Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature for her “Polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” Born in Ukraine to a Ukrainian mother and a Belarusian father, she worked as…
Happy International Translation Day! This year’s theme is The changing face of translation and interpreting, celebrating the people “who make it possible for the world to be a global village”. Right now, the need is very concrete: translating and interpreting for…
Do geese see God? (English) Knit again and you’ll get a beer (Neulo taas niin saat oluen, Finnish) It was raining bread in the garden (Aias sadas saia, Estonian) Maybe tomorrow that lady will give a cake to the hedgehogs…
The Edinburgh festivals are full of wonderful translation events, but this one may have sold out faster than most. Trafika Europe is celebrating their first anniversary with two poets: a Saami man and an Occitan woman. Trafika is a gorgeous online…
Tove Jansson turns 101 this Sunday. She was 61 exactly when I was born, so I will be celebrating at a secret location on the day, hence the advance nature of this post. What is there to celebrate this year? For…
August is Women in Translation Month, as declared by Biblibio: A whole month to read women in translation, a perfect summer holiday project. The dust is settling around Kamila Shamsie’s challenge to only publish women, with And Other Stories taking up the challenge –…
Knausgård’s Min Kamp/My Struggle series are a publishing sensation and I had to see what all the fuss was about. Not being able to read them in Norwegian, I had a choice of four translations to choose from: English, Polish, German…
One of my earliest language-learning memories is of hot summer afternoons in the early years of high school, when even our unquenchably enthusiastic Welsh teacher would give up and just tell us stories. Of a land far far away, where children…
English PEN has just announced more support for independent publishers to publish works in translation, which is great news since the independents are the ones producing the really interesting stuff. Their world bookshelf of contemporary writers in supported by the PEN…
Tiny Owl is a new children’s book publisher with a noble aim: to “introduce the cream of the crop of global children’s literature, contemporary and old, to the English speaking audience.” Their 2015 catalogue focuses on Persian treasures, and it’s moving,…
found in translation 