Eurovision 2016, almost everyone is singing in English (even the French!!!) and a Crimean Tatar wins, singing the chorus in a language that isn’t even available on Google Translate. Because she sings with passion about her people, who were forcibly…
Jamala: Crimean Tatar in translation
Tagged with: 1944, Crimean Tatar, Eurovision 2016, Jamala, Meni gamdan azat eyle, The Colour of Pomegranates, Translation, Ukraine
Posted in history, international, language, music
Posted in history, international, language, music
Gathering to scatter the dark
Last weekend I went to a big birthday party. It was a chance to catch up with over a hundred family and friends, and family of family and friends of friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen for some years,…
Tagged with: Bill Johnston, Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska, Ewa Lipska, Julia Fiedorczuk, Julia Hartwig, Karen Kovacik, Mira Kuś, Poetry, Polish, Robin Davidson, Scattering the Dark, Translation, White Pine Press
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Do you miss your country?
Do you miss your country? If you do, even if you don’t want to go back, it doesn’t matter where you are, but you will understand Monika Szydłowska’s drawings, and you might want to join 13,000 others to see what…
Tagged with: Centrala, Free Word Centre, Monika Szydłowska, Na emigracji, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, Illustration, international, translation
Posted in books, Illustration, international, translation
two hundred thousand lakes
Finland has 1 lake for every 26 or so people, 187 888 in total, and most have marvellous names which look unpronouncable or untranslatable to a non-Finnish speaker. The rather fabulous designers Aamu Song and Johan Olin of http://www.com-pa-ny.com have put some answers on postcard:…
books and roses, bread and roses
It’s books and roses day again tomorrow! Is it even possible to choose one book to celebrate? Elena Ferrante’s The Story of The Lost Child has made both the Man Booker International Shortlist AND the three percent Best Translated Book Award 2016…
Three or four lines, and you have the whole world
Bessarabian Stamps are not postcards, but even smaller messages, from a place between so many places that you’d be forgiven for not quite remembering where it is. The author grew up in Bessarabia, on the border of what is now the Republic…
Tagged with: Bessarabia, Boris Drayluk, Bruno Schulz, Moldova, Oleg Woolf, Phoneme, Russian, Translation
Posted in books, short stories, translation
Posted in books, short stories, translation
Lunatics, lovers and poets in translation
In honour of Shakespeare’s and Cervantes’ 400th anniversaries, twelve authors have written a new story inspired by their work – six each in English and Spanish – with an introduction by Salman Rushdie. As Rushdie points out, since England was still…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, Cervantes, Christina MacSweeney, Deborah Levy, English, Kamila Shamsie, Nell Leyshon, Rosalind Harvey, Shakespeare, Soledad Puértolas, Spanish, Valeria Luiselli
Posted in books, literature, short stories, translation
Posted in books, literature, short stories, translation
Tutaj / here
“Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like ‘the ordinary world,’ ‘ordinary life,’ ‘the ordinary course of events’ … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing…
Tagged with: Clare Cavanagh, Nobel Prize, Poetry, Polish, Stanisław Barańczak, Tomasz Stańko, Translation, Tutaj/here, Wisława Szymborska, writing, znak
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Christ is risen! in 250 languages
Christ is Risen! By the time you read this, we will have probably only sung this Easter greeting in about ten languages, from Arabic to Swedish. But a Canadian Orthodox priest, Steven Bigham, has collected this Easter greeting in 250 tongues. They are all painstakingly…
Tagged with: Easter, Languages, paschal troparion, Translation
Posted in faith, international, language, translation
Posted in faith, international, language, translation
After tomorrow the days disappear
I finished this book of Persian poetry just in time for Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year. Starting the year at the spring equinox makes a lot of sense. And starting it with 700-year-old-poems like this was a pleasure.…
Tagged with: After Tomorrow the Days Disappear, Farsi, ghazal, Hasan Sijzi, Northwestern University Press, Persian, Poetry, Rebecca Gould, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
found in translation 