In April 1940, over twenty thousand Polish officers were killed by the Soviets in the forest of Katyń. A bare few hundred of those soldiers survived. The way I remember my grandfather telling the story of his capture on Poland’s…
The train that didn’t go to Katyń
Tagged with: Alissa Valles, art, books, history, Józef Czapski, Memories of Starobielsk: Essays on Art and History, NYRB Classics, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Tasting Sunlight
Autumn fruit. Pears, apples, grapes… the orchards and vineyards are bursting with golden light. Yet the light is fading. The first frost bites. That’s the English title for you, Tasting Sunlight. But in German, Ewald Arenz called it Alte Sorten,…
Tagged with: Alte Sorten, books, Ewald Arenz, German, Orenda Books, Rachel Ward, Tasting Sunlight, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Marzahn, Mon Amour
A podiatrist’s story. She stopped writing to start looking after other people’s feet. She needed to make a living. Her fellow authors were not impressed. But from that experience, she crafted some impressive portraits of people and place. When many…
Tagged with: Berlin, books, German, Hanser Verlag, Jo Heinrich, Katja Oskamp, Marzahn, Peirene Press, Translation
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized
Russia: knife, fork, and ladle
The Romanovs, Lenin, Gagarin – they all had their cooks. Holodomor, Leningrad, Chernobyl, Afghanistan – sometimes there is nothing (safe) to cook at all. For some people, like the Tatars, cooking is all you have left of home. Others, like…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, How to Feed a Dictator, Polish, Rosja od Kuchni, Russia, Translation, Witold Szabłowski
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Foucault in Warsaw
In Warsaw in 1958, Foucault was writing his History of Madness. Then, it was his PhD, and he was the first director of the university’s French Cultural Centre. Within a year, he’d left Poland. Was Jurek, his mystery lover, to…
Tagged with: Dowody na istnienie, Foucault, Open Letter, Polish, Queer, Remigiusz Ryziński, Sean Bye, Translation, Warsaw
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The German House
Surely, in the sixties, all Germans knew what had happened? Any German you meet in an international context will still, often enough, soon enough, apologise for their existence. Living in Germany in the 2000s, the flags were out for the…
Tagged with: Annette Hess, books, Deutsches Haus, Elisabeth Lauffer, German, The German House, Translation
Posted in books
Posted in books
Childhood, Youth, Dependency
Tiny books with pastel covers that pack a punch. I wish I had found these sooner, and that the author could still write more. I discovered the Danish Tove – Ditlevsen – through a rave review of Katriina Huttunen’s new…
Tagged with: books, Childhood, Copenhagen Trilogy, Danish, Denmark, Dependency, Finnish, gift, Katriina Huttunen, Lapsuus, Michael Favala Goldman, Nuoruus, Tiina Nually, Tove Ditlevsen, Translation, Youth
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized
Waiting for translation: Wolf River
It is two years and more since this pandemic began. In March 2020, it hadn’t knocked Europe out yet, but it was going to very soon. The signs were there. In March 2020, this book began. It hadn’t knocked me…
Passio(n)
A tree of life gleams gold, rubies ready to be plucked from its branches. Around the trunk swirls a snake, ready to strike. Not life, then, but knowledge of good and evil. Plucking the rubies out, stripping the branches, is…
Tagged with: books, Finnish, Mia Spangenberg, Passio, Passion, Pirkko Saisio, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Tolkien’s Translator
Finland’s Gandalf is real. She forges fantastic fireworks, the like of which were never seen before. They dazzle the locals who’ve never been over the next hill – or heard of anyone under it. “You shall not pass!” she cries,…
Tagged with: books, Finnish, Kersti Juva, Lord of the Rings, SKS, Speculative fiction, Tolkien, Tolkienin tulkkina, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
found in translation 