The stories start long before they even try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Telling them on the mountain takes time and trust. Sometimes it’s better to wait until the lights go out, but then the griots to get going: This…
Blog Archives
The Gurugu Pledge
Tagged with: And Other Stories, Barcelona, books, Equatorial Guinea, Jethro Soutar, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, Morocco, Spanish, The Gurugu Pledge, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The private lives of Barcelona
Barcelona is changing. The socialists are on the rise, the ruling class is in decline, and the Catholic Church with it. Modern women are doing things their mothers would never have dreamed of doing, let alone in public. More and…
Tagged with: Archipelago Books, Barcelona, books, Catalan, Josep Maria de Sagarra, La Central, Literature, Mary Ann Newman, Private Life, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
The Unwomanly Face of War
Svetlana Alexievich’s first book is the latest to be (re-)translated into English, in the wake of her Nobel Prize win. It tells a story that stretches back over a century – Russian women fought against Napoleon too, as Alexievich notes…
Tagged with: Belarus, books, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Russian, Soviet Union, Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Women in Translation Month: Recitation
When you’ve lived away from home for a long time, home can be anywhere. If you move around a lot, the places of transit themselves, airports and train stations, can feel the most homelike of all. People may easily mistake…
Tagged with: Bae Suah, Berlin, books, Deborah Smith, Deep Vellum, Korean, Recitation, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, international, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, international, translation, Women in Translation Month
Finland 100: The Red women
“So then they founded a women’s guard here, and anyhow I’m such an enthusiastic person so of course I went there first […] You can’t believe how enthusiastic I was about going to the front. Now I am going back…
Tagged with: books, Finland 100, Finnish civil war, gender, history, Punaisten naisten tiet, Red guard, Suomi100, Tiina Lintunen, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
The Conference of the Birds
This is extraordinarily beautiful and surprisingly gripping. Translated by a bilingual poet who made the wise decision to sacrifice the rhyme to keep the essences of the story, it sings. As Sholeh Wolpé says, translating medieval Persian into modern English…
Tagged with: Attar, books, Persian, Poetry, Sholeh Wolpé, Sufism, The Conference of the Birds, Translation
Posted in books, faith, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, history, poetry, translation
The Pearl
Simon Armitage’s award-winning translation is set side-by-side with the original, which creates plenty of opportunities for deciphering and comparing the older and younger versions of English. The original really rolls round your tongue. The translation cuts to the quick with…
Tagged with: books, Old English, PEN Translation Prize, Poetry, Simon Armitage, The Pearl, Translation
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
Posted in books, faith, poetry, translation
Cold moons
Summer has been so hot down south, but the Nordic midsummer is so uncharacteristically cold, even for here, that you might be missing real winter already. Time for some Icelandic poetry. Cold Moons by Magnús Sigurðsson, translated by Meg Matich,…
Tagged with: books, Iceland, Karol Majewski, Magnús Sigurðsson, Meg Matich, Phoneme Media, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Standing on Earth
Is a pomegranate a grenade-apple, a cluster of garnets, or a something else? Moshen Emadi has some ideas: Emadi’s Standing on Earth, translated from the Persian by Lyn Coffin, is a Phoneme Media production. I love this publisher for its windows on worlds…
Tagged with: books, Iran, Lyn Coffin, Mohsen Emadi, Persian, Phoneme Media, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, international, poetry, translation
Posted in books, international, poetry, translation
Finland 100: a midsummer train ride
“Have you heard about the iron road?” “Iron road?” “yes, iron tracks, and on it, an iron horse that eats whole logs instead of hay, it’s a bit like the Suomela steam boat, only of course it doesn’t have paddles, it…
Tagged with: books, Finland 100, Finnish, Juhani Aho, midsummer, railway, Rautatie, Translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, translation
found in translation 