Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell / Riverhead Books / 2019 / 978-0399184628 / 240 pages “In the flat darkness of the countryside. There is only disappointment, a wedding dress, and a bathroom she shouldn’t have taken so long in.” The first story, “Headlights,” in Samanta Schweblin’s latest collection, the Man Booker Prize-longlisted … [Read more...]
Three poems by Georges Rose, translated by Bryan F. Flavin
Mer cousue ligne de fer nappe ornée d’oiseaux ciels crevés de soies où s’affalent des lumières imprévisibles par endroit le revêtement de chair avec ses maisons plus lourdes brassards d’oublis mais la ligne des fenêtres sources blanches rejoint l’eau profonde … [Read more...]
Imagine Touching Words: A New Lispector for Readers of English, reviewed by Pınar Türer
The Besieged City by Clarice Lispector. Trans. by Johnny Lorenz & Ed. by Benjamin MoserNew Directions / Penguin Random House / 2019 Lucrécia Neves “mulls over her inability to reason"; when we look at the world through her, it is transformed — and it transforms. In The Besieged City, Clarice Lispector gives us a woman whose passage from girlhood to maturity we witness … [Read more...]
A Jewish Refugee in New York by Kadya Molodovsky, trans. Anita Norich, reviewed by Jessica Kirzane
A Jewish Refugee in New York by Kadya Molodovsky. Translated by Anita Norich / Indiana University Press / 978-0253040763 / 2019 / 172 pages. In some ways, the narrator of Kadya Molodovsky’s A Jewish Refugee in New York—which was serialized in Yiddish in 1941 and recently translated into English by Anita Norich—seems like a typical and entirely relatable protagonist of a … [Read more...]
Four poems translated from the Sanskrit by Brishti Guha
Translator's note:These poems from the Sanskrit “Gathasaptashati” are attributed to King Hala, a first-century AD ruler of the Satavahana dynasty in ancient South India. Hala’s version was in Prakrit, which was later rendered into Sanskrit. I have translated from the Sanskrit. Ushnani nihshvasan kila shayanardhe kimiti mama parangmukhyah Manasamapyanushayataha pradeepya … [Read more...]
Paper-Thin Skin by Aigerim Tazhi, translated by J. Kates, reviewed by Eric Nguyen
Paper-Thin Skin by Aigerim Tazhi, translated from Russian by J. Kates / Zephyr Press / 978-1-938890901 / 2019 Aigerim Tazhi is a difficult poet to pin down. For one, she writes in Russian in Kazakhstan, a country that’s (with its recent decision to Latinize its script) working to break away from Russia’s cultural influence. In an interview with Philip Metres, Tazhi explains … [Read more...]
Poems by Iranian poet Bijan Najdi, translated by Parisa Saranj
I have chosen the poetry of Bijan Najdi’s for its heartbroken yet hopeful and tender view of the world. Najdi’s poems provide a window into concerns of modern Persian poetry and Iranian society. I also have a personal connection with these poems. I was a high school student in Iran when I exchanged Najdi’s poetry with my classmates. At those times of political oppression and … [Read more...]
An excerpt from Rachmil Bryks’ memoir, The Fugitives, translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub. Published with the permission of the author’s daughter, Bella Bryks-Klein Translator’s Note: “This is How It All Began” and “Fugitives” are the first two chapters of Rachmil Bryks’ Di antloyfers (The Fugitives) (New York, 1975), a memoir of his experiences from the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 until the … [Read more...]
not written words by Xi Xi, translated from Chinese by Jennifer Feeley, reviewed by Sherrel McLafferty
not written words by Xi Xi, translated from Chinese by Jennifer Feeley / Zephyr Press / 978-1938890123 / 2016 Xi Xi’s not written words is a youthful collection of poems that remind readers that joy can be a feeling of investigation and discovery. In its charming understatement, Xi Xi captures the beauty of a moment, that moment takes many forms: sometimes a picturesque … [Read more...]
Six poems by Háel Lopez, translated by Ariel Francisco
Complete Turn Your heart fell into a glass of beer I watched it drown while tracing the rim with my finger. The pieces fall on terrible rhymes of an endless poem but you don’t get up, don’t lift your head. You say nothing, it seems like you feel nothing. You keep writing loose words and stealing looks at your phone, knowing it won’t ring. A tear falls to your … [Read more...]
Günter Grass: three translations and response poems by Allie Marini
These poems are dedicated to the memory of Dr. Glenn R. Cuomo, Professor of German Studies 1992-2017, New College of Florida, with whom the translator first began work on this project in 1997. Fishily on love & poetry, indeed. Translator's Note: I didn’t know how much I loved translation until I did—suddenly—like the Donovan song: “First there is a mountain, then there is no … [Read more...]
5 poems by Miss Poetrix, translated from the Italian by Alessandra Bava
Translator's note: Miss Poetrix (pen name for Gaia Casanova) is a poet and performer from Rome, Italy. Her work is reminiscent of Italian poets such as Patrizia Valduga and American poets such as Anne Sexton. Love and loss are two of the major themes in her recently published collection Transfert (Edizioni Ensemble, 2018). Her poems strike the reader with their musicality. The … [Read more...]
Three poems by Edgar Rincón Luna, translated by Toshiya Kamei
Farewell to the Beach Why does this shadow that's no longer us hurt so much? why does that ash getting losing among stones make us cry? The heart of the world spills and caresses nobody's feet in shipyards pelicans wear gray suits and under their wings are letters we never send with their winter flight they embrace the shadows of the coast and in their beaks … [Read more...]
