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Jerzy Ficowski (1924-2006) was a prolific poet, songwriter, and scholar on the Polish Roma population as well as the life and work of Bruno Schulz. Recent translations of Ficowski’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Nation, New York Review of Books, and elsewhere.
As a reader, is there anything better than finding a book that resonates with you so intensely that you feel that you know the author, share a mind (or a heart) with them, that their words were written for you? As a translator, I can think of something even better than that: getting to recreate…
Michele Hutchison is an editor, blogger, and translator of both Dutch and French living in Amsterdam. For this interview, we’re talking about one of her latest projects, La Superba, a novel written by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer recently published in the US by Deep Vellum. Pfeijffer is known in the Netherlands for both his prose and…
In Seamus Heaney’s acclaimed translation of Beowulf, the narrator describes Grendel and his mother’s fearsome raids, declaring that no one is safe “where these Reavers from Hell roam on their errands.” This was by far the most high-profile usage of the word “reaver,” an otherwise obscure and obsolete term for a plunderer; that is, until Joss…
Every year, the VIDA Count reminds us just how far women have to go in order to achieve gender parity in the publishing world. This Women’s History Month, let’s reflect on twenty-six centuries of firsts from women writers. From Ancient Greece to the Baltimore Uprising, these eight women fought to be heard in societies…
Livre Paris, France’s annual largest book fair, took place last weekend, and the invited country this year was South Korea, in honor of the France-Korea Year, celebrating 130 years of cooperation between the two countries. Interest in Korean culture has grown exponentially over the last few years. Lack of strategic marketing and distribution networks, cultural…
Sarah Viren is a writer and translator. Her poetry and prose can be found in AGNI, the Iowa Review, the Colorado Review, The Normal School, and others. Her translations have appeared in the Massachusetts Review and Kenyon Review Online. A graduate of the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, she has been awarded a Fulbright student fellowship to Colombia, a…
Taiwan is not China. Meet a Taiwanese person and one from mainland China and the difference is akin to the difference between an English person and an American. The schism goes beyond geography and flags. The rifts between the island nation and its gargantuan neighbor helped shape Taiwan’s literature. The Japanese colonized Taiwan around…
Lily Bart is nothing if not a master of self-denial, supremely talented at self-deception and shameless rationalization, which inevitably bleeds into her distinctive brand of morality. At the beginning of House of Mirth, Wharton is careful to clarify that Lily is not “scrupulous” in the traditional sense, but that she maintains the illusion of moral…
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