translation
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The Unknowable in Translation
In an Electric Literature article about the English translation of Brazilian writer João Gilberto Noll’s Quiet Creature on the Corner, Ilana Masad explores the mysteries of translated fiction: Approaching a translated book is like drawing near a tamed animal. … But…
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Translating Queer Identity and History
For Notches, a journal on the history of sexuality, Claire Hayward collects a series of responses from historians on writing queer history. These responses address the question, methods, and terminology in translating historical queer experiences to the present day, as…
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The Rumpus Interview with Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar discusses Singaporean poetry in the last fifty years, Hindu mythology, translation, and his complicated relationship to his heritage.
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From the Italian
The goal is to deliver something from another language into your own language so people will read it and like it. I think sometimes it’s forgotten that you have to be a good writer in your own language. As part…
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Waiting for Wallace
Despite its “near-canonical” status in America, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is taking its sweet time in the translation process. So far, it has only been translated into five other languages. At Lit Hub, Scott Esposito spoke to writers and translators…
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No Pronouns
Using Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel, Sphinx, as a springboard, Stephanie Hayes explores the superpowers of gender-blank characters for the Atlantic. Sphinx’s recent translator, Emma Ramadan, describes how what began as an Oulipan constraint to avoid gender became a freedom from preconceived…
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In Conversation with Lydia Davis
I love the English language. I know some people go into translating because they love foreign languages, but I love English above all, and I enjoy translating these foreign texts into my beloved English. In the first of six-part interview…
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Writers: Be Bold!
To risk something real as a writer is to risk making a fool of oneself. … It is a difficult joy to risk something new as a writer. But it is a joy nonetheless. Author and translator Idra Novey knows…
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The Rumpus Interview with Miroslav Penkov
Miroslav Penkov discusses his debut novel, Stork Mountain, Balkan history, and the difficulties and rewards of being a bilingual writer.
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The Rumpus Interview with Minsoo Kang
Writer and historian Minsoo Kang talks about his new translation of The Story of Hong Gildong, a touchstone novel of Korea written in the 19th century.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Idra Novey
Swati Khurana talks with novelist and translator Idra Novey about the challenges and joys of translation, the idiosyncrasies of language, the inextricable reception of women’s writing and women’s bodies, and much more.
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Fact or Fiction?
For the Guardian, Richard Lea investigates the distinction between fiction and nonfiction writing, a distinction that exists most firmly in anglophone cultures and literature. Lea interviews several writers who work with texts in other languages, either as bilingual authors or translators,…