New year, fresh snow. Fresh snow, old words. I first came across Gwerful Mechain this time last year through her most famous poem of all, translated as ‘Ode to My Cunt’ by Zoë Brigley Thompson for Modern Poetry in Translation.…
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New snow, old words
Tagged with: books, Broadview, Broadview Press, Gwerful Mechain, Katie Gramich, New Year, Poetry, Translation, Welsh
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry, translation
The year was so new, it yawned and stretched…
I was in London over new year, and there was one place I had to go. The British Library to see the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition. It is stuffed with treasures, including some of the earliest works ever written and translated…
Tagged with: books, Middle English, Poetry, Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Translation
Posted in books, Christmas, Folklore, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, Christmas, Folklore, history, literature, translation
Swallowing Mercury
Wioletta Greg is frankly fantastic, and Eliza Marciniak has rendered her voice in English delightfully. A good friend gave this translation of Swallowing Mercury for my birthday, and her only concern was that I might have it already, but I might not…
Tagged with: books, Eliza Marciniak, National Translation Award, Polish, Swallowing Mercury, Translation, Wioletta Greg
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
The Remainder
“Every now and then a book makes my fingers itch to translate it from the very first pages,” says Sophie Hughes. This is one of those books; her translation of Alia Trabucco Zerán’s The Remainder. Zerán’s generation are the children of Pinochet’s…
Tagged with: Alia Trabucco Zerán, And Other Stories, books, Chile, history, Sophie Hughes, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
The Ten Thousand Things
The bookseller grinned broadly and actually looked me in the eye. Apparently it’s not often that people looking for books in English go straight for the Dutch literature. But how Dutch is this book anyway? It’s caught between two worlds:…
Tagged with: American Book Center Amsterdam, books, Dutch, Hans Koning, Indonesia, Maria Dermoût, Spice Islands, Translation
Posted in books, history, international, translation
Posted in books, history, international, translation
VE Day #73: All that still matters at all
You might have heard of writing for the desk drawer, but what about writing for your jacket pocket when you expect to die, be buried in a mass grave if at all, and the odds of anyone finding what you’ve…
Tagged with: All that Still Matters at all, Hungarian, John M. Ridland, Miklós Radnóti, Peter V. Czipott, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Odyssey
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…
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
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
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
