Lisa Dillman: Finding Me’s Voice
photo via Words Without Borders Translating a first-person narrator into English from another language can be a challenge under any circumstances, but when that narrator has a non-standard emotional...
View ArticleAdriana Hunter: Discovering Fresh Climates
photo: Peirene Press Over the last decade or so, Adriana Hunter has become one of the leading English-language translators of contemporary French literature, but with Climates, she’s taken on...
View ArticleJody Gladding & Elizabeth Deshays: Two Translators Take On The Eleven
photo via Jody Gladding Pierre Michon’s The Eleven is the story of a French painter who never existed: Corentin, “the Tiepolo of the Terror,” so called because of his most famous work, a group...
View ArticleTiina Nunnally & the Long-Awaited Debut of Sigrid Undset
photo via AATIA.org As a translator, Tiina Nunnally has had a long-term relationship with the early 20th-century Norwegian author Sigrid Undset; you may have seen the monster-sized omnibus edition of...
View ArticleHow Sandra Smith Became a Translator
photo courtesy Sandra Smith I confess that I have huge gaps in my reading of the world literary canon, including just about all the French classics. But I’ve begun to remedy that situation, at least...
View ArticleWilliam Hutchins and Amir Tag Elsir
photo: Nimah Ismail Nawwab A famous Sudanese writer meets an annoyingly odd man at the signing for his latest novel; later, having been dragged to a lecture he doesn’t particularly care to attend,...
View ArticleAmy B. Reid: Conversations Overheard
photo: courtesy Amy Reid Lately, whenever I can steal a few moments to read uninterrupted, I’ve been diving into Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant, as translated by Amy Baram Reid. It’s a fantastic...
View ArticlePeter Bush’s No-Hope Sucklers
photo: courtesy Peter Bush Black Bread is one of those novels that builds slowly, through the accrued detail of seemingly disconnected scenes… or, let’s say, a string of scenes where the narrative...
View ArticleLazer Lederhendler’s French-English Wall
photo courtesy Biblioasis Canadian novelist Catherine Leroux’s second book, The Party Wall, won the Quebec Booksellers Prize and the Prix France Québec when it was first published in French in 2014....
View ArticleMay-Brit Akerholt: “Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated!”
photo courtesy May-Brit Akerholt A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend a reception at the Norwegian consulate, where I got to meet the novelist Edy Poppy, who was celebrating her American...
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