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waiting for translation: Tokarczuk’s Bieguni

You know that feeling when you’re waiting at an airport, trying to guess where other are from and where they are going? You start writing in your notebook, observing the man across from you, who is writing in his notebook,

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Posted in books, international, language, literature, translation

nonsense in translation: Nina Cassian and the Jabberwocky

Romanian poet Nina Cassian died one month ago today. (Here she is reading her work, and here’s a great poem she wrote in New York exile). She also translated Brecht, Molière and Shakespeare, but was especially proud of her translation of

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Posted in literature, poetry, translation

dragons are equally important: Tolkien’s Beowulf

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

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Posted in literature, poetry, translation

European literature night 2014: words, pictures, and wheels

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

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Posted in European Literature Night, Illustration, international, literature, translation

through different lenses: best translated book award 2014

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’

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Posted in Best Translated Book Award, books, international, literature, poetry, translation

Tadeusz Różewicz RIP: the end of the 20th century?

The Polish poet and playwright Tadeusz Różewicz died this week, aged 92, having survived the underground in the Second World War, the rise and fall of communist rule in Poland, and the transition into the 21st century. He was one of

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Posted in history, international, language, literature, poetry, translation

compartment no. 6

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,

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Posted in books, gender, international, literature, translation

three per cent: best translated book from German 2014

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

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Posted in Best Translated Book Award, books, gender, international, literature, translation

flying stones: the European poet of freedom 2014

The European Poet of Freedom Festival starts in Gdańsk today. The poet’s award is 100,000 złoty (about 24,000 euros), and their translator into Polish wins a tenth of that. Seven nominees, from Kazakhstan to Estonia, face some very sharp judges

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Posted in European Poet of Freedom, gender, international, literature, poetry, translation

year of the horse: China in 10 words

Happy Chinese New Year – Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Hey Fat Choy! To celebrate the dawning of the Year of the Horse, it’s time to read about China. The London Review Bookshop recommends an introduction to Chinese poetry, including

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Posted in international, language, literature, poetry, translation, words, Year of the Horse
advent Alice in Wonderland American And Other Stories Antonia Lloyd-Jones Arabic Argentina Beowulf Berlin Best Translated Book Award Bible books Brazil Brazilian Portuguese British British Library Buddhism Catalan Children's Books China Chinese Christmas Christmas Carols Contemporary Czesław Miłosz Danish Dari David Hackston Deep Vellum Dublin Literary Award English Estonian Fantasy Farsi Fiction Finland Finland 100 Finlandia Prize Finnish Fitzcarraldo Editions Flemish Free Word Centre French George Szirtes German Greek Hebrew Herbert Lomas Herta Müller history Hungarian Iceland Idioms Illustration India international International Translation Day Irish Gaelic Italian J. R. R. Tolkien Japanese Jenny Erpenbeck Johanna Sinisalo Korean Language language learning Languages Latin Literature Lola Rogers Lord of the Rings Mabinogion Man Booker International Prize Maori Maria Turtschaninoff Moomins New Year Nobel Prize Nobel Prize for Literature Norwegian Old English Olga Tokarczuk Owen Witesman Oxford English Dictionary Penguin PEN Translation Prize Persian Philip Boehm Phoneme Media Poetry Poetry Translation Centre Polish Portuguese Pushkin Press Queer Romanian Rosa Liksom Russian Salla Simukka Second World War Short Stories Sofi Oksanen Spanish Stanisław Barańczak Suomi100 Susan Bernofsky Svetlana Alexievich Swedish Switzerland Thomas Teal Tibetan Tove Jansson Translation translator Translators Without Borders Wales Warsaw Welsh Wisława Szymborska Witold Szabłowski Women in Translation Month words Words without Borders writing YA

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