July 01, 2009
From Words Without Borders
The Observer Translation Project just posted a roundtable discussion on our favorite topic, including our very own Susan Harris along with Chad Post of the Three Percent blog and Open Letter publishers, as well as translator Susan Bernofsky whose translation of Yoko Tawada’s The Naked Eye I just read (and will soon comment on).
Here’s an excerpt with Chad honing in on an aspect of reading books in translation that many of us face:
Here’s an excerpt with Chad honing in on an aspect of reading books in translation that many of us face:
This sounds really bad, but in a roundabout way, I'm motivated by my monolingualism. After college I fell in love with Latin American literature—especially Cortazar—and started trying to revive my Spanish so that I could read the dozens of books I'd heard about, but which had yet to be translated. By the time I got serious about this though, I was off and reading a ton of French Oulipo books. Then titles from Eastern Europe. I'll never be able to speak a dozen languages (like translator Michael Henry Heim does), so I have to rely on English publishers to make available all the great books being written around the world. Probably just an ADD thing, but by not specializing in one language/literature, I feel like I can indulge my roaming interests, and look for books to publish from Asia, then Latin America, then France, then the Nordic Countries, etc., etc.
Read the rest at The Observer Translation Project
July 01, 2009
From Three Percent
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.
June 18, 2009
From three percent
The latest entry in The Guardian‘s series of
short stories about the transformations of Eastern Europe post-1989 is Stelian
Tanase’s Zgaiba,
translated from the Romanian by Jean Harris. (Who runs the Observer Translation
Project, which is the best source online for information about Romanian
literature.)… this is probably my favorite story in The
Guardian series.
June 01, 2009
From signandsight
Al Ahram Weekly | Outlook
India| Observator Cultural |
London Review of Books | Polityka | Le Nouvel Observateur | The Economist | Clarin | Elet es Irodalom | NZZ Folio | The Guardian
"The basic question for foreigners in Romania," writes Jean Harris, who runs the Translation Project for the Observator Cultural, " is 'what the hell are you doing here?' That's the existential question, and the sine qua non of successful Romanian-ness
involves addressing it to one's self six times a day." The only escape,
she suggests, is a healthy sense of the absurd and warm friendships.
And with that she introduces Razvan Petrescu, the focus of this month's issue.
Here's an extract from his short story "On a Friday Afternoon":
"Dad went and died. He was a quiet guy, slightly on the mystic side, with two deep furrows on either side of his nose. He was given to occasional bouts of melancholy, and on Sundays he’d do funny stuff over lunch. He'd toss the soup spoon towards the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then try to catch it. He always failed. Sometimes he'd break the fixture, sometimes – the soup plate. The fat yellow soup would soak progressively into the table cloth first, then into Dad's neatly-pressed trousers, and finally make its way down to the Persian rug, where it became extremely visible and stable. I was in stitches. Not Mom, though. I'm still in stitches now as I look at the Order of Socialist Labor Class III awarded to Dad back in '68 or so. It's a rather nice box, dark cherry in color, soft to the touch, containing a silver medal, a red ribbon and Dad. The medal represents our country's insignia on a bed of sunbeams."
Here's an extract from his short story "On a Friday Afternoon":
"Dad went and died. He was a quiet guy, slightly on the mystic side, with two deep furrows on either side of his nose. He was given to occasional bouts of melancholy, and on Sundays he’d do funny stuff over lunch. He'd toss the soup spoon towards the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then try to catch it. He always failed. Sometimes he'd break the fixture, sometimes – the soup plate. The fat yellow soup would soak progressively into the table cloth first, then into Dad's neatly-pressed trousers, and finally make its way down to the Persian rug, where it became extremely visible and stable. I was in stitches. Not Mom, though. I'm still in stitches now as I look at the Order of Socialist Labor Class III awarded to Dad back in '68 or so. It's a rather nice box, dark cherry in color, soft to the touch, containing a silver medal, a red ribbon and Dad. The medal represents our country's insignia on a bed of sunbeams."
April 21, 2009
From signandsight
Observator
Cultural throws
a spotlight on Norman Manea, a
writer Orhan Pamuk described as "one of the great men of
Romania ".
The site's Translation Project
features a number of synopses of his works, an illustrated bibliography and a translation of Manea's "Sentimental Education",
"a charming, sexy, wistful and ferocious
take on Flaubert's novel
of the same name…”
About this issue
This July, The Observer Translation Project leaves its usual format to present a special CRISIS ISSUE. Things are tough all over. Hard Times suddenly feels like the book of the moment. The global economic crisis impacts life as we know it, and viewed from Bucharest the effects reverberate in domains that include geo-politics and publishing in Romania and abroad, with the crisis at The Observer Translation Project as an instance of a universal phenomenon. read more...Translator's Choice
Author: Stelian Tănase
Translated by: Jean Harris
Translator’s Note: a synopsis
Translated by: Jean Harris
From Maestro: A Melodrama. Episode 7
Translator’s NoteTranslator’s Note: a synopsis
Author: Ştefan Agopian
Translated by: Ileana Orlich
Re: Learning to Read, from Tache de catifea / The Velvet Man
Translated by: Ileana Orlich
How I Learned to Read (from Tache de Catifea / The Velvet Man)
Translator’s NoteRe: Learning to Read, from Tache de catifea / The Velvet Man
Author: Petre Ispirescu
Translated by: Jean Harris
On Petre Ispirescu
Translated by: Jean Harris
Youth Without Age and Life Without Death
Translator’s NoteOn Petre Ispirescu
Planned events in Cultural Agenda see All Planned Events
- 17 December
- Tardes de Cinema Romeno
As tardes de cinema romeno do ICR Lisboa continuam no dia 17 de Dezembro de 2009, às 19h00, na ...
- 14 December
- Omaggio a Gheorghe Dinica Proiezione del film "Filantropica" (regia Nae Caranfil, 2002)
“Filantropica” è uno dei film che più rendono giustizia al ...
- 12 December
- Årets Nobelpristagare i litteratur Herta Müller gästar Dramaten
Foto: Cato Lein 12.12.2009, Dramaten, Nybroplan, Stockholm I samband med Nobelveckan kommer ...
- 10 December
- Romanian Festival @ Peninsula Arts - University of Plymouth
13 & 14 November 2009. Films until 18 December. Twenty of Romania's most influential and ...
- 10 December
- Lesung und Gespräch mit Ioana Nicolaie
Donnerstag, 10. Dezember, um 19.30 Uhr Ort: Szimpla Café Gärtnerstrs.15, ...
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