“The past is the past. No good will come of digging it up.” The story starts with a funeral. Norma Ross’s mother is run over by an underground train in the middle of Kallio, Helsinki’s Kreuzberg. Was it suicide or…
Blog Archives
Finland 100: Norma
Tagged with: books, Finland 100, Finnish, Norma, Owen Witesman, Penguin, Sofi Oksanen, Suomi100, Translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, gender, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, gender, translation
The Dove’s Necklace
Last weekend marked the end of Eid al-Adha, when millions of pilgrims gathered in Mecca. In this story, one man makes his way into the Kaaba itself… This story starts with the city: not the pilgrims, but the women and…
Tagged with: Adam Talib, Arabic, International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Katharine Halls, Mecca, Raja Alem, Saudi Arabia, The Dove's Necklace, Translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Women in Translation Month: Marina Tsvetaeva
The age of the Russian Revolution produced some extraordinary poetry, and the women poets deserve better recognition. For spot-on quick-fire dispatches from a period of unprecedented change, try Teffi, but for poetry, try Tsvetaeva, who died 76 years ago today. Glagoslav…
Tagged with: Glasgoslav Publications, Marina Tsvetaeva, Michael Naydan, Poetry, Russian, Russian Revolution, Slava Yastremski, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Finland 100: The Red women
“So then they founded a women’s guard here, and anyhow I’m such an enthusiastic person so of course I went there first […] You can’t believe how enthusiastic I was about going to the front. Now I am going back…
Tagged with: books, Finland 100, Finnish civil war, gender, history, Punaisten naisten tiet, Red guard, Suomi100, Tiina Lintunen, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Women in Translation Month: Ginczanka
Whenever I am in Warsaw, there are a couple of bookshops near the university that I have to visit. I always come out with something unexpected that keeps me going till I can come back to Poland. This time, the…
Tagged with: Marek Kamiński, Mądrość jak rozkosz, Poetry, Polish, Translation, Women in Translation Month, Zusanna Ginczanka
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Finland 100: The wolf’s bride
If you’re still looking for somewhere to go on holiday this summer, why not try Estonia’s second largest island, Hiiumaa, which looks like a lovely peaceful place where you can get really close to nature? Read this book before you…
Tagged with: 101 kirjaa, Aino Kallas, Alex Matson, Finland 100, Finnish, Sudenmorsian, The Wolf's Bride
Posted in books, Finland 100, Folklore, gender, theatre, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, Folklore, gender, theatre, translation
Iza’s Ballad
This one is desperately sad, and it stays with you. The Door should have prepared me for more the direct emotion, the weight of history, the unflinching look at how the characters – people more like you and me than we’d care…
Tagged with: books, Budapest, George Szirtes, Hungarian, Iza's Ballad, Magda Szabo, mothers and daughters, Translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Memoirs of a polar bear
A decade ago, on a visit to Berlin, I bought a small Steiff bear to remind me of the city I used to live in, and of Knut. Knut, if you don’t know already, was a baby polar bear in Berlin Zoo.…
Tagged with: Berlin, books, German, Memoirs of a Polar Bear, Susan Bernofsky, Translation, Yoko Tawada
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
A bookish birthday for Finland
Finland is 99 today, and counting. Independence Day today marks the start of the centenary year. The celebrations really kick off with the New Year – including Book Finland 2017 which celebrates something Finns do a lot of – reading. The average Finn borrows…
Tagged with: A. A. Prime, Emmi Itäranta, Finland, Finnish, Johanna Sinisalo, Kaija Anttonen, KirjaSuomi, Laura Lindstedt, Lola Rogers, Maria Turtschaninoff, Owen Witesman, Rauni Magga Lukkari, Salla Simukka, Sofi Oksanen, Suomi100, Terhi Ekebom, Thomas Teal, Tove Jansson
Posted in books, gender, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, gender, history, literature, translation
The city of woven streets
Travel to a world like ours, but different. Where you have to work to survive, but if there is the slightest suspicion that you’re not in your right mind, they’ll take you away, isolate you to stop the ‘disease’ spreading,…
Tagged with: Emmi Itäranta, Fantasy, Finnish, Kudottujen kujien kaupunki, The city of woven streets, The Weaver, Translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
found in translation 