Happy September, translation friends! ’Tis the season for fall, or spring, depending on your relation to the equator (in any case, happily changing foliage awaits).
We often lament that non-English-language authors go unfairly un-translated, while their anglophone counterparts enjoy worldwide fame. Not this time: celebrated British author Martin Amis’s latest World War II novel, The Zone of Interest, will likely not appear in French or German translation. But Japanese heavyweight and writing machine Haruki Murakami is slated to publish yet another novel this coming December, hot on the heels of his latest release (at only 96 pages, this one is no IQ84). And other publishers just have to compete: here’s news of book publishers attempting to successfully pull off the ol’ “Murakami One-Two,” including Norwegian Karl Ove Knausgaard (My Struggle 3.5, thanks to Archipelago Books), and a fresh release of Chilean mastermind Roberto Bolaño’s earlier work through New Directions Press. Meanwhile, here’s an appreciation of an author I’m personally thrilled to have read in translation: Argentine all-around genius Julio Cortázar, who would be one hundred years old this month, but doesn’t read a day over yesterday. And finally, none other than Newsweek has decided to profile the hardworking and far-too-invisible people who facilitate global reading: the translators. The article features an interview with translational superstars like Edith Grossman and Natasha Wimmer.
Real-time translation talk: the emoji-lit thing is admittedly tired out, but Slate’s recent compilation of famous first lines in emoji is still worth a mention (recognize anything in particular)? Real translation-related reading is in order with this article on much-abuzzed-about Italian writer Elena Ferrante, who writes about what it’s like to like. Or keep an eye out for similarly Italian intellect and filmmaker extraordinaire Pier Paolo Pasolini’s collected poems, translated by Stephen Sartarelli (you may know him for Salò, but did you know he wrote, too? OK, you probably did). The real question, among all these new releases, is if they’ll actually sell (answer: they are selling, little by little, a bit more than yesterday). Maybe not so much in Canada, though.
Finally, it’s prize time: people are already placing their bets for this year’s Nobel winners, and, unsurprisingly, Haruki Murakami is in the perennial lead. However, Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o might cause an upset. Place your bets, folks (just not for Bob Dylan). And the 2014 FIL Literature Award in Romance Languages goes to Italian writer Claudio Magris (not too shabby for 125,000 dollars in award money!).