We have all the time in the world. Time to tackle the classics. I haven’t read a fat Russian novel like this since I was a teenager – I remember devouring Anna Karenina when I was just about to be…
Blog Archives
Lockdown literature: Doctor Zhivago
Tagged with: Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Russian, Translation
Posted in Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in Nobel Prize in Literature, 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
1917
It’s a hundred years since the October Revolution. What was it really like at the time, when nobody knew how it would end? Was all the violence worth it? Was a new dawn really breaking? This hugely varied collection of…
Tagged with: 1917, books, Boris Dralyuk, Josh Briggs, Martha Kelly, Poetry, Pushkin Press, Robert Chandler, Russian, Russian Revolution, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, 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: Marina Tsvetaeva
The age of the Russian Revolution produced some extraordinary poetry, and the women poets deserve better recognition. For spot-on quick-fire dispatches from a period of unprecedented change, try Teffi, but for poetry, try Tsvetaeva, who died 76 years ago today. Glagoslav…
Tagged with: Glasgoslav Publications, Marina Tsvetaeva, Michael Naydan, Poetry, Russian, Russian Revolution, Slava Yastremski, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation
Just ahead of the revolution
“Moscow. Autumn. Cold. My Petersburg life has been liquidated.” If Twitter had been invented 100 years ago, perhaps Teffi would have had quite a following. She is certainly concise, doesn’t appear to take herself and her craft too seriously, but shares highly entertaining vignettes,…
Tagged with: 1917, Anne Marie Jackson, Elizabeth Chandler, Irina Steinberg, Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea, Pushkin Press, Robert Chandler, Russian, Russian Revolution, Teffi, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Written in the dark
After the Siege of Leningrad, it has taken seven decades for these poems to be published. The blockade was horrific: at least 600,000 civilians had died by the time it was over on 27 January 1944. It’s no surprise the reality of…
Tagged with: Anand Dibble, Ben Felker-Quinn, Charles Swank, Elena Marttila, Eugene Ostashevsky, Gennady Gor, Matvei Yankelevich, Pavel Zaltsman, Polina Barskova, Russian, Sergei Rudakov, Siege of Leningrad, Translation, Ugly Duckling Presse, Written in the Dark
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
Posted in books, history, poetry, translation
We need more Akhmatova
With some books, you have to be ready.This poet is one of Russia’s best, but it took me this long to sit down and read her. It’s time you did, too. Anna Akhmatova’s Selected Poems in Richard McKane’s English translation…
Tagged with: Anna Akhmatova, Bloodaxe Books, Poetry, Richard McKane, Russian, Translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, faith, history, literature, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, faith, history, literature, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
Women in translation month: Lydia Grigorieva
As women in translation month returns, the task is simple – just read! So I went to a new publisher of Slavonic literature, Glagoslav, and found the perfect way to start. Lydia Grigorieva’s Shards from the Polar Ice is out today and…
Tagged with: Glagoslav, John Farndon, Lydia Grigorieva, Olga Nakston, Richard McKane, Russian, Shards from the Polar Ice, Translation, Ukrainian, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation, Women in Translation Month
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
found in translation 