the walls of delhi – Three Percent /College/translation/threepercent a resource for international literature at the URochester Mon, 16 Apr 2018 16:11:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 DANIEL MEDIN’S BTBA FAVORITES: FALL 2014 /College/translation/threepercent/2014/10/29/daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014/ /College/translation/threepercent/2014/10/29/daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014/#respond Wed, 29 Oct 2014 10:00:00 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2014/10/29/daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014/ Daniel Medin teaches at the , where he helps direct the and is Associate Series Editor of .

Can Xue: , trans. from Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, Yale/Margellos

The strangest and by far most original work I read this summer was Can Xue’s The Last Lover. How refreshing it is to encounter fiction that so resolutely disregards conventions of character and plot! The protagonists of this book do not develop—they transform, as do their relationships to one another, from one scene to the next. And they do so unpredictably, in ways that surprise and delight. As in much of Can Xue’s fiction, the prose is comic and disturbing at one and the same time. John Darnielle had in mind when he pointed to the “grammar of dreams” that underpins that volume of stories: “situations in which a general meowing sound throughout a hospital provokes not the question ‘what’s going on?’ but instead ‘where are the catmen hiding?’” A similar grammar is present in The Last Lover, her most ambitious—and perhaps most radical—novel to date.

Faris al-Shidyaq: , trans. from Arabic by Humphrey Davies, NYU

I wrote about the charms of this novel last winter, when the first two volumes were eligible for the prize. It should come as no surprise that the other two are now contenders as well. This chapter from volume three appeared in the 2014 translation issue of London’s . It’s preceded by a concise introduction by Humphrey Davies, whose translation of Shidyaq remains among the most gymnastic and resourceful amongst this year’s competition.

Elena Ferrante: , trans. from Italian by Ann Goldstein, Europa

There’s no denying the force of Ferrante’s writing. I discovered volume 2 of the Neapolitan Novels last spring when it made our longlist. (Such are the privileges of judging for BTBA; you have to read the 25 titles selected to this list, and thereby profit directly from the enthusiasms of others.) I devoured it whole, then did the same to . Ferrante inspires that rare thing, rarer still among contemporary writers: the compulsion to read everything she’s ever published. Like its predecessors, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay bristles with intelligence and is executed with startling clarity. And like the other books in this series, it is all-absorbing. Here’s Ariel Starling in a recent review for “Subtle as the plot may be, it would do the work a grave disservice not to note that Ferrante is, in her own way, a master of suspense. Reading these novels, one becomes so immersed in the world of the characters that even an offhand comment from a minor acquaintance can (and often does) carry the force of revelation—the books are nearly impossible to put down.”

Hilda Hilst: , trans. from Portuguese by Adam Morris, Melville House

I’ve already posted on Letters from a Seducer which had been scheduled for 2013 release but entered the world on the wrong side of January 1. Goes without saying that this title and its extraordinary translation by John Keene has not weakened in the slightest since my initial encounter. Hilst deserves to be in the mix when winter arrives and we begin to draft lists. The question then is likely to be: which horse to back? The answer’s not immediately obvious, to the great credit of Hilst’s translators and editors. With My Dog Eyes was as exhilarating to read as the Letter and . Hilst has been blessed with a generation of astute translators who are now introducing her work to an Anglophone readership. With My Dog Eyes struck me as the most aphoristic of the three novels. It begins unforgettably: “God? A surface of ice anchored to laughter.” Adam Levy wrote a canny essay for Music & Literature about this year’s eligible Hilst titles; read it .

I’ve little doubt concerning the importance of the above works for their respective languages. Those without Chinese or Italian or Portuguese have Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, Ann Goldstein, and Adam Morris to thank for ensuring that their greatness has been preserved in the face of formidable challenges. I’d like to mention briefly the names of a few more translators whose work has impressed over these first few months of reading. They succeed at communicating the vitality of the voices translated, but also for their accomplished prose in English. They are, in no particular order, Jason Grunebaum from the Hindi of by Uday Prakash; Daniel Hahn from the Portuguese (Brazil) of by Paolo Scott; Chris Andrews from the Spanish (Guatemala) of by Rodrigo Rey Rosa; and Karen Emmerich from the Greek of by Amanda Michalopoulou, whose passages about the bewilderments of adolescent sexuality rank—alongside volume three of by Karl Ove Knausgaard—among the funniest things I’ve encountered so far.

]]> /College/translation/threepercent/2014/10/29/daniel-medins-btba-favorites-fall-2014/feed/ 0 The New Standard for Publishers Re: Acknowledging the Translator /College/translation/threepercent/2012/04/16/the-new-standard-for-publishers-re-acknowledging-the-translator/ /College/translation/threepercent/2012/04/16/the-new-standard-for-publishers-re-acknowledging-the-translator/#respond Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:30:00 +0000 http://www.wdev.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent-dev/2012/04/16/the-new-standard-for-publishers-re-acknowledging-the-translator/ So last month, Uday Prakash’s was published by the University of Western Australia Press in Jason Grunebaum’s translation.

At some point, we’ll run a review of this book, but for now, I just wanted to point out UWAP’s conscientious approach to highlighting the fact that this book is a translation—an approach that truly sets a new standard for all publishers to follow.

First off, here’s the front cover. Note that Jason’s name is equally as large as both the title and the author. That in and of itself is pretty impressive.

BUT, what’s really impressive is the spine:

And there you are. Based on this single data point, I think that from now on every publisher who fails to acknowledge the translator on the spine deserves to be publicly shamed.

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