The Observer Translation Project, which we’ve mentioned here before, posted a really cool translation roundtable/interview that they conducted recently:
World-famous novelist Norman Manea, two premier experts in the realm of literature in translation—Susan Harris of Words Without Borders and Chad Post of Three Percent and Open Letter—and award-winning translator from German Susan Bernofsky address a literary zone in permanent crisis: the world of literature in translation.
They manage to cover a lot of ground pretty quickly—from editing translations, to the market for translations, to why the panelists read translations—and it’s interesting to see how they approach all of the issues from slightly different angles. Definitely worth a read.
Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Reviewed by Chad W. Post
One of the most interesting facets of Translation Is a Love Affair is the brief bio on Sheila Fischman:
Sheila Fischman has published more than 125 translations of contemporary French-Canadian novels including works by Jacques Poulin, Francois Gravel, Anne Hebert, Marie-Claire. . .
Reviewed by Rhea Lyons
The innovative works of legends like Borges and Cortázar not only defined a literary movement, they created an exotic and well-known image of Latin America and its people. A key element of works in the tradition of the magical realism. . .
Reviewed by Will Eells
Contemporary Japanese literature is all too easy to stereotype. As far as the American reading public goes, the only books that come out of Japan seem to be under one of three genres. The first is the “bizarre things happening. . .
Reviewed by Jessica LeTourneur
I was born in the final decade of communism’s flailing grasp on the Eastern Bloc, and so what I know of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism has long been relegated to what I learned. . .
Reviewed by Dan Vitale
The short novel is a form in which writers typically exercise great control over their material, accepting the abbreviated length as a kind of challenge, working within that limitation to craft a tight, jewel-like story in which all the elements. . .
Reviewed by Monica Carter
In the most recent translation of Swiss writer Robert Walser’s work, The Tanners, we are reminded once again why Kafka and Musil were fans—his wit. And like everything in Walser’s writing, it is nuanced and subtle. Instead giving us. . .
Reviewed by Grant Barber
Rosa Chacel (1898-1994) sculptor, novelist, poet, essayist, feminist was born and died in Spain, with Brazil as a second home. She was a contemporary with the Generation of ’27, which included Garcia Lorca and Ramon Jaminez, and she was familiar. . .
Reviewed by Timothy Nassau
As frequently occurs, a few days ago I was browsing through a bookstore when something caught my eye. The book was Negative Horizon by Paul Virilio, which “sets out [his] theory of dromoscopy: a means of apprehending speed and its. . .
Reviewed by Chad W. Post
For years now, Melville House has been one of the most exciting independent presses out there. The political books they’ve done are fantastic, the Art of the Novella Series is arguably one of the most genius marketing/editorial publishing projects. . .
Reviewed by Dan Vitale
Anne McLean’s translation of Colombian novelist Evelio Rosero’s The Armies is the winner of this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, given by Great Britain’s Independent newspaper to honor excellence in translated works of fiction published in the UK. (It’s McLean’s. . .
Every month Three Percent features an independent bookstore. This month’s featured bookstore is Brazos Bookstore.
- 1 December 09: European Book Club: To Siberia
- 3 December 09: Javier Marias in conversation with Paul Holdengräber
- 11 January 10: The Sebald Lecture: Absent Jews and Invisible Executioners
- 5 March 10: Babel Series: Azar Nafisi
- 16 April 10: Babel Series: Salman Rushdie
Really interesting – and, predictably, very familiar from the perspective of the UK market too.
And delighted to see the propagation of Boyd’s “zen editing” expression – brilliant.