Category: Literary Studies

May 16, 2013

James Franco Calls Uncreative Writing "Good"

We were delighted and pleasantly surprised to see that James Franco, the actor, writer, and doctoral candidate (among other things), recently featured a photo of Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age by Kenneth Goldsmith on his website. Below...

May 10, 2013

Maureen Freely on Translating Orhan Pamuk

“[Translators] are witnesses, with tales to tell. We are writers, with our own voices. Whenever we see literary culture distorted for political advantage, it matters very much that we speak.”—Maureen Freely, from “Misreading Orhan Pamuk” In her essay “Misreading Orhan...

May 9, 2013

Interview with Susan Bernofsky

“Translation is, in a sense, the slowest possible reading. You’re watching the great writer build a story arc, and you’re watching sentence by sentence how that arc is being shaped. In that sense it slows down your reading and studying...

May 8, 2013

A Culture of Translation — Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky

“To say of translation—as is so often said—that ‘the original meaning is always lost’ is to deny the history of literature and the ability of any text to be enriched by the new meanings that are engendered as it enters...

May 7, 2013

Haruki Murakami on Translating The Great Gatsby

“To fully grasp its essence, I had to plunge into its heart—then and only then could his writing burst into bloom.”—Haruki Murakami on translating The Great Gatsby In the Translator’s Afterword, Haruki Murakami’s essay in In Translation: Translators on Their...

May 6, 2013

Book Giveaway! In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means

This week our featured book is In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means, Edited by Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky. Throughout the week, we will be featuring the books and their editors on our blog as well...

April 22, 2013

Interview with Christopher Collins, Author of Paleopoetics

“When we feel powerfully moved by what words do to us, I think it’s because we’ve entered into some deeper, older part of us, a place of wisdom and wholeness that is preverbal, even prehuman.”—Christopher Collins The following is an...

April 18, 2013

The Epic of King Gesar

A few excerpts from the Epic of King Gesar, “often described as the Tibetan national epic and as the longest poem in the world,” taken from Sources of Tibetan Tradition.

April 16, 2013

William Logan Poetry Criticism Quiz Answers

Columbia University Press has had the privilege of publishing two volumes of critical essays by the poet and critic William Logan, Our Savage Age: Poetry and the Civil Tongue and The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin. As...

April 12, 2013

William Logan Poetry Criticism Quiz

Take our quiz on William Logan’s poetry criticism for a chance to win FREE copies of William Logan’s Our Savage Age and The Undiscovered Country!

March 8, 2013

Colin Dayan on the Role of Dogs in Triomf

Colin Dayan, author of the forthcoming Like a Dog: Animal Law, Human Cruelty, and the Limits of Care, recently reviewed Marlene van Niekerk’s unjustly overlooked 2004 novel, Triomf for Public Books. The novel explores the lives of a poor white...

February 28, 2013

Ward Blanton: Paula Versus the New Philosophers, or, Incident in Beijing

Read an essay by Professor Ward Blanton on the importance of Badiou’s The Incident at Antioch to the study of St. Paul.