Notes &Comments - Translations.observatorcultural.ro

August 09, 2009

From Salonica World Lit

The Observer Translation Project is... a great place to get your bearings about Romanian literature, old and new. I love this site because it's like a lit journal and a history lesson filled with well-thought out lit crit and incisive commentary. Dig it, friends.

July 07, 2009

From eXchanges blog

It took me a while to find time to read the whole thing, but the roundtable discussion that went up a week ago over at the Observer Translation Project is really excellent. Susan Harris (of Words Without Borders), Chad Post (of Open Letter and Three Percent), novelist Norman Manea, and translator Susan Bernofsky offer thoughtful exchanges on topics such as marketing and editing translated literature, team translations, issues of domestication in translation, and the appeal and value of international literature. For example, here’s Susan Bernofsky on editing translations:

The same editing skills that apply to the best editors of English apply to the best editors of literature translated into English as well. Great editors have a sixth sense that tells them exactly what a book’s style wants to be and shows them the spots where it diverges from this ideal. If there’s an outright mistake in the translation, an editor may or may not be able to spot it (depending on whether it breaks the skin of the book’s mood) – but that’s not the editor’s job, that’s the job of the translator.

The whole thing is highly recommended.

http://exchangesjournal.wordpress.com/

July 07, 2009

From PEN America

The translators’ roundtable over at The Observer Translation Project has been fairly widely noted; also worth reading there is the “Letter from Chişinău,” by Moldovan journalist Leo Butnaru, about the relationship between literature and politics -- and, more specifically, the current political situation in Moldova.

http://penamerica.blogspot.com/2009/07/iran-reading-this-saturady-links.html

July 05, 2009

From signandsight

What's worse than Western capitalism? Capitalism that hides behind a hammer and a sickle. Moldovan journalist and translator Leo Butnaru sends a caustic letter from Moldova, where the April 7 elections were followed by heavy protests against the Communist election victory. Butnaru explains how the elections were manipulated – a large percent of Moldavians working abroad were prevented from voting – and the perverse nature of the regime: "We're dealing here with a mutant that is hard to describe. This fabulous mongrel, communo-capitalism looks exceptionally repulsive in the fun house mirrors of mysteriously still ongoing, retarded bolshevism, with which European autocracy and diplomacy nevertheless go on flirting. I would very much like to know, for instance, why last March his Excellency, the former British ambassador to Chisinau, John Beyer, allowed himself to be decorated by tovarish Voronin, a dictator, a hypocrite, a show-off, a scoffer at the idea of Europe - an inveterate bolshevik, pure and simple, who benefits from 'multilaterally-developed' capitalism - to borrow a phrase from the old Party manuals."

Beyer is not the only politician whom Butanaru names: his list of foreign dignitaries queuing up to be decorated also includes FIFA president Sepp Blater, Secretary General of the European Council Terry Davis, Austrian EU politician Erhard Busek, Bulgaria's president Gheorghi Pirvanov and the Croatian president Stjepan Mesic.

And the USA-based Romanian writer Norman Manea, Susan Harris from "words without borders" the American translator Susan Bernofsky and the publisher Chad Post discuss the market for literary translations and translation itself.

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1894.html#cult

July 05, 2009

From perlentaucher

Was ist noch schlimmer als westlicher Kapitalismus? Ein Kapitalismus, der sich hinter Hammer und Sichel verbirgt. Der moldawische Journalist und Übersetzer Leo Butnaru schickt einen gepfefferten Brief aus Chisinau, der Hauptstadt Moldawiens, wo es nach den Wahlen am 7. April zu schweren Protesten gegen den Wahlsieg der Kommunisten kam. Butnaru erklärt, wie die Wahlen manipuliert wurden - einem Großteil der im Ausland arbeitenden Moldawier wurde es unmöglich gemacht zu wählen - und um welche Art von Regime es sich in Moldawien handelt: "Wir haben es hier mit einem Mutanten zu tun, der schwer zu beschreiben ist. Dieser märchenhafte Bastard, Kommuno-Kapitalismus, sieht besonders abstoßend aus im Spiegelkabinett eines mysteriöserweise weiterbestehenden, zurückgebliebenen Bolschewismus, mit dem die europäische Autokratie und Diplomatie weiterhin flirtet. Ich wüsste zum Beispiel sehr gern, warum letzten März seine Exzellenz, der frühere britische Botschafter in Chisinau, John Beyer, sich von Towarischtsch Voronin dekorieren ließ, von einem Diktator, Heuchler, Angeber und Verächter der europäischen Idee, einem eingefleischten Bolschewiken durch und durch, der vom 'multilateral entwickelten' Kapitalismus profitiert - um eine Phrase aus den alten Parteiprogrammen zu benutzen."

Beyer ist nicht der einzige, den Butnaru aufzählt: auch der Schweizer Sepp Blatter, Präsident der FIFA, Terry Davis, Generalsekretär des Europarats, der österreichische EU-Politiker Erhard Busek, Bulgariens Präsident Gheorghi Pirvanov und der kroatische Präsident Stjepan Mesic ließen sich Orden an die Brust heften. (Mehr über die Wahlen in der NZZ.)

Außerdem: Der in den USA lebende rumänische Schriftsteller Norman Manea, Susan Harris von "words without borders", die amerikanische Übersetzerin Susan Bernofsky und der Verleger Chad Post unterhalten sich über den Markt für Übersetzungen von Literatur und das Übersetzen an und für sich.

http://www.perlentaucher.de/magazinrundschau/2009-07-07.html#a24511

Pages:1 2 3 4 5 Next

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