Here in Finland, today is the start of ten loooooooooooong sunny weeks of school holidays – and we already have 22 hours of daylight at this time of year. Sadly, if most of your work comes from and goes to different countries, you…
Here in Finland, today is the start of ten loooooooooooong sunny weeks of school holidays – and we already have 22 hours of daylight at this time of year. Sadly, if most of your work comes from and goes to different countries, you…
For those of us who can’t let go of the world of the rings, today is a good day. J. R. R. Tolkien’s translation of and commentary on the Anglo Saxon epic Beowulf is published today, edited by his 89-year-old…
With a mission to bring new books from around the continent to the people, tonight is the sixth European literature night. In co-operation with 28 European National Institutes for Culture, the Czech organisers have brought the event to 24 cities this…
Seeing the same author through the (rose-tinted, mirrored, bi- or tri-focal?) lenses of different translators is a refreshing, if potentially disorienting, experience. This year’s Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) allows the reader to do just that. The interesting thing about this years’…
If you read one Finnish book in translation this year, this should be it. I’ve started reading it in Finnish and it is great. Appropriately, Rosa Liksom’s Compartment No. 6 comes out in English on International Workers’ Day. In it,…
The holy books of Christians and Jews are a complex mixture of languages and manuscripts that gloriously overlap and contradict. There are more and more chances to see this huge diversity coming together. Two exhibitions, similar content, different title: verbum…
It’s spring: time to get out on your bike, if you’re a fair weather cyclist, or, take the winter tyres off and carry on riding, if you’re a Finnish cyclist like me. But what has that got to do with…
Just three percent of books published in the US are in translation, and less than one percent are literary fiction and poetry. The University of Rochester is trying to change that, with its three per cent website and Best Translated…