tiganeasca
Moderator
Plenty of fascinating stuff here. I have purposely left the links in place in case you want to follow them.
"It’s time to celebrate another year of translations, and there’s plenty to celebrate. Literature from underrepresented languages moved to center stage. Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, became the first book originally written in an Indian language to win the International Booker Prize for Translated Fiction. Boubacar Boris Diop, whose novel Doomi Golo was the first novel to be translated from Wolof to English, won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
Stephanie McCarter’s translation of Metamorphoses came out in November, the first female translation of Ovid’s epic poem in sixty years. Writing for the New Yorker, Daniel Mendelsohn noted that “McCarter confronts the tricky issues associated with both the poet and his epic not only in her forthright introduction but in the translation itself, where, like an art restorer removing decades of browned varnish from an Old Master, she strips away a number of inaccuracies and embellishments that have accreted in translations over the decades and centuries, obscuring the sense of certain passages, particularly those portraying women and sexual violence.”
The vital role of translation, too, received increased visibility in 2022. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued (it continues still), Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris brought news from Ukraine into the pages of WLT in a special Ukraine issue in July. Their work here and elsewhere reminded us all of the indispensable role translation plays in increasing international understanding in times of crisis. A few months later, Deep Vellum launched a Best Literary Translations anthology series and began receiving submissions for the inaugural volume in 2024. This new initiative aims to help redefine the canon of world literature and challenge the perception that only anglophone literature matters in the cultural conversation—a promising step as we move forward.
We’ve listed seventy-five notable translations, first published in English this year, but as always, we recognize there are many more, including translated lit for children. We hope you’ll add them in the comments on our social media channels using the hashtag #2022InTranslation, along with those you’re eagerly anticipating in 2023. Eager to read Chiang-Sheng Kuo’s The Piano Tuner, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin? It’s out in the first week of the new year, so you won’t be waiting long. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for Dorothy Tse’s Owlish, translated by Natascha Bruce. This eerie debut novel will arrive in the summer.
Thank you for being in conversation with us this past year. We wish you good health and good reading in 2023.
Katixa Agirre, Mothers Don’t, trans. Kristin Addis (3TimesRebel)
Isabel Allende, Violeta, trans. Frances Riddle (Ballantine Books)
Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan, trans. & ed. Zaure Batayeva & Shelley Fairweather-Vega (Gaudy Boy)
Lena Andersson, Son of Svea: A Tale of the People’s Home, trans. Sarah Death (Other Press)
Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, Karitas Untitled, trans. Philip Roughton (Amazon Crossing)
Reem Bassiouney, Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy, trans. Roger Allen (Syracuse University Press)
Jonathan Bazzi, Fever, trans. Alice Whitmore (Scribe)
Yevgenia Belorusets, Lucky Breaks, trans. Eugene Ostashevsky (New Directions)
Jazmina Berrera, Linea Nigra, trans. Christina MacSweeney (Two Lines Press)
Daniel Birnbaum, Dr. B., trans. Deborah Bragen-Turner (Harper)
Miguel Bonnefoy, Heritage, trans. Emily Boyce (Other Press)
Emmanuel Carrère, Yoga, trans. John Lambert (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Mircea Cărtărescu, Solenoid, trans. Sean Cotter (Deep Vellum)
Andrea Chapela, The Visible Unseen: Essays, trans. Kelsi Vanada (Restless Books)
Krystyna Dąbrowska, Tideline, trans. Karen Kovacik, Antonia Lloyd-Jones & Mira Rosenthal (Zephyr Press)
Simin Daneshvar, Island of Bewilderment, trans. Patricia J. Higgins & Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi (Syracuse University Press)
Dhumketu, The Shehnai Virtuoso, trans. Jenny Bhatt (Deep Vellum)
Lidija Dimkovska, What Is It Like?, trans. Ljubica Arsovska, Patricia Marsh & Peggy Reid (Wrecking Ball)
Daša Drndić, Canzone di Guerra, trans. Celia Hawkesworth (Istros Books)
Olivia Elias, Chaos, Crossing, trans. Kareem James Abu-Zeid (World Poetry Books)
Annie Ernaux, Getting Lost, trans. Alison L. Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Forough Farrokhzad, Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, trans. Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. (New Directions)
Karen Fastrup, Hunger Heart, trans. Marina Allemano (Book*hug Press)
Elena Ferrante, In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing, trans. Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions)
Anneli Furmark, Walk Me to the Corner, trans. Hanna Strömberg (Drawn & Quarterly)
"It’s time to celebrate another year of translations, and there’s plenty to celebrate. Literature from underrepresented languages moved to center stage. Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, became the first book originally written in an Indian language to win the International Booker Prize for Translated Fiction. Boubacar Boris Diop, whose novel Doomi Golo was the first novel to be translated from Wolof to English, won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
Stephanie McCarter’s translation of Metamorphoses came out in November, the first female translation of Ovid’s epic poem in sixty years. Writing for the New Yorker, Daniel Mendelsohn noted that “McCarter confronts the tricky issues associated with both the poet and his epic not only in her forthright introduction but in the translation itself, where, like an art restorer removing decades of browned varnish from an Old Master, she strips away a number of inaccuracies and embellishments that have accreted in translations over the decades and centuries, obscuring the sense of certain passages, particularly those portraying women and sexual violence.”
