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
