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…
Blog Archives
The Queue
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
Finland 100: Minna Canth
This beautiful book (cover design by Anu Tuominen) is one of 12 classics republished by WSOY to celebrate Finland’s 100th anniversary. Minna Canth, the author of Työmiehen vaimo/The worker’s wife, died 120 years ago this Friday, so she didn’t live to…
Tagged with: Anu Tuominen, Finland 100, Finnish, Minna Canth, theatre, Translation, Työmiehen vaimo, WSOY
Posted in books, Finland 100, theatre, translation
Posted in books, Finland 100, theatre, translation
The Proof
Mostly, I’m just really glad I’m not sixteen any more. The crushing insecurity then is exacerbated by 24/7 bullying on social media now – not to mention the knife crime, the violence, who’d want it? Marcia doesn’t seem to like it much…
Tagged with: And Other Stories, Argentina, Buenos Aires, César Aira, Mao (not that one), Nick Caistor, PEN Translation Prize, Short Story Project, Spanish, The Proof, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, 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
Wayward heroes
They came from over the North Sea, and took whatever they could get, and taxed us mercilessly for a long time after. But the noble English fought back, swords gleaming, until the dastardly invaders fled back to Europe from whence they…
Tagged with: Archipilago Books, Halldór Laxness, Icelandic, Nobel Prize for Literature, Philip Roughton, Translation, Vikings, Wayward Heroes
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, 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
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
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
found in translation 