February 2012
29 posts
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Lydia Davis on translating 'Madame Bovary'
The quality and nature of a translation (let’s say from the French) depends on at least three things: the translator’s knowledge of French language, history, and culture; his or her conception of the task of the translation; and his or her ability to write well in English. These three variables have subsets that can recombine infinitely, which is why one work can have such widely differing...
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“And when the body thickens and you get up
because I dress you, because I...”
– Tomaž Šalamun, from ‘In the Tongues of Bells’ in Woods and Chalices
HM
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“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. Between the two my...”
– Nisargadatta Maharaj
HM
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“Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone.
I hear the bones...”
– Anna Świrszczyńska, from ‘I’ll Open the Window,’ trans. Milosz and Nathan
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“A blue light
radiates from my clothing.
Midwinter.
Clattering tambourines of...”
– Tomas Tranströmer, ‘Midwinter’ in The Sorrow Gondola, trans. McGriff and Gass
HM
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“If I cannot sing, then
make me mute. Or lend me
words, send me
the taste of...”
– Dilruba Ahmed, from ‘Petition’
HM
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“Whatever we say
we know there is another
language under this one”
– W. S. Merwin, from ‘To the Tongue’ in Present Company
HM
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“Our bodies meshed in an aftermath of effort. We were one and the same dark...”
– Edmond Jabès, The Book of Questions II, trans. Rosmarie Waldrop
HM
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“Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego): The...”
– from ‘The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren’t Translatable Into English’
FD
[Happy Valentine’s Day, wonderful readers! — AM, on behalf of Asymptote]
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“Translation makes me look at how a poem is put together in a different way,...”
– Marilyn Hacker
HM
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'A Fish In Your Ear': What Gets Lost In... →
NPR’s John Donvan talks with [David Bellos], director of the program for translation and intercultural communication at Princeton University, about the art of translation, and what’s lost — and gained — in the process.
Here’s a particularly moving excerpt from the interview:
For translation to exist, you have to accept the fact that languages are all different and they...
Congrats, Susan Bernofsky
nyrbclassics:
Susan Bernofsky, who translated and wrote the introduction for the recently published Berlin Stories by Robert Walser, has won the biannual translation award The Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis (that’s German for Prize) for 2012. She is also curating the Festival Neue Literatur 2012, being held this weekend in New York City. Go check out some events if you can, they should be fun.
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“I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in...”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
HM
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'A Body' by Al-Saddiq Al Raddi →
I let alphabets cling to me as I climb the thread of language between myself and the world. I muster crowds in my mouth: suspended between language and the world, between the world and the alphabets.
(an excerpt from the poem, translated from the Arabic by Atef Alshaer and the Poetry Translation Workshop)
HM
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“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words...”
– Roland Barthes
HM
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“Translation is a form of passive aggression. In doing it, a writer chooses to...”
– Lawrence Venuti, ‘Mémoires of Translation’
LYL
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From "If There Is Something to Desire," by Vera...
ecantwell:
7 If there is something to desire, there will be something to regret. If there is something to regret, there will be something to recall. If there is something to recall, there was nothing to regret. If there was nothing to regret, there was nothing to desire. 8 A beast in winter, a plant in spring, an insect in summer, a bird in autumn. The rest of the time I am a woman. 9 I broke...
January 2012
24 posts
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“I tried to keep as much “foreignness” as possible, expecting the...”
– Max Lane on translating Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in an interview with Fadli Fawzi and Nazry Bahrawi, which appears in the most recent issue of Asymptote
AM
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Song for the Return of the Sun
At midwinter, an old man from Slana River burst out singing. He kept singing a song for the sun to return. After three days, the sun rose and shone brightly on the land. That evening, his face burned, the old man wrung sunlight from his clothes.
This poem was written by John Smelcer in the Ahtna Athabaskan language of interior Alaska and then translated into English by the poet. Ahtna is an...
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We were sure our faces would live on in your silver light, your tyrant frames Deposit box— with you, we fought against all we lost: our youthful balance, valor, our vigor, saved for those aged days soon to come —Amal al-Jubouri “Hagar Before the Occupation, Hagar After the Occupation, written by the Iraqi poet Amal al-Jubouri, translated by Rebecca Gayle Howell with Husam...
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“The last line of Adler’s other novel, Speedboat, is, “It could be...”
–
— David Shields
The great thing about David Shields’ Reality Hunger is that it is, in itself, a fascinating experiment in what it calls the ‘lyrical essay’. Sampled from sources high and low, the book, like much of Shields’ recent work, debates the value of...
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Asymptote’s January 2012 issue is out!
Our fifth issue marks our first anniversary as a journal dedicated to publishing translation and translation-related work from the world over. Legendary Taiwanese artist Hou Chun-Ming’s work illustrates this issue, which also debuts a revamped Visual section. Some other important highlights are:
an extensive Special Feature on literature...
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Finnegan's List: Polyglot Europeans Pick Titles... →
An excerpt of the article:
… Finnegan’s List, a project in which each year ten well-known polyglot writers from ten countries are asked to recommend three titles by other writers they feel should be more widely translated. The 2012 list was presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Now SEA is getting in contact with publishers, agents, and translators; and planning follow-up events in...
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