Bessarabian Stamps are not postcards, but even smaller messages, from a place between so many places that you’d be forgiven for not quite remembering where it is. The author grew up in Bessarabia, on the border of what is now the Republic…
Blog Archives
Three or four lines, and you have the whole world
Tagged with: Bessarabia, Boris Drayluk, Bruno Schulz, Moldova, Oleg Woolf, Phoneme, Russian, Translation
Posted in books, short stories, translation
Posted in books, short stories, translation
Tutaj / here
“Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like ‘the ordinary world,’ ‘ordinary life,’ ‘the ordinary course of events’ … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing…
Tagged with: Clare Cavanagh, Nobel Prize, Poetry, Polish, Stanisław Barańczak, Tomasz Stańko, Translation, Tutaj/here, Wisława Szymborska, writing, znak
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Christ is risen! in 250 languages
Christ is Risen! By the time you read this, we will have probably only sung this Easter greeting in about ten languages, from Arabic to Swedish. But a Canadian Orthodox priest, Steven Bigham, has collected this Easter greeting in 250 tongues. They are all painstakingly…
Tagged with: Easter, Languages, paschal troparion, Translation
Posted in faith, international, language, translation
Posted in faith, international, language, translation
After tomorrow the days disappear
I finished this book of Persian poetry just in time for Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year. Starting the year at the spring equinox makes a lot of sense. And starting it with 700-year-old-poems like this was a pleasure.…
Tagged with: After Tomorrow the Days Disappear, Farsi, ghazal, Hasan Sijzi, Northwestern University Press, Persian, Poetry, Rebecca Gould, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation
Women’s day: translations to last all year
It’s women’s day, and time to look for the women in translation once again, at the Free Word Centre and elsewhere. The statistics are shocking as ever. But there is plenty to read if you look. Rather than lamenting, just go out…
Tagged with: Agnete Friis, Alina Bronsky, Alison Anderson, Annie Holmes, Austrian, Bela Shayevich, Belarusian, Bruce Benderson, Calais, Danish, Elisabeth dyssegaard, Emmanuelle Pagano, Finnish, French, German, Herta Müller, Jamie Bulloch, Jennifer Higgins, Johanna Sinisalo, Jovanka Kalaba, Jovanka Zivanovic, Karen Kovacik, Lene Kaaberbol, Linda Stift, Lola Rogers, Michele Halberstadt, Muriel Barbery, Olumide Popoola, Philip Boehm, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sophie Lewis, Svetlana Alexievich, Tim Mohr, Translation, Women's day
Posted in books, gender, translation
Posted in books, gender, translation
Blodeuwedd – the flower woman
Once upon a time, there was a woman made for a man. She was created entirely from flowers, just for him. But then she fell in love with someone else, and decided to kill the man, to be with her…
Tagged with: Alan Garner, Blodeuwedd, Charlotte Guest, Gwyneth Lewis, Mabinogion, Sioned Davies, The Meat Tree, Translation, Welsh, Whistles in the Wind
Posted in books, Folklore, literature, translation
Posted in books, Folklore, literature, translation
One book is never enough
Last week, it seemed that a new subspecies of lumbersexuals was emerging in the most unlikely of places: among Budapest intellectuals and activists. It turned out that all these checked shirts were popping up in my feed for a reason.…
Tagged with: Checked Shirts, Clouded Sky, Corvina Books, Dick Slackman, education, Foamy Sky, Frederick Turner, Hungarian, Hungary, Kazinczy Ferenc, Orvath Zsuzsanna, Princeton University Press, Radnoti Miklos, S. J. Marks, Sheep Meadow Press, Stephen Berg, Steven Polgar, Translation
Posted in books, education, history, language, poetry, translation
Posted in books, education, history, language, poetry, translation
Black flower
A book that can be turned upside down and read from back to front in another language can be a wonderful thing. Formats like that came through our door in my childhood home, but they were mostly bilingual Welsh-English leaflets…
Tagged with: Black Flower, Clare Sullivan, Irma Pineda, Natalia Toledo, native languages of the Americas, Ploughshares, Poetry, Spanish, Translation, Welsh, Zapotec
Posted in books, language, poetry, translation
Posted in books, language, poetry, translation
it’s friendship day: don’t miss the train…
In Finland, today is Friends’ Day (ystävänpäivä), and a much more inclusive feast than Valentine’s as it is often celebrated elsewhere. Today can simply be a chance to do something nice with or for a friend, and we need that: There’s…
Tagged with: Adam Zagajewski, Clare Cavanagh, Finnish, friends, Monet, Polish, Translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in books, gender, poetry, translation, Valentine's Day
Losar Tashi Delek! Happy New Year!
In his Tibetan new year greeting, the fourteenth Dalai Lama explains: “If you create the causes of happiness, if you lead your life in benefiting others and not harming them, that’s a meaningful life, a life that has ‘tashi’. On that basis…
Tagged with: Buddhism, Chinese, Dalai Lama, fire monkey, Gangkye Somdung, High Peaks Pure Earth, New Year, Poetry, Tara Stotra, Tibetan, Tibetan and Himalayan Library, Translation
Posted in faith, poetry, translation
Posted in faith, poetry, translation
found in translation 