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…
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Sergius Seeks Bacchus
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 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
Rumi’s greatest love
Today’s a day to celebrate all kinds of love, and here are some poems for it that you’ve probably never seen. Rumi’s Persian work is very well known and loved in the English-speaking world, but he also wrote in Arabic.…
Tagged with: Anthony A. Lee, Arabic, Love is my Savior, Michigan State University Press, Nesreen Akharkhavari, Persian, Poetry, Rumi, Translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
We need more Akhmatova
With some books, you have to be ready.This poet is one of Russia’s best, but it took me this long to sit down and read her. It’s time you did, too. Anna Akhmatova’s Selected Poems in Richard McKane’s English translation…
Tagged with: Anna Akhmatova, Bloodaxe Books, Poetry, Richard McKane, Russian, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, faith, history, literature, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, faith, history, literature, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
Sur’s Ocean
“What poet, hearing the poems Sur has made, would not nod his head in pleasure?” (Nabhadas). Swim in the ocean of his words, or down-river from his source, in this stout annotated volume of just over 400 of the thousands…
Tagged with: Devanagari, India, John Stratton Hawley, Kenneth Bryant, Murty Classical Library, Old Hindi, Poetry, Sur's Ocean, Surdas, Translation
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, 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
Losar Tashi Delek! Happy New Year!
In his Tibetan new year greeting, the fourteenth Dalai Lama explains: “If you create the causes of happiness, if you lead your life in benefiting others and not harming them, that’s a meaningful life, a life that has ‘tashi’. On that basis…
Tagged with: Buddhism, Chinese, Dalai Lama, fire monkey, Gangkye Somdung, High Peaks Pure Earth, New Year, Poetry, Tara Stotra, Tibetan, Tibetan and Himalayan Library, Translation
Posted in faith, poetry, translation
Posted in faith, poetry, translation
Rejoice! or Exult?
Catholics should be used to the new English translation of the Latin liturgy after four years. But at times like Easter, which particularly cut through and beyond time, it’s familiar words we want. The premise for the new translation was…
Tagged with: Easter, Exsultet, ICEL, Latin, Rita Ferrone, St Jerome, Translation, Virgil
Posted in faith, translation
Posted in faith, translation
Between the Ox and the Grey Ass
This Christmas carol, Entre le boeuf et l ‘âne gris, is well loved in France, where was written in the 13th century, but not known well at all in the English-speaking world, so I couldn’t find it sung in English anywhere online. I…
Tagged with: carol, Christmas, Entre le boeuf, Finnish, French, Heinillä harkien kaukalon, Martti Korpilahti, Paul Ayres, Translation
Posted in Christmas, faith
Posted in Christmas, faith
found in translation 