Jean Harris

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Other Articles: English

Jean Harris,director of The Observer Translation Project,is a novelist and essayist now living in Bucharest, Romania. Her most recent novel is Diffidence (Spuyten Duyvil, 2004). She has translated Romanian fairy tales, fiction and poetry. She holds a Ph.D. in British and American literature from Rutgers and has published fiction and literary criticism. She has published psychoanalytic studies with Jay Harris, including The Roots of Artifice: A Study in Literary Creativity (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1981) and The One-Eyed Doctor: Psychological Origins of Freud's Works (New York: Jason Aronson, 1984). She co-edits the online English language edition of Observator Cultural. She has published articles on the art of translation, including “The Observer Talks with Michael Moore, Andrei Codrescu, Julian Semilian and Carmen Firan” and “A Short Guide to Romanian Literature for the American Audience.” She worked with Constantin Virgil Bănescu on the selection from “The Boars Were Mild”/ Mistreţii erau blânzi from Iarna Bărbaţilor / Men in Winter by Ştefan Bănulescu, that opens the first issue of The Observer Translation Project. The rendition into English has been awarded a translation grant from the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine for 2007-2008. Current projects include a translation of Corpuri de iluminat / Dark Bodies by Stelian Tănase and the compilation of an anthology of contemporary Romanian fiction for Absinthe: New European Writing. Translations by Jean Harris have appeared at Exquisite Corpse (www.corpse.org)Words Without Borders (www.wordswithoutborders.org), Plural and Observator Cultural (available at (www.observatorcultural.ro).Contact: jean.harris@observatorcultural.ro

English: Men in Winter, The Boars Were Mild; The Imaginary Kingdom of Ştefan Bănulescu; Sophisticated Machinery; The Artist Doesn’t Need Peace and Quiet; Radu Cosaşu and the Circus of Words; The Survivals: A Synopsis; Coriolan Street; Introduction to A Wasted Morning; About Gabriela Adameşteanu’s Wasted Morning; The Encounter: Pathological Memory and the Nostalgia of the Return; Intellectuals in a Ditch: the Phantasmagoria Carry On; Synopsis of The Velvet Man; Synopsis of Tobit; Sentimental Education; Letter from Chişinău

Balgarski: Letter from Chişinău

Ellenika: Letter from Chişinău

Español: Letter from Chişinău

Français: Letter from Chişinău

Hrvatski: Letter from Chişinău

Italiano: Letter from Chişinău

Magyar: Letter from Chişinău

Nederlands: Letter from Chişinău

Polski: Letter from Chişinău

Ruskii: Letter from Chişinău

Srpski: Letter from Chişinău

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

From Maestro: A Melodrama. Episode 7

Emiluţa has an unfortunate thought. She’ll throw herself off the top of the building. Why? What the fuck? Let’s say for the cause of PeaceonEarth, for the slumdogs, Europe, for the lonely. Which is to say she doesn’t have a ghost of a reason. Viva Walachia! The way things stand, if ...

Translator’s Note
Translator’s Note: a synopsis

Author: Ştefan Agopian
Translated by: Ileana Orlich

How I Learned to Read (from Tache de Catifea / The Velvet Man)

The bearded man was the owner of an apothecary shop where he worked with two apprentices. Nobody paid me any mind, so I spent all day in what was supposed to be the shop. I say this because it was a large, dark room full of odors—a mix of smells from everywhere. The room hadn’t been cleaned ...

Translator’s Note
Re: Learning to Read, from Tache de catifea / The Velvet Man

Author: Gabriela Adameşteanu
Translated by: Patrick Camiller

Wasted Morning - Napoleon in Bucharest

“What you’ve got here is heaven on earth,” Vica says as she drops onto the kitchen chair. “But where’s your mother?” “At work,” Gelu lazily replies, leaning sideways against the door. “She’s doing mornings this week, didn’t you know?” He is tall and thin, with unset ...

Author: Petre Ispirescu
Translated by: Jean Harris

Youth Without Age and Life Without Death

It happened once as never before-y, ‘cause if it couldn’t be true, it wouldn’t make a story about the time when the poplar tree made berries and the willow tree broke out in cherries, when bears began to brawl with their tails, and wolf and lamb, unfurling their sails, threw arms around each ...

Translator’s Note
On Petre Ispirescu