The key to The House in Smyrna is in Rio. Her grandfather brought it with him on the boat when he emigrated from Turkey. His granddaughter was born in Portugal, and is travelling all the way back, to see if it still…
Blog Archives
The House in Smyrna
Tagged with: Alison Entrekin, books, Brazil, Portuguese, Rio di Janiero, Tatiana Salem Levy, The House in Smyrna, Translation, Turkey
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Fleur Jaeggy’s Cat
Susan Sontag calls her savage, Josef Brodsky calls her extraordinary, and the Paris Review calls her book downright lovely. There isn’t much one can add to that. Fleur Jaeggy’s latest collection, translated by Gini Alhadeff, is out next month and you…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, books, Cat, Fleur Jaeggy, Gini Alhadeff, I am the Brother of XX, Italian, Switzerland, Translation, Tuulikki Pietilä
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
The Queue
Every day, the queue gets longer. More and more people need documents: proof of citizenship, exemptions, permissions, documents with forms to get the other documents for the other forms. So they come to the Gate, and wait. They wait in…
Tagged with: Arabic, Basma Abdel Aziz, books, Egypt, Elisabeth Jaquette, The Queue, Translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Posted in books, literature, translation
Mascha Kaléko: a new bilingual edition
This new and fully bilingual edition of the Poems of Mascha Kaléko, out in time for the 110th anniversary of her birth, is a good introduction in English to one of my favourite German poets, who deserves to be more…
Tagged with: Andreas Nolte, books, Fomite Press, Gabriele Münter, German, Mascha Kaléko, Poetry, The Poems of Mascha Kaléko, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Iza’s Ballad
This one is desperately sad, and it stays with you. The Door should have prepared me for more the direct emotion, the weight of history, the unflinching look at how the characters – people more like you and me than we’d care…
Tagged with: books, Budapest, George Szirtes, Hungarian, Iza's Ballad, Magda Szabo, mothers and daughters, Translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation
Memoirs of a polar bear
A decade ago, on a visit to Berlin, I bought a small Steiff bear to remind me of the city I used to live in, and of Knut. Knut, if you don’t know already, was a baby polar bear in Berlin Zoo.…
Tagged with: Berlin, books, German, Memoirs of a Polar Bear, Susan Bernofsky, Translation, Yoko Tawada
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
all Russians love birch trees
In Berlin last week, I walked with friends out of the city, along where the wall used to be – where the birch trees have been growing freely for a quarter of a century. “That should make you feel right at home,…
Tagged with: All Russians Love Birch Trees, books, Der Russe ist einer der Birken liebt, Eva Bacon, German, Olga Gjasnowa, Translation, Women's day
Posted in translation
Posted in translation
The White Islands
This is a book for anyone whose parents or grandparents came from somewhere else, especially if they did not move by choice. White Islands/Las Islas Blancas is a beautiful bilingual edition of Agosín’s poetry and Nanfito’s translations, brimming with memories handed down…
Tagged with: books, Jacqueline Nanfito, Ladino, Marjorie Agosín, Poetry, Sephardic Jews, Spanish, The White Islands, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Night-Sky Checkerboard
Phoneme Media has done it again. Oh Saw-Young’s Night-Sky Checkerboard looks simple enough – an elegant slim volume of bilingual poetry from a language not many people would be able to read otherwise; Korean. The powerful juxtapositions of natural imagery reminded me of Regentonnenvariationen.…
Tagged with: books, Brother Anthony of Taizé, Korean, Night-Sky Checker Board, Oh Sae-Young, Phoneme Media, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Now and at the Hour of our Death
This beautiful book is published by And Other Stories this week. It isn’t easy to write about the dying and their loved ones without falling into clichés and platitudes, especially in such a beautiful setting as rural northern Portugal: “Grass…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, books, Edinburgh Festival, Julia Sanches, Now and at the Hour of our Death, Portuguese, Susana Moreira Marques, Translation
Posted in books, Edinburgh Festival
Posted in books, Edinburgh Festival
found in translation 