The first day of the Literary Translation Center at the London Book Fair has first and foremost been about asking questions.  This is because one of the organizing themes of the day—and a refrain…

Over the past few weeks, New York has begun to celebrate the centenary of one of Poland’s—and maybe the world’s—greatest poets, Czeslaw Milosz,as the “Year of Milosz” kicks…

Throwing one’s hat into this ring can be a two-edged plume, mark my mixed-up metaphor.  If we, wearing our translator hats (though not many of us can afford hats), tell reviewers that any adjective,…

There is an anecdote about translation—which, fittingly, I´ve only come across second-hand—that involves an enthusiastic Ernest Hemingway gushing to a friend that finally, with a new…

Kim Thuy was born into privilege in Saigon in 1968 and fled ten years later with her family. After a harrowing crossing in the hold of a fishing boat and a miserable stay in a Malaysian refugee camp,…

This poem is dedicated to my friend and colleague Juliano Mer Khamis, born in Nazareth in 1958 and Artistic Director of the Jenin Freedom Theater. He was tragically shot by unknown assailants in Jenin…

With so few titles getting translated into English, it seems ludicrous to impose too many conditions in terms of matching a book reviewer to a translated project, or even in terms of determining whether…

At daybreak on a rainy November 1st humanity sank into a great prehistoric silence

Clutched to her chest was a huge pot of stewed pig's feet she’d made the day before.

The circular shape etched by the heat of the lightning was still visible

An instant later a blaze shot up just above the ground, a live torch–a big cat in flames.

Where hard veins wake up on a mattress of abandonment.

Kang Yeong - Nam: Professor ! The signal from comrade Cheol - Ryeong's transmitter is coming from the direction of the basement here .

Shadows crash across the flesh of houses

It is a well established fact that we know our own countries better from afar.

His mother smiled stupidly, flapped her heavily mascaraed eyelashes, and missed the plate with her fork.

And I'm supposed to become an accomplice to these Frankensteins!

He kept the body under the counter, right where he stored his medicinal herbs.

Admit it, pal, you’re Hoovering up every word.

Someone rushes to a house that's been moved away.

It was afternoon on Friday, March 11, 2011.  I was in the office at my home in Sendai, working on a manuscript I had just started.  Spring is the season of new beginnings.  In Japan, graduation…

Like many American-born English speakers, I have an unhappy story to tell about my ignorance of the rest of the world’s languages. It begins in my youth when I spent eight years studying Latin.…

and lovely laughing – oh it / puts the heart in my chest on wings

As translator Ross Benjamin said during his discussion with The New Republic‘s senior editor Ruth Franklin this past February at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Job: The Story of a Simple…

Being on the receiving as well as the dealing end of reviewing literature in translation, I’m particularly sensitive to the issues involved. More than three quarters of the reviews and essays I’ve…

Daniel Hahn (1973 – ) is a British writer, editor and translator from the Portuguese and Spanish. His translations include works by José Eduardo Agualusa, José Luís Peixoto…

The translators of Kafka, Thomas Mann, Cervantes, Gabriel García Márquez, and Ernesto Cardenal on how critics can review global literature.

Domenico Starnone has written for film both directly and indirectly: he has over a dozen screenplays to his credit, and has had one of his novels, Denti, turned into a film. This interview was conducted…

Special City Series / New York City 2011If each city is like a game of chess, the day when I have learned the rules, I shall finally possess my empire, even if I shall never succeed in knowing all the…