The vital role of translation, too, received increased visibility in 2022. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued (it continues still), Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris brought news from Ukraine into the pages of WLT in a special Ukraine issue in July. Their work here and elsewhere reminded us all of the indispensable role translation plays in increasing international understanding in times of crisis. A few months later, Deep Vellum launched a Best Literary Translations anthology series and began receiving submissions for the inaugural volume in 2024. This new initiative aims to help redefine the canon of world literature and challenge the perception that only anglophone literature matters in the cultural conversation—a promising step as we move forward.
We’ve listed seventy-five notable translations, first published in English this year, but as always, we recognize there are many more, including translated lit for children. We hope you’ll add them in the comments on our social media channels using the hashtag #2022InTranslation, along with those you’re eagerly anticipating in 2023. Eager to read Chiang-Sheng Kuo’s The Piano Tuner, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin? It’s out in the first week of the new year, so you won’t be waiting long. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for Dorothy Tse’s Owlish, translated by Natascha Bruce. This eerie debut novel will arrive in the summer.
Thank you for being in conversation with us this past year. We wish you good health and good reading in 2023.
* * *
Shimon Adaf, One Mile and Two Days Before Sunset, A Detective’s Complaint, and Take Up and Read (Lost Detective Trilogy), trans. Yardenne Greenspan (Picador)Katixa Agirre, Mothers Don’t, trans. Kristin Addis (3TimesRebel)
Isabel Allende, Violeta, trans. Frances Riddle (Ballantine Books)
Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan, trans. & ed. Zaure Batayeva & Shelley Fairweather-Vega (Gaudy Boy)
Lena Andersson, Son of Svea: A Tale of the People’s Home, trans. Sarah Death (Other Press)
Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir, Karitas Untitled, trans. Philip Roughton (Amazon Crossing)
Reem Bassiouney, Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy, trans. Roger Allen (Syracuse University Press)
Jonathan Bazzi, Fever, trans. Alice Whitmore (Scribe)
Yevgenia Belorusets, Lucky Breaks, trans. Eugene Ostashevsky (New Directions)
Jazmina Berrera, Linea Nigra, trans. Christina MacSweeney (Two Lines Press)
Daniel Birnbaum, Dr. B., trans. Deborah Bragen-Turner (Harper)
Miguel Bonnefoy, Heritage, trans. Emily Boyce (Other Press)
Emmanuel Carrère, Yoga, trans. John Lambert (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Mircea Cărtărescu, Solenoid, trans. Sean Cotter (Deep Vellum)
Andrea Chapela, The Visible Unseen: Essays, trans. Kelsi Vanada (Restless Books)
Krystyna Dąbrowska, Tideline, trans. Karen Kovacik, Antonia Lloyd-Jones & Mira Rosenthal (Zephyr Press)
Simin Daneshvar, Island of Bewilderment, trans. Patricia J. Higgins & Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi (Syracuse University Press)
Dhumketu, The Shehnai Virtuoso, trans. Jenny Bhatt (Deep Vellum)
Lidija Dimkovska, What Is It Like?, trans. Ljubica Arsovska, Patricia Marsh & Peggy Reid (Wrecking Ball)
Daša Drndić, Canzone di Guerra, trans. Celia Hawkesworth (Istros Books)
Olivia Elias, Chaos, Crossing, trans. Kareem James Abu-Zeid (World Poetry Books)
Annie Ernaux, Getting Lost, trans. Alison L. Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Forough Farrokhzad, Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, trans. Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. (New Directions)
Karen Fastrup, Hunger Heart, trans. Marina Allemano (Book*hug Press)
Elena Ferrante, In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing, trans. Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions)
Anneli Furmark, Walk Me to the Corner, trans. Hanna Strömberg (Drawn & Quarterly)