Six poems by Zheng Xiaoqiong/郑小琼, translated from Chinese by Zhou Xiaojing
周阳春 / Zhou Yangchun In the world of her dreams she stands at the ferry without boats or before she can finish the exam time is up Most times are defective products bleakness and emptiness In the mountains at midnight she is left … [Read more...]
The Task of Translation in tasks by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez and Katherine M. Hedeen: A review essay by Olivia Lott
tasks by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez. Translated by Katherine M. Hedeen / co•im•press / 978-0988819962 / paperback / 131 pages / 2016 Reading tasks begins at its edges: a seven-part epigraph-turned-poem that brings together seven writers across different times, traditions, and languages, finding their union within the poetic I of Cuban poet Víctor Rodríguez Núñez and translator … [Read more...]
Translating the Counterculture: The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson, reviewed by Marc Olmsted
TRANSLATING THE COUNTERCULTURE The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson / Southern Illinois University Press / 978-0809336548 / 2018 The premise is a fascinating one. Erik Mortenson actually was IN Turkey during its attempted coup in 2016 and had to leave with his family. He taught at the Koç University in Istanbul, so this is no thesis conducted from afar. … [Read more...]
Juan Arabia: 5 poems translated by Katherine M. Hedeen
Juan Arabia (Buenos Aires, 1983) is a poet, translator, literary critic, and publisher. The poems included here belong to his collection Nature’s Dislodging [Desalojo de la naturaleza] (2017). Un colibrí en la bauhinia En la rama más baja de bauhinia descansa el negro azul color marino. El colibrí inadaptable...Púrpura, como el placer del límite, sediento como la … [Read more...]
Poems by Lucía Estrada, translated by Olivia Lott
The poems here come from Las Hijas del Espino [Daughters of the Hawthorn], winner of the 2006 Medellín Poetry Prize. Estrada’s poetic subject travels across centuries to highlight in each poem an often overlooked woman, from Eurydice to Sylvia Plath. These lyrical portraits question the virtual absence, underrepresentation, and gendered (mis)understandings of these figures from … [Read more...]
Ian Haight in conversation with Dennis Maloney: writer, translator, editor of White Pine Press
Dennis Maloney is an award-winning poet, translator, and founding editor of White Pine Press. His works of translation include The Poet and the Sea: Poems of Juan Ramon Jimenez, The House in the Sand by Pablo Neruda, The Landscape of Castile by Antonio Machado and Between the Floating Mist: Poems of Ryokan. His most recent volume of poetry is Empty Cup, translated into German … [Read more...]
In Xochitl In Cuicatl: poets Nezahualcoyotl and Humberto Ak’abal
Intrigue & Scope There’s an old story of the amate tree bark (i.e. amoxtli or codices/scrolls with pictographs whose texts resemble an accordion). These were first elaborated as “most likely in the present day totonaca region of Veracruz, in the Peten region of Chiapas, in the mixteca zapoteca zone of Oaxaca, and in the maya, nicaraos, and pipil of Centroamérica, and the … [Read more...]
6 poems by Lucas Margarit, translated by Katherine M. Hedeen
piety 1 1 A signal emitted by birds at the coldest moment of night. There is no longer devotion to holy things. Representation outside the borders of a wall-less cemetery. Raised rebuilding of a star that wavers or disappears. Other waverings and weeds. Out in the open and desert. Song of praise. Cf. the immobility of the cold areas of the body. desert 1 1 … [Read more...]
Two poems by Vasilis Steriadis, translated by Yannis Livadas
The Greek poet Vasilis Steriadis [Βασίλης Στεριάδης] was one of the leading figures of Greek poetry during the period 1970-2000. Steriadis was born in 1947 in Volos and died in Athens, where he was working as a lawyer, in 2003. He studied at the University of Athens and at the University of Perugia in Italy. Steriadis played a key role in the evolution of modern Greek … [Read more...]
Grzegorz Wróblewski: Blue Pueblo
Only for you did I wander around on water. Now it’s worms, black birds. Voices. Someone is calling me… Something on the floor. Illuminations… Circulation of atoms. No zen. I am breathing. Reopening old wounds in Elbastreet. And you are making love to someone else. I cannot leave your body. I shoot up to find myself there again. No vision. Blood. Zen proved no use. … [Read more...]
Lucien Stryk: Zen in the art of translating Zen poetry
Once someone can leave aside the narrowminded attitude, a parallelism with the cultural outcome of the long-gone “counterculture”, and a few more notions considering guidelines for every-day afterglow, one can proceed step by step to the authentic study of the oriental classics, Zen or Buddhist literature, etc. To find what? Pure nothing. Only what is not there, and that … [Read more...]
Poems by Krisztián Tóbiás, translated by Károly Sándor Pallai
The stigmata of the masons are bleeding sticking together the bricks as a sacrifice is required a blood sacrifice to keep the walls from tumbling down and from striking them dead blinking night-scented gilliflowers plaster up the dropping salty red liquid in the wall of the house under the window and in the tiny corridors in the coating of plaster the blood … [Read more...]
Six Poems by Károly Fellinger, translated by Károly Sándor Pallai
MAGNIFYING The period during which God is still able to undo the creation is an average life expectancy. As the average age increases year by year, it’s all the more obvious that God becomes slower. If people were eternal, creation would definitely be irrevocable. MIRE OF THE SKIES She, who is making her way out of the mirror right now, can only get off … [Read more...]
Translations of three poems by Helle Busacca
Helle Busacca (1915-1996) was born in Messina and moved with her family to Bergamo as a young child. She spent her working life as a high school teacher in various cities in Italy and ultimately settled in Florence in 1971. Eugenio Montale and Corrado Pavolini, among others, took note of her writing, and Pavolini enabled the publication of her first volume of poetry, Giuoco … [Read more...]
