Last weekend I went to a big birthday party. It was a chance to catch up with over a hundred family and friends, and family of family and friends of friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen for some years,…
Blog Archives
Gathering to scatter the dark
Tagged with: Bill Johnston, Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska, Ewa Lipska, Julia Fiedorczuk, Julia Hartwig, Karen Kovacik, Mira Kuś, Poetry, Polish, Robin Davidson, Scattering the Dark, Translation, White Pine Press
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Tutaj / here
“Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like ‘the ordinary world,’ ‘ordinary life,’ ‘the ordinary course of events’ … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing…
Tagged with: Clare Cavanagh, Nobel Prize, Poetry, Polish, Stanisław Barańczak, Tomasz Stańko, Translation, Tutaj/here, Wisława Szymborska, writing, znak
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
After tomorrow the days disappear
I finished this book of Persian poetry just in time for Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year. Starting the year at the spring equinox makes a lot of sense. And starting it with 700-year-old-poems like this was a pleasure.…
Tagged with: After Tomorrow the Days Disappear, Farsi, ghazal, Hasan Sijzi, Northwestern University Press, Persian, Poetry, Rebecca Gould, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Finnish – the fantasy language to rule them all
What if you want to create a whole new fantasy world, and you people it with beings who speak an utterly fantastic language that no mere earthling could understand? Where do you start? You start with Finnish, of course. And…
One book is never enough
Last week, it seemed that a new subspecies of lumbersexuals was emerging in the most unlikely of places: among Budapest intellectuals and activists. It turned out that all these checked shirts were popping up in my feed for a reason.…
Tagged with: Checked Shirts, Clouded Sky, Corvina Books, Dick Slackman, education, Foamy Sky, Frederick Turner, Hungarian, Hungary, Kazinczy Ferenc, Orvath Zsuzsanna, Princeton University Press, Radnoti Miklos, S. J. Marks, Sheep Meadow Press, Stephen Berg, Steven Polgar, Translation
Posted in books, education, history, language, poetry, translation
Posted in books, education, history, language, poetry, translation
Black flower
A book that can be turned upside down and read from back to front in another language can be a wonderful thing. Formats like that came through our door in my childhood home, but they were mostly bilingual Welsh-English leaflets…
Tagged with: Black Flower, Clare Sullivan, Irma Pineda, Natalia Toledo, native languages of the Americas, Ploughshares, Poetry, Spanish, Translation, Welsh, Zapotec
Posted in books, language, poetry, translation
Posted in books, language, poetry, translation
it’s friendship day: don’t miss the train…
In Finland, today is Friends’ Day (ystävänpäivä), and a much more inclusive feast than Valentine’s as it is often celebrated elsewhere. Today can simply be a chance to do something nice with or for a friend, and we need that: There’s…
Tagged with: Adam Zagajewski, Clare Cavanagh, Finnish, friends, Monet, Polish, Translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation, Valentine's Day
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
A voice from Nowhereland
Mascha Kaléko died 40 years ago this week. Her poems are full of longing, memory and regret, even for things that haven’t happened yet, by someone who always had to move on. She has a gloriously Central European knot of…
Shakespeare 400: Sonnets in translation
Shakespeare died 4 centuries ago this year, and the English celebrations have begun in style. Translations of some of his best loved work show how he has captured the global imagination – and been localised along the way. Shakespeare’s Globe…
Tagged with: Christa Schuenke, German, Globe Theatre, Polish, Shakespeare, Stanisław Barańczak, Translation
Posted in literature, poetry, theatre, translation
Posted in literature, poetry, theatre, translation
found in translation 