
When Annie Ernaux received the Nobel Prize in Literature last autumn, I am ashamed to say I had never heard of her. Some French-speaking friends had loved her work for years. Two had learned French outside France, whereas friends who…
When Annie Ernaux received the Nobel Prize in Literature last autumn, I am ashamed to say I had never heard of her. Some French-speaking friends had loved her work for years. Two had learned French outside France, whereas friends who…
Something is happening in French-language literature right now that makes me dearly regret stopping at GCSE. In the last few months I’ve devoured three short and piercingly acute new translations from French that have made me think hard about animal…
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a little village on the edge of the forest. She was born long ago, when times were hard; as she knew they would be. She enjoyed life well…
If you, like me, translate for a living, you might, like me, have been waiting to get your hands on this for quite some time. I ordered it ages ago, and when it finally arrived, I was about to take…
If you don’t fit neatly into a particular category, if you’re difficult for people to place, they won’t place you, their eyes might slide right over you and move on to someone else. And if you try to break down those…
The Women’s World Cup of Literature kicks off today, with a Francophone first fixture. I wasn’t the only one to be both delighted by a world cup I really wanted to follow last year, but complain about the lack of female…
Billy Bragg had a 24-hour job at a moment’s notice. He was not going to get paid for his overtime. But he was on a mission. And he made the deadline. Hear him tell the story and sing his translation.…