Mathias Énard’s Compass (New Directions, 2017) is not only a love letter to the field of orientalism but, more broadly, to the power of the written word itself, especially in translation. I b…
On Translation
July 18, 2017
July 11, 2017The dog days of summer are upon us, and there’s no better way to pass through the longer days than curling up with a book in the shade. If you’re looking for some words to keep you company, there are…
June 27, 2017Robert Creeley (1972) / Photo by Elsa DorfmanIn April, following the death of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, I was digging through a wicker chest with old papers, looking at a colleague’s request for a few lett…
June 20, 2017Six years after its initial French publication, Luis de Miranda’s novella Who Killed the Poet? (Qui a tué le poète?) is being translated into English and multiple other languages…
June 6, 2017Starling murmuration. Photo by Airwolfhound/FlickrFive years after meeting at the Literary Translation Summer School run by the British Centre for Literary Translation, translators Morgan Giles, R…
May 30, 2017Drawing by Lea Goldberg / Courtesy of Tuvia RuebnerLea Goldberg (1911–1970), preeminent, versatile, and prolific writer of modern Hebrew letters, produced in her lifetime poetry that was characterized…
May 16, 2017Click here to read three poems by Joanna Pollakówna, never before translated into English.Joanna Pollakówna / Courtesy of Alice-Catherine CarlsJoanna Pollakówna (1939–2002) authored poems, bo…
February 27, 2017Eybers’s poem “Taalles” (Language Lesson) on the wall of the Anne Frank School in Leiden / Source: WikimediaWhether by personal predilection or because of powers beyond their control, poets are s…
February 21, 2017Bunches and Bits {Karina}, “Sepia,” November 2009 T. S. Eliot, in 1928, famously called Ezra Pound “the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time.”1 Eliot was referring to Pound’s renditions of fourt…
January 31, 2017Still from the Netflix adaptation of The Little Prince (2015), directed by Mark OsbornTranslating Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is a difficult task, for this beloved n…
January 10, 2017Neo-Assyrian clay tablet. Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 11: Story of the Flood. Known as the "Flood Tablet." BabelStone/Wikimedia Is it realistic to anticipate the eventual discover…
January 3, 2017orvalrochefort, “lost in translation,” May 31, 2008Although the author still believes in translation as the most satisfying way “to inscribe himself on the indifferent surface of the earth,” the p…
October 4, 2016George Hart, Orb, 24x24x24 inches, laser-cut wood, 2014. According to Hart, these sixty identical laser-cut and laser-etched wood components illustrate chiral icosahedral symmetry (courtesy:…
August 30, 2016On the Mexico City subway (2016) / Still from a film by Carolina RuedaUniversidad–Indios Verdesby Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza¿Para qué forzar los sueños y las pesadillassi aquí todo convulsiona ha…
August 16, 2016Noemi JaffeWhat Are the Blind Men Dreaming?Trans. Julia Sanches & Ellen Elias-BursacDeep VellumReflecting the horrors and historical significance of the Holocaust, three generations of wo…
May 10, 2016Deborah Kass’s OY / YO sculpture in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Photo by DUMBOID, March 4, 2016. Whenever I start to translate a Yiddish poem, I worry about capitalization. As in a lot…
May 3, 2016Juan José SaerThe CloudsTrans. Hilary Vaughn DobelOpen Letter Doctor Real’s manuscript, located on a computer disk found by Pichón Garay, describes his trip with five mental patients to…
March 15, 2016vk-red, “Somewhere over the rain with no bow,” 2015Fuchsia Branch in the Windby Judita VaičiūnaitėI block the sea’s wind from the branch.My black umbrella shelters it from rain.Its blossom’s…
January 26, 2016Queen Victoria’s long reign (1837–1901) was a prolific time for British novelists. The Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Thomas Ha…
December 15, 2015As 2015 comes to a close, we again look back to the year in translation. The end of 2015 marked two new beginnings: a new independent publisher, Spurl Edition, released its first translation in Novemb…
November 17, 2015The image is central to most poets and poetry. In Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish,” the image is the poem. “His brown skin hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper, / and its pattern of dark…
September 29, 2015Left: Rocío Cerón, photo by Francisco Cañedo. Right: Anna Rosenwong, photo by Jesse Chan Norris.Anna Rosenwong’s translation of Rocío Cerón’s Diorama won the 20…
September 1, 2015Isabel ColeIn October 2015 Two Lines Press will publish The Sleep of the Righteous, Isabel Fargo Cole’s translation of Der Schlaf der Gerechten, by Wolfgang Hil…
July 21, 2015The Exchange of PrincessesChantal ThomasJohn Cullen, tr.Other PressThe royal houses of France and Spain trade their princesses in 1722, hoping to strengthen the bonds of the two countries and…
April 21, 2015Zack Rogow and students from the Norman Public Schools | Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art | April 2, 2015. Photos: Daniel SimonIn a recent essay for WLT, Hungarian writer Zsolt Láng muses on writ…
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