In April 1940, over twenty thousand Polish officers were killed by the Soviets in the forest of Katyń. A bare few hundred of those soldiers survived. The way I remember my grandfather telling the story of his capture on Poland’s…
Blog Archives
The train that didn’t go to Katyń
Tagged with: Alissa Valles, art, books, history, Józef Czapski, Memories of Starobielsk: Essays on Art and History, NYRB Classics, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
The Last Witnesses
Translation often comes with a delay, sometimes of decades. Many of these people’s stories are only being told in English after their death. Before that, it took decades for their voices to be heard in their native language. Last Witnesses:…
Tagged with: Belarus, books, history, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Russian, Second World War, Soviet Union, Svetlana Alexievich, The Last Witnesses, Translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
The Remainder
“Every now and then a book makes my fingers itch to translate it from the very first pages,” says Sophie Hughes. This is one of those books; her translation of Alia Trabucco Zerán’s The Remainder. Zerán’s generation are the children of Pinochet’s…
Tagged with: Alia Trabucco Zerán, And Other Stories, books, Chile, history, Sophie Hughes, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
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
Finland 100: The midwife
At the gate, I remembered the cover. My bookmark slid over it, obscuring the emblem behind the title text. I was about to board the plane to Berlin – and I had to finish this and put it in my bag before…
Tagged with: David Hackston, Finland 100, history, Katilö, Katja Kettu, Second World War, Suomi 100, The Midwife, Translation
Posted in books, film, history, Suomi 100, translation
Posted in books, film, history, Suomi 100, translation
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
This woman can tell a story or two. Or a hundred. Svetlana Alexievich writes so well because she knows who to ask and how to listen. She received last year’s literature Nobel for her ‘polyphonic writings’ – but she’s not a…
Tagged with: Bela Shayevich, Belarus, history, Nobel Prize, Russian, Second Hand Time, Soviet Union, Svetlana Alexievich, Translation
Posted in books, history, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, history, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Take the City Home
It’s autumn holiday week here – the sun is retreating, schools are on mid-term break, and summer is starting to seem like a distant memory. It’s time to escape the daily grind if at all possible. But what will you…
Tagged with: Austin Hyde, Camoes, Czesław Miłosz, David Brooks, history, Lisbon Poets, Louis Iribane, Martin D'Evelin, Polish, Portuguese, Translation, Warsaw
Posted in books, literature, poetry
Posted in books, literature, poetry
The space between: After the Berlin Wall fell
25 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down. 9 November might seem like a good date to celebrate German reunification, but because the same day in 1938 saw the burning of synagogues and destruction of Jewish property across Germany, they…
Tagged with: 9 November 1989, Berlin Wall, books, German, history, Jewish, Literature, Michael Hulse, Russian, Russian Disco, Translation, Wladimir Kaminer
Posted in books, history, international, literature
Posted in books, history, international, literature
Suspended Sentences: New translation of Modiano
A new translation of 2014 Nobel Laureate Patrick Modiano’s stories, Suspended Sentences, comes out next month. The translator, Mark Polizotti, also happens to be publisher in chief of MoMa. These novellas are needed: Modiano in English and in print is very hard to…
Tagged with: books, cinema, Flemish, French, history, Literature, Louise Colpijn, Mark Polizotti, Nobel Prize for Literature, Patrick Modiano, Second World War, Suspended Sentences, Translation
Posted in books, cinema, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, cinema, history, literature, translation
translate for your life: Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Known as the “pope of literature” to Germans, and self-styled as “Germany’s literary hangman”, Marcel Reich-Ranicki was not an easy critic. He unapologetically followed Fontane’s maxim that “Schlecht ist schlecht und muß gesagt warden” (Erst leben, dann spielen. Über polnische Literatur. Wallstein 2002, p.183). His life was not easy,…
Tagged with: German, Ghetto, history, Holocaust Memorial Day, Jewish, Language, Literature, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Polish, Translation, Warszawa
Posted in history, language, literature, translation
Posted in history, language, literature, translation
found in translation 