Posts filed under 'Istros Books'

What’s New in Translation: February 2025

February 10, 2025 | in New in Translation, Reviews | by Eamon McGrath, Marcel Krueger, Rosalia Ignatova, and Xiao Yue Shan

February's latest in translation.

In this month’s round-up of recent translations, we present eleven titles from Japan, Iraq, Colombia, Indonesia, Austria, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Slovenia. From neorealist postwar fiction to the graphic novel, stories capturing the tides of time and the turbulent eras of violence, narratives of migration and mystery, innovations of the short fiction form and unconventional looks into classic tales . . . these titles are invitations into hidden places and profound sights, stark realities and dreamy visions.

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A Perfect Day to be Alone by Nanae Aoyama, translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, Other Press, 2025

Review by Rosalia Ignatova

Nanae Aoyama’s short novel, A Perfect Day to Be Alone, is the English-language debut of its lauded young author, offering a delicate exploration of existential drift through the eyes of Chizu, a restless twenty-year-old, and Ginko, her elderly relative who takes her in for a year. While the narrative is sparse on action, it is rich in atmospheric detail, focusing on the quiet moments that shape their unlikely cohabitation.

Translating the Literatures of Smaller European Nations

October 14, 2015 | in Dispatches | by Julia Sherwood

Translators and scholars discuss stereotyping, globalization, and small sales in English-language literary markets.

Last September, three British universities—Bristol, Cardiff and UCL London—launched a two-year-long project on “Translating the Literatures of Smaller European Nations” in partnership with Literature Across Frontiers. The purpose was to “understand better the ways in which, through translation, these literatures endeavour to reach the cultural mainstream.” In addition to scholarly research, the project involves three public workshops and a conference.

The first of these workshops, held in February 2015 in Bath, explored the question of “Who Reads the Literatures of Small Nations and Why?”. I had the pleasure of attending the second workshop, “Choreography of Translation,” which took place at the British Library in London as part of the European Literature Night in April 2015 (a third and final workshop, on promoting literature in translation, is planned for early 2016). Featuring publishers Vladislav Bajac of Geopoetika in Belgrade, Susan Curtis-Kojakovic, founder of Istros Books, translator (and Asymptote Close Approximations nonfiction judge!) Margaret Jull Costa, and Nicole Witt of the Frankfurt Literary Agency Mertin, the BL event ended up being more panel discussion than workshop, partly because the venue was not particularly conducive to the workshop format.

By contrast, a conference at Bristol University on September 9-10 provided many opportunities for lively discussions. The participants were a perfect mix of literature and translation studies scholars and practising translators from across Europe, covering a range of smaller European literatures from Catalan to Turkish. I’ll try to highlight some of the major issues covered, divided into often overlapping categories.