WLT’s 75 Notable Translations 2013
The 2013 calendar year was packed with literary translation news. At least two new publishers entered the field: Frische & Co. published its first e-books, and New Vessel Press brought out its first titles. In addition to bringing out the twentieth volume in its translation anthology series, Two Lines’ new book publishing arm published its first titles. And the long-anticipated Library of Arabic Literature launched six more books, following its first offering in December 2012. These are the first in a series of thirty-five anticipated translations over the next five years. Similarly, working with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Dalkey Archive launched its Library of Korean Literature, bringing out several titles.
In other news, Alison Anderson asked, “Where Are the Women in Translation?” rejuvenating a discussion of the underrepresentation of women in literary translation. Amazon topped the list as the US’s most prolific literary translation publisher, and Blackstone Audio brought out four audiobook translations of Gabriel García Márquez’s works. Adding to the critical field, Columbia University Press published In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means, a collection of essays edited by Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky; Bloomsbury published Michelle Woods’s Kafka Translated.
In our second annual list of “75 Notable Translations,” we again offer an admittedly incomplete collection of the year’s most exciting translations. We hope you’ll both find some new to-reads and comment on those we’ve missed. Tell us, too, which forthcoming titles you’re most eager to read in 2014—Susan Bernofsky’s new translation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, perhaps?
We wish you peace and good reading in the new year.
75 Notable Translations 2013
Peter Aleshkovsky, Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices, Nina Shevchuk-Murray, tr.
Esmahan Aykol, Baksheesh, Ruth Whitehouse, tr.
Gerbrand Bakker, Ten White Geese, David Colmer, tr.
Mongo Beti, Cruel City, Pim Higginson, tr.
Mahi Binebine, Horses of God, Lulu Norman, tr.
Bergsveinn Birgisson, Reply to a Letter from Helga, Philip Roughton, tr.
Roberto Bolaño, The Unknown University, Laura Healy, tr.
Kristina Carlson, Mr. Darwin’s Gardener, Emily Jeremiah & Fleur Jeremiah, tr.
C. P. Cavafy, Complete Plus: The Poems of C. P. Cavafy in English, George Economou with Stavros Deligiorgis, tr.
Mariusz Czubaj, 21:37, Anna Hyde, tr.
Marguerite Duras, L’Amour, Kazim Ali & Libby Murphy, tr.
Kristiina Ehin, In a Single Breath, Ilmar Lehtpere, tr.
Álvaro Enrigue, Hypothermia, Brendan Riley, tr.
D. O. Fagunwa, Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter’s Saga, Wole Soyinka, tr.
Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Leg over Leg, Humphrey Davies, tr.
Michael Farman, ed., Jade Mirror: Women Poets of China, Michael Farman, Jeanne Larsen, and Geoffrey Waters, tr.
Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name, Ann Goldstein, tr.
Arturo Fontaine, La vida doble, Megan McDowell, tr.
Simon Fruelund, Milk and Other Stories, K. E. Semmel, tr.
Marcos Giralt Torrente, The End of Love, Katherine Silver, tr.
Arnon Grunberg, Tirza, Sam Garrett, tr.
Nazim Hikmet, Life’s Good, Brother, Mutlu Konuk Blasing, tr.
Agawa Hiroyuki, Citadel in Spring: A Novel of Youth Spent at War, Lawrence Rogers, tr.
Hyesim, Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems, Ian Haight & T’ae-yŏng Hŏ, tr.
Sonallah Ibrahim, That Smell & Notes from Prison, Robyn Creswell, tr.
Angel Igov, A Short Tale of Shame, Angela Rodel, tr.
Ismail Kadare, The Fall of the Stone City, John Hodgson, tr.
Abbas Khider, The Village Indian, Donal McLaughlin, tr.
Anna Kim, Anatomy of a Night, Bradley Schmidt, tr.
Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book Two, Don Bartlett, tr.
Takiji Kobayashi, The Crab Cannery Ship and Other Novels of Struggle, Željko Cipriš, tr.
Foumiko Kometani, Wasabi for Breakfast, Mary Goebel Noguchi, tr.
László Krasznahorkai, Seiobo There Below, Ottilie Mulzet, tr.
Dany Laferrière, The World Is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake, David Homel, tr.
Juhan Liiv, Snow Drifts, I Sing, Jüri Talvet & H. L. Hix, tr.
Pedro Mairal, The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra, Nick Caistor, tr.
Javier Marías, The Infatuations, Margaret Jull Costa, tr.
Victor Martinovich, Paranoia, Diane Nemec Ignashev, tr.
Jarosłow Mikołajewski, Froth: Poems, Piotr Florcyzk, tr.
Mo Yan, Sandalwood Death, Howard Goldblatt, tr.
Gellu Naum, Athanor and Other Pohems, Martin Woodside, tr.
Yoko Ogawa, Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales, Stephen Snyder, tr.
Amos Oz, Between Friends, Sondra Silverston, tr.
Inka Parei, What Darkness Was, Katy Derbyshire, tr.
Joaquín Pérez Azaústre, The Swimmers, Lucas Lyndes, tr.
Robert Perisic, Our Man in Iraq, Will Firth, tr.
Riikka Pulkkinen, The Limit, Lola Rogers, tr.
Giedra Radvilavičiūtė, Those Whom I Would Like to Meet Again, Elizabeth Novickas, tr.
Red Spectres: Russian Gothic Tales from the Twentieth Century, Muireann Maguire, ed. & tr.
Yannis Ritsos, Diaries of Exile, Karen Emmerich & Edmund Keeley, tr.
Charlotte Roche, Wrecked, Tim Mohr, tr.
Tadeusz Różewicz, Mother Departs (Special Edition), Barbara Bogoczek, tr.
Tomasz Różycki, Colonies, Mira Rosenthal, tr.
Eugen Ruge, In Times of Fading Light, Anthea Bell, tr.
Mahmoud Saeed, Ben Barka Lane, Kay Heikkinen, tr.
Parinoush Saniee, The Book of Fate, Sara Khalili, tr.
Severo Sarduy, Firefly, Mark Fried, tr.
Gheorghe Săsărman, Squaring the Circle: A Pseudotreatise of Urbogony, Ursula K. Le Guin, tr.
Sohrab Sepehri, The Oasis of Now: Selected Poems, Kazim Ali & Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, tr.
Nihad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar, Max Weiss, tr.
Alexander Snegriev, Petroleum Venus, Arch Tait, tr.
Witold Szabłowski, The Assassin from Apricot City, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, tr.
Antonio Tabucchi, The Woman of Porto Pim, Tim Parks, tr.
Jáchym Topol, The Devil’s Workshop, Alex Zucker, tr.
Sirkka Turkka, A Sure Star in a Moonless Night, Emily Jeremiah, tr.
Buket Uzuner, I Am Istanbul, Kenneth J. Dakan, tr.
Giorgio Vasta, Time on My Hands, Jonathan Hunt, tr.
Mariapia Veladiano, A Life Apart, Cristina Viti, tr.
Alexander Vvedensky, An Invitation for Me to Think, Eugene Ostashevsky & Matvei Yankelevich, tr.
Christa Wolf, City of Angels, Damion Searls, tr.
A. B. Yehoshua, The Retrospective, Stuart Schoffman, tr.
Yi Kwang-su, The Soil, Hwang Sun-ae & Horace Jeffery Hodges, tr.
Alejandro Zambra, Ways of Going Home, Megan McDowell, tr.
Shemi Zarhin, Some Day, Yardenne Greenspan, tr.
Zhu Wen, The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan: More Stories of China, Julia Lovell, tr.
