Once upon a time, not all that long ago, there was an eight-year-old girl in pigtails who was lucky enough to go to the sort of primary school where eight-year-old girls get to play the Goddess Athena in the school…
Blog Archives
Odyssey
Tagged with: books, Emily Wilson, Greece, Greek, Homer, Odyssey, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, Folklore, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, Folklore, history, poetry, translation
1918: Moonstone
This book jolts you into a world that feels simultaneously very long ago and far away, and startlingly modern. Maybe a century ago isn’t that long ago, after all? The orphan boy of the title is rooted in both a…
Tagged with: 1918, books, Dublin Literary Award, Iceland, Icelandic, Moonstone, Sjón, Translation, Victoria Cribb
Posted in books, cinema, Dublin Literary Award, translation
Posted in books, cinema, Dublin Literary Award, translation
Twelve Days: Six Catalan Poets
In the middle of the twelve days of Christmas, the year is turning. It’s a time to remember the good and bad in the year that’s fading, and perhaps to hope for something better in the year to come. One…
Tagged with: Anna Crowe, Carles Torner, Catalan, Catalonia, Elies Barberà, Gemma Gorga, Jordi Julià, Josep Lluís Aguiló, Manuel Forcano, New Year, Pere Ballart, Poetry, Six Catalan Poets, Translation
Posted in books, Christmas, language, poetry, translation
Posted in books, Christmas, language, poetry, translation
Euridice Gusmao
Euridice Gusmao can turn her hand to absolutely anything, and very quickly become quite brilliant at it. But because she’s a woman in 1940s Rio, very few people see it that way. So things don’t turn out quite as they…
Tagged with: books, Brazil, Brazilian Portuguese, Eric Becker, Martha Batalha, The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Finland 100: The Core of the Sun
Finland turns 100 today. Although it’s the darkest and coldest time of the year, consuming the hottest chilli you can get your hands on might not be the obvious way to celebrate. Until you read this book and understand how horribly…
Tagged with: books, Dublin Literary Award, Finland 100, Finnish, Finnish Weird, Johanna Sinisalo, Lola Rogers, Suomi100, The Core of the Sun, Translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, gender, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, gender, translation
Lu Xun: Jottings under Lamplight
It takes a translator to transport you both ways. Lu Xun’s Jottings under Lamplight, edited by Eileen Cheng and Kirk Denton with a host of other translators, is an extraordinary portrait of an era that I knew almost nothing about… until…
Tagged with: books, China, Chinese, Eileen Cheng, Harvard University Press, Hu Ying, Jottings under Lamplight, Kirk Denton, Lu Xun, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Mårbacka
As Finland’s centenary drew ever closer, I realised I had been neglecting her western neighbour in favour of the eastern one, which also has a big anniversary year. Selma Lagerlöf’s Mårbacka, published in the 1920s, seemed a good place to…
Tagged with: books, Mårbacka, Nobel Prize for Literature, Sarah Death, Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Eleni Vakalo
“Listening to the foreign language I was deeply speaking our own, and came to understand how difficult it is to name things truly…” says the Greek poet, Eleni Vakalo (1921-2001). Her translator, Karen Emmerich, describes discovering manuscripts of her poems…
Tagged with: books, Eleni Vakalo, Greek, Karen Emmerich, Poetry, Translation, Ugly Duckling Presse
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Finland 100: Unknown Soldiers
This is one of those books you start reading because you feel you ought to, because everyone tells you you really should, which is actually rather annoying, and you’re pretty sure it’s not your thing, it’s the sort of thing…
Tagged with: Finland 100, Finnish, Liesl Yamaguchi, Second World War, Suomi100, Translation, Tuntematon sotilas, Unknown Soldiers, Väinö Linna
Posted in books, Finland 100, history, Suomi 100, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, history, Suomi 100, translation
1917
It’s a hundred years since the October Revolution. What was it really like at the time, when nobody knew how it would end? Was all the violence worth it? Was a new dawn really breaking? This hugely varied collection of…
Tagged with: 1917, books, Boris Dralyuk, Josh Briggs, Martha Kelly, Poetry, Pushkin Press, Robert Chandler, Russian, Russian Revolution, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
found in translation 