India, Quarratulain Hyder, River of Fire, Translation, Urdu
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Artemisia
Artemisia Gentileschi was that rare thing, a woman painter of the Baroque. She painted queens and noblewomen, and, splendidly, Judith killing Holofernes. She travelled round Italy and all the way to England, where her father, whom she idolised, was also…
Tagged with: Anna Banti, Artemisia Gentileschi, books, Italian, National Gallery, painting, Shirley D'Ardia Caracciolo, Translation
Posted in translation
Posted in translation
Honey, I Killed the Cats
After translations into dozens of languages, this has taken seven years to appear in English, but the wait is worth it. A twentysomething woman in the States, still hopelessly single when…
Tagged with: Benjamin Paloff, books, Deep Vellum, Dorota Masłowska, Honey I killed the Cats, Marcin Nowak, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Tokyo Ueno Station
Tokyo Ueno Station is the Japan the tourists never see, because it’s literally swept off the streets. We hear about it from the inside. This is Kazu’s story, told by Yu Miri and translated by Morgan Giles. A middle-aged man…
Tagged with: books, Buddhism, homelessness, Japan, Japanese, Morgan Giles, Tilted Axis Press, Tokyo Ueno Station, Translation, Yu Miri
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The Polyglot Lovers
Is this a Marmite book? Or maybe a sour-plum book, given the colour of the cover. My mum spent a large chunk of her childhood in Hong Kong, so she loves them, but they’re too strong for me. My mum…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, Lina Wolff, Saskia Vogel, Sweden, Swedish, The Polyglot Lovers, Translation, writing
Posted in books, gender, international, translation
Posted in books, gender, international, translation
Sergius Seeks Bacchus
A fellow queer Christian, from an utterly different context. Indonesian literature has been in the literary news since the country guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015. But now it gets personal: Sergius Seeks Bacchus. This slim…
Tagged with: books, Indonesian, Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Poetry, Sergius Seeks Bacchus, Tiffany Tsao, Tilted Axis Press, Translation
Posted in books, faith, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, gender, poetry, translation
The Governesses
Something is happening in French-language literature right now that makes me dearly regret stopping at GCSE. In the last few months I’ve devoured three short and piercingly acute new translations from French that have made me think hard about animal…
Tagged with: Anne Serre, books, French, Mark Hutchinson, The Governesses, Translation
Posted in books, gender, literature, translation
Posted in books, gender, literature, translation
